The wash we typically use is not touchless. We may try it and see what happens. My only real fear is the spare tire. Perhaps I'll ask the wash representative prior to driving through.

 

Spare tire should be ok for a touchy-wash (that sounds rather kinky). Its things like snorkels, roof racks, GMRS antennae and other bits that are easily removable via the whipping flappy things to look out for.

I tend to say away from those types of car washes on principle because - bubbas like me will often take their mud-bog rigs through them and get those cleaning flaps all contaminated - which then ends up on your car. Same thing goes for the drive-in pressure-washer foaming brushes... never use one without hitting it with the high pressure water first.

Up in salt-land, car washes are important for the preservation of the metal, but down south, while I understand its toasty, I'd find find a local group of highschool kids raising money for their sports team and let them wash my car before I let the those flappy things hit my rig.

 

I was once told by an Audi engineer that you should never take a road-salt-covered vehicle through an automatic car wash. The high pressure water pushes the salt farther into areas that normally would not be exposed to heavy road salt. He said to just wash it yourself with a bucket of soapy water and a garden hose when the weather allows. So while I'm waiting for a warmer day, I just clean off the taillights to help prevent being rear-ended here in the tailgating capital of the US. (Boston area)

 

About your mirror:

Do you have a "clearsight" camera? It seems not, but if you do, flip the little lever below it up or down. One way it's the camera, and the other way it's a mirror. The mirrored setting is not as bright as a normal mirror because it's a "half-silvered" mirror that has to let the LCD screen behind it shine through.

If you don't have clearsight, then I would have thought that the mirror would be a standard one. But "flip" it if it has a little lever under it anyway.

 

Wait a minute! You just answered a question I was going to ask again. Our "new to us" unit's rear view mirror is VERY dark. So much so, it's hard to see our dog in the way-back of the vehicle. If we use either of the visors' vanity mirrors, all is good...and bright/clear. I thought for certain that there must be something wrong with the mirror - like maybe it was stuck in "night mode" to reduce headlight glare. Your comments make perfect sense, as we have the clearsight unit.

 

I promise I have gone through the owner's manual, lol. How do I increase the brightness of the speedo/dash? Yes, my old eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but it seems too dark during daytime.

 

There should be a dial on the lower left side below the steering wheel, unless they changed that on the newer models.

 

As mentioned, there's a dimmer switch on the lower left hand side of the dashboard, but the gauge cluster is constantly auto dimming, and often times around dusk & dawn the gauge cluster dims significantly and is often times too dark. It has been a problem since the beginning of production.

 

There has to be a way to get JLR to fix this issue. Its 100% a software issue and should have been resolved a long time ago At the very least the dimmed brightness needs to be configurable by the driver.

 

So I'm not crazy...good to know. I'll check for the adjustment when my wife returns this afternoon. As with any new vehicle, there are going to be things that "you just need to get used to" and I accept that. So far we are still in the honeymoon stage and loving it.