Snow foam or no snow foam

[CliveP]

That or Autobrite Magifoam or a few others I could name are definitely the way to go - on the Back to Basics Course I run, we spend nearly all morning before we actually wash the car, and the car is virtually clean before we touch it! And, don't mention 'sponges' here madam, lines please - 'I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning' - 100 lines on my desk by the morning please...

[CliveP]

Oh god I can see my having humble old jetwash being replaced shortly with one of these posh ones!

Just a decent PW will do it - nothing posh needed...it's all in the water pressure and a decent lance

I can point you to £50 PW that will do it with the right snow lance and snowfoam, assuming you have half-decent water pressure...


Regards,
Clive.

[Clean Your Ride]

Oh god I can see my having humble old jetwash being replaced shortly with one of these posh ones!

Makes life so much easier Daron and using 20ml per application makes it cost about 20p

Andy

[ds'pinky'3]

'I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning"''I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning"
I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning"'I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning"'
I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning"'I will not mention sponges when referring to car cleaning" :bow:

[Clean Your Ride]

Can't believe I have been witness to the "S" word being mentioned aaaarrrggghhhh

[CliveP]

Just to show I have not always just used Autobrite products, here's an official review I did on DW years ago! Pasted as was, from then:

Repeat - The below is a repeat of a formal review Clive completed on DW many years ago!

The Product: AutoSmart Actimousse Plus

Price Point: Normally 25 litres I believe £35-£40.

Test Purpose: Despite being happy with my snow foams from Autobrite I was intrigued to see some good results people had posted on AutoSmart Actimousse Plus being used on really 'winter' mucky cars, and was keen to see if this could be used as a quick way to remove road salt, grime, etc on a 'use and walk away' basis. i.e. no touch approach (accepting water spots likely to be left).

Tested on: Seat Leon FR, Kia Sportage, Audi TT

The Product:

Manufacturer's Blurb: A vehicle cleaning concentrate developed for use through all foaming equipment. The formulation optimises clean, foam and dwell to provide excellent performance.


The Cars - before:
Seat Leon FR, considerable levels of winter grime, 450 miles since last wash, including 280 miles to/from the meet at AutoFinesse on Saturday 27/02. Note the Leon is wearing Clearkote Carnauba Moose wax, applied circa one month ago.



Kia Sportage, this car is used off-road frequently, wearing Colinite 915, applied months ago (before Winter).






No 'Before' Pics of Audi TT, as it was a neighbours car which I decided to pull into the test to increase the sample size! It had similar levels of muck as the Sportage, again wearing Colinite 915, applied months ago (before Winter).
BIG note though, this was a 'fun' addition - on the Audi TT I did one thing slightly different. I pre-sprayed the muckiest areas with Autobrite fly and bug remover (on second thoughts perhaps something like a Citrus pre-wash solution might have been more appropriate or even something like Tesco APC), using as something to losen the muck up even more. I had done the two cars and added this extra variable, which means it wasn't a complete review of the foam.......but I've added the results here for interest.

Given the levels of dirt I decided to add about 200ml of product to the bottle, topped to 1 litre with water.

Cars were snowed with the lance adjustment set to the most concentrated setting (i.e. the 'thickest' foam), and left to dwell for about 7-8 minutes. My power washer is the Nilfisk 120.2-6:






Results: After 7-8 minutes dwell time I rinsed using the PW thoroughly. Note this is using no agitation of any description and the cars were almost dry when I took these pictures:
Leon:

(Notice that there was some muck left around the 'Leon' lettering....



Some muck left behind front wheel arch:

Sportage: Despite the Sportage appearing dirtier than the Leon, the results looked more impressive (perhaps relevantly the Sportage didn't have the 'high speed' water marks on it the Leon did, the Sportage's muck is picked up from local runaround driving and genuine off-road use). Interestingly, after rinsing the 'wax' was almost revealed again when beading on the Sportage could clearly been seen again, with water no longer sitting on the muck but on the still present underlying Colinite 915:






Audi TT (very impressive, remember I pre-sprayed lightly with AutoBrite fly and bug remover):





Value: Superb at either regular price or even cheaper! I used 200ml in a 1ltr bottle, you will also need the pressure washer and foam lance. Outside the winter period, with less muck building up so fast, I'm pretty sure you could reduce this to 100ml. I think I'd pre-treat the worst bits next time with some APC, Daisy might be the easiest and most cost effective here.

Overall: I give the Actimousse Plus user rating of 80% as a great way of reducing salt and general muck off your car's bodywork in the winter.



Repeat - The above was a repeat of a formal review Clive completed on DW many years ago!

Regards,
Clive.

[CliveP]

Miss Pinky - good, 97 lines to go...... however, no tpying, ink please....

[dbrewood]

Just a decent PW will do it - nothing posh needed...it's all in the water pressure and a decent lance

I can point you to £50 PW that will do it with the right snow lance and snowfoam, assuming you have half-decent water pressure...


Regards,
Clive.

If you could Clive that'd be very useful! The issue will likely be that our water pressure is dire though

Makes life so much easier Daron and using 20ml per application makes it cost about 20p

Andy

Hmm viable, and I guess you'll be able to comment on how bad the water pressure is on the 14th.

[lfcrule1972]

I rent a flat and we have no outside tap nearby dbrewood, I saved up and got a Karcher K4 Premium washer (can also be bought from the Karcher Outlet place, when in stock). This runs off standing water, I have a massive tubtrug thing that I fill up, and with no water pressure I managed to magifoam the car like this...


image by lfcrule1972, on Flickr

[Jimbob]

I foamed yesterday!

JB

[dbrewood]

Cheers for the info... Look fwd to seeing pic l8r.

[Clean Your Ride]

Hmm viable, and I guess you'll be able to comment on how bad the water pressure is on the 14th.

We can have a look during the now booked detail of your DS Daron. We will struggle through and if need be, could always break out the "In case of emergencies" product: ONR.....

Andy

[dbrewood]

ONR? It's too early in the morning for strange references used by the secret band of detailers

[Clean Your Ride]

We even have secret handshakes....

Optimum No Rinse for when water issues may be a problem; great as a back up.

Andy

[Jimbob]

We even have secret handshakes....

Andy

First clue - no watch and no rings (might scratch something).

JB