Some people reckon their cars run better after a good wash. Others, that they don't like mechanical car washes because they are too "brutal" on their cars.
Could it be the over-eager, self-satisfied imagination of drivers at play, or could it have been that the emotional connection between man and motor had once again been re-established?
Boffins at BMW would probably tend towards the latter, according to a new report the German carmaker is to publish tomorrow.
In the report, which includes interviews with 90 male and female drivers, one respondent said he liked to wash his car after a long journey as a way of rewarding it for its hard work.
Several said they avoided using mechanical car washes because they felt "too brutal" and others commented that they took a certain sensual pleasure in sponging the car and watching the dirt wash away.
"The car isn't a friend, but it is something I enjoy using, definitely - not just a thing that gets me from A to B," said one driver. In the words of another interviewee, the process of washing had "re-virginised" the car, returning it to its new condition. Respondents in the study said they looked back at their cars after parking them more than 60 per cent of the time to, as it were, "say goodbye" and just to check that the car was "all right".
But it is not just drivers who are speaking about their cars as if they were animate objects with real feelings and with whom they have real relationships. BMW take the whole business very seriously too.
"We want our cars to speak to people on an emotional level," says Chris Bangle, BMW Group design director, in the report.
"Even the word 'car' is emotional. An automobile is just a horizontal elevator; a car is much more. The difference is between what we use, and what we are."
According to the study, we now think of our cars as another room of the house, a place to eat, change our clothes, or part of the office where we can hold a business meeting. And despite increasingly long commutes by car, many see the car as a pleasant place to be.
More than half of those interviewed in the study valued the car as a place of refuge. "I have time to reflect on my day ahead, go through my classes, sing at the top of my voice, test out loud what I might say to unruly pupils after a difficult previous day, and, dare I say it, pick my nose," noted a female teacher.
Singing featured as a common preoccupation of drivers in the study. After observing singing habits, the study concluded that the weather seemed the greatest determinant in whether people sang or not. In overcast or rainy weather, researchers reported spending entire days without seeing a singing motorist, but in bright sunshine, on the same roads, the numbers would increase up to approximately one in five drivers. People sang in far greater numbers - up to four times as many - in the morning rush hour than the evening one, suggesting that we sing on our way to work rather than from it.
The study has serious implications also, including road safety ones. Technology has a large role to play in how drivers, quite literally, will talk to their cars in the future. In-car speech recognition technology is already with us but in the future, instead of saying "climate, heating, on" the driver will simply say "my feet are cold" and it will even be able to recognise emotions and act accordingly.
"We can analyse pitch of voice, volume and intonation, to build a picture of driver emotion as an intelligent friend," says Dr Frank Althoff at BMW Driver Interfaces Management. "Say you're asked if you want to receive a call, and you say "no!" angrily, the car will know not to ask you again for a while."
