Got my Mr. Clean kit today, I'll post up a review of how the stuff works on my Berlina and take as many pics as possible, should be up in a couple hours

 

cool-
let us know what products you use with it.

 

Here we go boys and girls -

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid1...e1/f9e162c9.jpg

So I ditched a class today, headed over to Target and checked out the Mr. Clean AutoDry carwash. The kit isn't toooo expensive, 19.99 (I didn't use the $5 off coupon that is online someplace).

What do you get out of this?


1 Filter (according to the labeling it works for 3 washes), the special nozzle (made out of cheap plastic), and sample of soap (approx worth 2 washes of an s2k). I didn't want to get stuck with not enough washing fluid or filters so I bought 1 refill of each. The filter refill claims 10 uses, and the refill wash fluid is slightly more than double the sample. Both were $5 each.

Oh and it also comes with a FAQ paper... eh... nothing GREAT... If you're a regular on Wash and Wax here, then you won't learn anything you didn't already know.



So the installation begins. As you can see a little flap pops out on the bottom of the nozzle, this is where the filter is inserted, the filter itself just looks like big film canisters next to each other. Simply push that in and close the bottom, very painless.



That white section is where the soap goes, the hole to put it in is on the otherside of the glorified squirt gun.

And here is a pic of what the back of tha soap says-


Here are a couple before pics of my Berlina. It's been pretty cold out here so I haven't really been in the mood to wash my car, so it had a good deal of dirt and grime on it, not extrodinarily dirty, but it would take some work.




Pardon the blue tint in some of these pics, I accidentally set the camera to indoor mode .

So I hook up my hose and begin washing the car. How this works is the big knob near the top of the squirt gun (for lack of a better word) has 3 settings; Rinse, Soap, and Filtered Water. Rinse is just water straight from the hose, Soap adds in the water, and filtered water is ... well you get the idea...

Now I rinse the car a bit, I liked the rinse nozzles amount of pressure. Then I proceed to set it to soap, I kinda got caught by surprise when I did this because it dropped the pressure dramatically, you basically end up with a stream similar toa light shower. This isn't exactly a bad thing, it gives VERY even distribution of the soap to the car. I put on the soap and rinsed again. After that I turned it to the filtered water setting, when you first do this it takes a little while (only 5 seconds) for the filter to load up and for the water to start flowing.

In this setting you get basically an even mist of filtered water. Eventually I cover the entire car and noted the first problem so far with this kit. Does absolutely nothing to the rims. So I get low and work on my rims while i wait for the car to "miraculously dry". This is when I realized even more problems.

With all the hype over the product, I completely forgot to sponge down the car. THIS IS IN NO WAY A TOUCH FREE WASHING KIT! Maybe I was the only one that thought it would turn out to be something like this. One other problem is when you put the soap and filtered water on, all dirt seems to disappear under the water... that is... until it dries.

As I finish my last rim, I take a look at the trunk.



Not too bad considering how fast things were done... then I took a look at the hood...


OMG

At this point I was fairly annoyed, but then I realized it wasn't the products fault... I was the dumbass that didn't sponge and rinse correctly. There was still dirt on the doors of my cars to boot.

This is only a theory, but I think the soap itself has something to do with helping the water evaporate off, the car engine was cold, and its about 60 degree's here atm and I was able to see the evaporation off the hood. Maybe there is other reasoning for it, I'm no chemist, but the water dried fairly quickly.

So this time around I change things a bit, I get a bucket of water for the sponge down, and I use the nozzles.
This time things went much better, I used a "Wax on Wax off" motion on the car to get every single spot with all the cycles and with the sponge.

This time around I didn't leave the car outside for any sunlight to hit it, I took a quick pic before I put her back into the garage -


This time also, I helped the drying process a bit, and pulled out my lamb skin and dried the car off within 1-2 minutes, I didn't bother getting into every nook and cranny, only surfaces. I let the car sit about 20 mins and came back and took a pic-


My overall impression is that the stuff works and does what it claims... but it doesnt do a single penny more. It doesn't work miracles, but it does the job. It's biggest use is to not deal with area's that drip water after you dry the car. I know when I want to Zaino, I end uphaving to spend a good 1-2 hours extra working my butt off trying to get water out of area's like the trunk lines, tail light lines, and from the side mirrors. This stuff is also great for windows, if there was one thing i was impressed with it was how my windows worked out. Without touching them at all, they were spotless.

If you have a non berlina s2k, I don't know to what extent water marks effect you guys, so I can't really say on whether or not it's worth it...

As for the claim Mr. Clean makes... the stuff works. If you want to save time and have a berlina, I definately recommend it, just remember that you still need to touch the car during the wash process at least, and advise you to give it a quick drying. I have one concern though, and that is whether or not the soap took off my Zaino coat. I don't think it did, but I'm not quiet sure.

One issue that erked me is that the nozzle uses the soap up real quick... and they recommend that you only use their soap (not surprising). I will probably use it whenever I want to Zaino/wax my car up so I don't have to worry about water marks under the Zaino.

Overall - 3.75/5 - As I said the stuff works, and does it's job, but it's not the salvation for our cars.

EDIT: Note the last pic, specifically taken on driverside so you can see the area where (at least on my car) there is normal dripping from the left side mirror, no water line.

 

I was interested in this product when I first saw it advertized. However I think simply washing the car in the shade to prevent spoting and quickly drying with a large microfiber towel will continue to be the best method and has the bonus of letting you keep your prefered soap. Zaino in my case. Good writeup.

 

Only one picture is showing up, and that's the back of the soap bottle.

 

take off the .orig.jpg at the end of pic link.

 

sounds like its just the filter thats worth while...
maybe use a quality car shampoo with it for a second test!

 

the reason i would buy this stuff is my town has horrible water treatment and if any water is left on the car it leaves really bad water spots. So if this will filter the water and make it non-spoty then i will go buy one right now.

 

Pics work fine here, Imagestation has been acting up lately, I'll change to resized images and see if that helps.

Yes, next time (probably in a week or two) I'll give it a try with my Meguires Shampoo, but I am fairly sure the soap has some part in the spotless drying.

 

Oh, almost forgot, time wise: I had to wash the car twice in that test run, and it took me about 1 hour (includes setup time and dry time for both tries). I think if I did it again I could do it in under 15 minutes... maybe 10 if I rushed it.