Having had TangoMan give my car a good "seeing to" a while back, we had discussed the idea of contactless washing. Being a lazy sh*te, this really appealed to me. Spray on some foam, leave it for a bit, rinse off........job done. So I thought I'd give it a try.

State of the S
Not washed in 2 weeks - so baked on dust. But not that dirty. Had not been driven that much.

The Foamer
The first thing I purchased was the Karcher Foamer from Clean and Shiny. I have to say, this piece of kit is awesome. I thought the review on their website was exaggerating, but not a bit of it. It fits any Karcher pressure washer. I filled it with about 1cm of Snow Foam, 0.5-1cm of Meguiars Shampoo, and topped it up with water. I rinsed the car down with the pressure washer first to remove any loose dirt, then attacked it with the foamer.




The guy at Clean and Shiny wasn't lying. When I tried it on maximum, you really couldn't see what colour the car was. Added bonus - its a lot of fun!! Even the wife enjoyed doing it.

The day was somewhat hot, and I was a little worried about the foam baking onto the car. So I left it for just under 10 minutes. Then I rinsed off with the pressure washer again.

The Softener
The inline hose softener I had picked up from autogeek.net in the US. Cost about $60 - with the major advantage that it can be "refilled" by immersing the filter in salt tablets and water overnight.

Next step was to rinse with the soft water. North London has exceptionally hard water - about 310 ppm according to water board. anything above 150 is considered "very hard". Autogeek.net were unable to provide me with any information about what level of ppm their filter would produce. Flow through the softener was very good - 10 times better than that Flash Autowash system. So I rinsed the car throroughly, chasing all the hard water off, then waited (unfortunately in the sun), to see the results.

The Results
"Mixed". Without the use of a mitt at all, some dirt/dust had remained. With that been the case, it was hard to tell whether the softener had done the job.

So onto the second attempt, after using the foam I gave the car a once over with a mitt, rinsing into a bucket regularly. Car came up beautifully (no surprise).......then rinse with the soft water. After drying, definitely better than with no softener, but not good enough. Still some water marks.

Conclusion
Love the foamer. Even if you have to take a mitt to the car, this piece of kit is excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone with a Karcher.
Not so sure on the softener. Maybe trying it with a lower pressure running through the filter might help.

Advise
So looking for some help from others who have tried it.
Is there a better combination of products to put in the foamer that might help shift the dirt better?
Anyway to improve the softener that anyone can think of? Is there a simple way to measure the ppm of the soft water?

At this stage, I think contactless washing is probably a bit like a low maintenance, beautiful woman........a myth.

 

 

Sorry, mate; you've got a black one & live in Norf Lan'un.

Aside from the refractive qualities of black paint, there is the geology;

essentially boulder clay over gravel.

In the Hertfordshire uplands, we're even more boulder clay over chalk & some gravel.

Now the gravel leads to grit, which leads to microscratches, which is why it needs removing.

Now a geologist will point out that one of the reasons boulder clay makes fine building bricks is that it is very fine consequently sticks like shit to a blanket.

So the grit also sticks.

Only way to remove boulder clay is mechanical action over plenty of wax.

Best return all that stuff back to the future & buy a fluffy mitt.

 

Hi Phil, excellent write-up and a good insight into contact less washing. Problem is it is a little bit like chasing after your proverbial tail as it will not remove all. It is more useful for getting rid of dust/pollen but any in-grained road grime will need some stronger detergents and a bit of mechanics from the mitt to get rid of. The water marks are not surprising, especially with water around here; you will need two units in line to fix that! I would suggest getting the Aquagleam 0 PPM to do the last stage, it will last.

To be honest you are two steps ahead of me, I don

 

Or you could call it a day and sell me your in line filter

 

Just add 10ml of Nitromoors to the Karcher.

This will be the 'cough medicine' you seek to create your 'Flaming Moe'.

 

I know what you're on about, CC!

Thing is, detergent's one of those molecules that binds water to lipids.

Wax is a lipid.

If you've spent

 

The name alone "Nitromoors" sounds like something you are more likely to put down a blocked toilet than on your car!!

Anyway, on the softener front, time to get analytical. Apparently water hardness is critical if you want to keep Koi........so going to buy a "fish geek" water hardness testing kit and play with the softener a bit more. Having lugged the fu**ing thing back in my suitcase from the US, not giving up on it just yet!!

 

[QUOTE=Nick Graves,Jun 15 2007, 09:57 AM]

If you've spent

 

Last time I used some of this stuff was to strip paint off my wooden windows!!!