Wash day for the Ranger, and a chance to try out a couple of new or revised additions.
I have been using the MTM PF22 foam cannon for nearly four years now, and its performance has never been in question. I currently have two of these foam cannons, one with the older bottle for Brake Buster, and one that I use for soap with the newer wide base bottle. I also still use my original Waxit foam cannon.
The one main complaint leveled at the FP22 foam cannons has been the narrow bottle opening, something that makes filling and emptying much harder. I managed to get into a routine of filling the bottle with water first, then soap to limit the generation of frothy bubbles and an overflow situation.
MTM knew they had to respond to the onslaught of newer competition sporting wide mouth bottles. And so, now we have access to the latest iteration of PF22.2 Foam Cannons with a redesigned bottle that mates to a plastic adaptor.
Now, with three fully functioning foam cannons, I certainly didn't need to buy another. Thankfully, MTM have thought about this and provide a retrofit kit consisting of the new bottle and adaptor plate.
The black plastic adaptor is screwed onto the existing foam cannon body, nipping it up using firm pressure. I have seen a video where an additional rubber o-ring was fitted here to provide added threads for a tighter fit, but I really don't see the need. The adaptor is slotted to accept the tabs molded into the new bottle, which is then secured with an audible click.
The adaptor also has a rubber o-ring to provide a leak proof seal.
The great thing about this new adaptor is the ability to convert older foam cannons, so now each of my units have matching wide mouth bottles.
Now, I have seen video's of the new setup where the user was complaining about the bayonet fitting, in particular unscrewing the foam cannon body from the adaptor by accident instead of unlocking the bottle. All I can say to that is they are doing it wrong. If you hold the black plastic adaptor and not the foam cannon body when turning, the bottle is easily attached and removed.
From what I can see, if you order the complete foam cannon, MTM now include a weighted pickup tube. This addition helps maintain foaming when the bottle is low on solution and used at certain angles. However, this is not sent with the retrofit kits. I actually had a spare Kwazar weighted filter on hand and attached it to the existing tube, which worked very well.
Rinsing the bottle out at the end was considerably easier, with far less reactivation and the ability to properly remove all of the remaining soap residue.
Today was also my first try of the newly reformulated P&S Radiance. This soap in its previous life was a classic wash-n-wax, the latest changes making it suitable for use on ceramic coatings. So in a sense, this is still a wash-n-wax in concept, just with the wax swapped for Si02.
Filling the revised foam cannon is now a breeze!
Now, I have never been a fan of these types of soap, mainly owing to the fact I just want the soap to clean and provide lubrication, any additional gloss or protection I want to add is done AFTER the wash. And so I went into using the new version of Radiance like any other example of a wash-n-wax.
The first thing to note is, DO NOT buy this product if you are expecting shaving cream foam, its just not a high foaming soap. That is fine by me because P&S don't make claims that it does (hello Auto Finesse).
Slickness is decent, but nowhere near leaders such as KCx GSF or Carpro Reset. However, the rinse off is super easy and............the slickness it added to the Ranger was brilliant. Actually, I was quite surprised at how much slickness and gloss it added to the paint. Scent wise, it's very old-school car wash in that department................I guess the reformulation didn't include a scent change. As for the level of protection, again don't expect this to last very long, it's all about enhancement and not long-term durability.
Overall, I'm more impressed with P&S Radiance than I expected to be. The same applies to the updated FP22.2 foam cannon! After seeing a lot of negative media and comments on the new unit, my anticipation had been somewhat dampened. But I can also see why MTM went the route they chose with the updates, the actual foam cannon itself performed brilliantly, so a complete redesign was not needed. What they have delivered is an improvement on the original, helping it to function better. I also like that the retrofit kit is relatively cheap to update a current unit.
