The sun is shining. The weather forecast shows nothing but clear skies. You're getting a little stir crazy at home. It's time to gas up the car and go for a ride!

You get to the garage and realize your ride hardly looks worthy of showcasing. You need a car wash, but what is the most water wise way of making sure your chassis looks classy?

The Western Car Wash Association reports most modern car wash places have some sort of water reclamation technology, which means each vehicle uses between nine and 15 gallons of fresh water (usually during final rinse). The rest of the water is reclaimed and treated from a previous wash. This is 65 percent less water than washing your car at home.

Most do-it-yourself car washes use between 40 (bucket and spray nozzle) and 140 (free flowing hose) gallons of water per vehicle.

Bringing your car to a drive-through car wash also helps to keep our water supply clean. As is stated in Plain Talk about Drinking Water, while washing your car at home, residual oils or other pollutants could wash off your vehicle into the sewer where it could contaminate plants, wildlife or water downstream.

So, you can now get a clean car and use less water while maintaining a cleaner water supply downstream. That revs our engines.