New eco-friendly San Jose car wash uses minimal amount of water

SAN JOSE — When you drive into the Future Wash car wash at Santana Row in San Jose, there’s one thing you won’t see and hear: the spraying of running water.

“There’s no loud noises. There’s no water flying all over the place.  There’s no water going down the drain like a lot of car washes, we don’t have to deal with any of that,” said Future Wash owner Michael Dennison.

Dennison claims his car wash is practically waterless. There are two buckets half filled with water to keep the microfiber towels wet. Workers use pint-size spray bottles with a mixture of water and a special cleaning solution to wet cars with a fine mist. 

But that’s it: no running water, no hoses, no drips, no kidding.

“It’s hard to see how dirty it is, but we can wash a really dirty car,” Dennison said.

He won’t reveal what’s in his proprietary spray bottles.

“The solutions that we use is really the secret sauce and the magic of what happens,” Dennison said.

But it’s that plus a few swipes of the towels that lift off grime from the car’s finish.

“This is not a pressure movement, we’re just lifting.  And then we come with our dry microfiber, nice and plush and just buff it out.”

“I don’t see any difference between a car washed with water and foam and one washed with this micro solution,” said Ayaz Khan, a customer who got his car washed.

The Western Car Wash Association’s website says that even car washes with recirculating water use 9 to 15 gallons of fresh water for car. Future Wash uses about half a spray bottle per car.

“I see a lot of car washes use so much water.  So what these guys are doing is pretty cool,” said  Khan.

As California’s drought stretches on, this really could be a future way to wash cars.

“Worldwide, 309 million gallons of water are wasted everyday just washing cars.  So, with our process we can save millions of gallons of water every single day,” Dennison said.

Future Wash has stands inside the parking garages at Santana Row and Oakridge malls. More locations could be coming soon.

Prices range from $39 for a basic wash to about $55 for the works.