Astro 201 & Self Services Car Wash

I used the carwash occasionally and when it works it works well, but one day the machine malfunctioned and just ate my money. I asked for a refund and I was told that they don’t give refunds and that I’d have to come back some other day when the owner was there. I showed the person that it wasn’t working and she agreed that it wasn’t but wouldn’t budge on giving me a refund. I then asked for her name and she wouldn’t give it to me. That was over a year ago and I’ve never gone back since.

Best self-​service car wash in PDX! Clean, all the equipment not only works, it is filled, the instructions are thorough and well posted and they don’t overcharge. Highly recommended for those who prefer to wash their own vehicles!

I’ve been buying my gas here for 13 years. Never anything but fantastic, friendly service.
Last week though, I thought the tides had turned, only I was wrong.
When I got home from getting gas, I realized I forgot my credit card at the gas station. In a panic, I drove back… only it wasn’t there. The guy that’d pumped my gas and helped me put oil in my car had gone home (his shift had just ended) and my card was nowhere to be found.
His relief person called him at home, to which he swore he handed it back to me.
Frustrated, I will admit, I wondered if he kept it or someone else found it. The night shift guy swore «He’d never take it. He’s a great guy. It must have dropped in your car».
Home, I called the card in lost/stolen…and then 5 minutes later, found it in my pocket.
I have never been so happy to be wrong! The next time I drove by and saw the young man working — who’d been honest about giving it back — I pulled it to let him know it was my fault and that I’d found my credit card. I also apologized to him for not having more faith in humanity. Shocked, all he could say was how glad he was I found it and that he’d been worried. Again, I kick myself for not having more faith in people.
Not only are their gas prices lower than most, but I really have confidence in the guys they hire and am really glad it’s in my neighborhood.

Sweet spot on the corner of 39^th (that’s old skool talk for Ceaser Chavez blvd) and Powell. Having not had a car for the years Ive been in Portland, I tend to focus on driveways, turns and parking.
anyways. The driveways from either side are kinda steep. Theres traffic from the gas station and the little strip mall next door.
Im about to wash MY NEW *coughcoughUsed* CAR! Dirty as hell, lets do this.
I roll up my jeans to capri mode and walk to the change machines. There are 2.
I walked back to vacuum spot and I have to say I was totally impressed! It lasted for SO long, I want to say 4mins. I cleaned my entire 4 door car and the trunk and it shut off as I was starting the engine to pull into the carwash.
Typical dial style do-​it-​yourself car wash. I like the icons. High Pressure rinse to start it is. Its $ 2.50 to start this baby up. The wash that is ;)
CONS:
The tire cleaner is the typical carwash bullshit where Im CONVINCED the spray has changed to the cleaner by a light green hue, but hell no, by the time Im on the 3^rd tire — THEN the REAL tire cleaner comes out.
BRIGHT green, super foamy and thick with substance of getting some serious road gunk off these tires. Damn it. I need to put in more quarters. I hate to love it.
*whistles, At the Carwash…*
The final rinse at my station was A JOKE. I know the spotless rinse usually is slow going, but this was like slap your mama painful!
The end result was my SHINY CLEAN BLING BLING car! :)
Even with those 2 common carwash ‘issues’, the amount of dirt and grim that was gone and the shine that was left behind made me super happy and turn up my music and start bobbin’ my head a bit more ‘crunk like’ on the way to my next destination.
I live close enough that this is the go to spot for a quick clean up from a cake and or flower delivery or a late night cart run. Word.

Probably most people who live in Inner Southeast know all too well about «Linden» juice, that goop that drizzles onto cars from Linden trees during the summer. And after the three past weeks while my car was parked underneath a never-​ending row of Lindens, it became encased in a sticky sheen. I couldn’t even see out the windshield. Hence, it was time for a car wash.
Normally, I would schlep my Honda through the Washman drive-​thru on Powell, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to get all the syrup off my car, so I decided to employ a do-​it-​yourself car wash. Thanks to Unilocal,I found nearby Astro (I previously was only aware of that one car wash next to Heavenly Donuts on 122^nd).
Astro succeeds in meeting all expectations for a car wash. It’s got both a spray and a brush hose. Vacuums are available. And Astro is cheap. Because Astro is attached to a gas station, service personnel are constantly checking to make sure everything is working and that the garbage cans/​bins are regularly dumped.
Can’t ask for anything more from a car wash.

3.11 for premium gas and I didn’t have to pump it myself.
I did have to clean the windows myself and the squeegee didn’t have any soap in the water. Mediocre job with mediocre tools.
Oddly enough, if gas prices are the same as northern California then I guess California’s gas is subsidized.