Agressive wash for Foamer
- Thread starter Durallymax
- Start date
I wondered about adding a little APC to some of the more popular milder foaming soaps, mainly for tough road grime.
This thread has me looking at the P21s as prep for polishing though.
May throw that in the cart for next order.
Let me give you a bit of chemical insight into some of these products.
- Snowfoam
- Prewash
- Non-acid wheel cleaner
- All purpose Cleaner
- Traffic Film Remover
They are all based on very similar principles and, often a product classed as one can easily be sold as another with limited (often no) change. Lets take a snowfoam, prewash and a traffic film remover. In detailing circles, a traffic film remover is seen as a crime, except for in the worst of jobs. It will guaranteed strip your LSP, it will do damage to the paint, it will cause corrosion. So we have prewash and snowfoam products, which address this and are much safer for detailers. Right? Most detailers believe it, but it just isn't accurate.
THEORETICALLY, your prewash and snowfoam products will be much milder, they could still be alkaline but they would specifically avoid the really aggressive ingredients, notably caustic soda. The reason is that, whilst this works and is really cheap, it is much more corrosive than the alternatives. On things like chrome, you should just never use a product like this. Almost based on chrome and trims alone, you should use a non-caustic product - if you really want to be convincing with your detailer 'tag'.
THEORETICALLY, your TFR would be designed for heavier cleaning, less critical, less sensitive and more 'touchless' applications. The vehicles would rarely have much in the way of sensitive finish and, if so, if it happened to go cloudy over a few years, no one would really care. So we use the heavy duty ingredients, bang out a cheap and effective product and commercial users are happy because their vehicles look reasonably clean, reasonably easily and at low cost.
BUT, detailing products, such as snowfoams, are increasingly turning out to be every bit as aggressive and corrosive as their TFR counterparts - totally destroying the detailing belief about product demarkation. In practice, there are numerous, caustic based, snowfoams which are nothing more than aggressive TFRs with a bit of extra foaming added. Since they do not strip LSPs, they are then sold as safe (anyone knowing my postings will know that I am adamant that no half decent LSP should ever be stripped by a wash like this, whatever the product - so this 'safety' is, again, playing on a detailing fallacy). Then, of course, people note that this style of product does clean well so they whoop and holler. No one ever steps back and thinks, 2 years later, whether their wash product could be responsible for the slow degredation occuring - they just whip out the polisher and correct it. I am firmly coming to the opinion that detailing products and detailers are becoming ever more inclined to use aggressive products because they are failing to recognise the bigger picture - just because you don't see a product doing immediate harm, does not mean it is not doing more harm than something else would and that the cumulative effects will not be very apparent (of course, no one in the detailing sector does tests like this, even though the chemical industry knows them well). Basically, TFR/Prewash/Snowfoam are now all confused terms - from marketing literature alone, it is often impossible to know if a product is nice, safe and friendly and designed for detailing or whether it is an aggressive industrial cleaner which has been lifted from the Truckwash section and put into a fancy bottle for 10x the price.
To follow, the APC products - not at all dissimilar. You will probably find that many snowfoams will actually be high foam APCs and will work perfectly as an APC. From that perspective, it is very confusing that people would go mixing APC with snowfoams. Even ignoring the fact that they are likely to be very similar, why don't you just go and buy a better snowfoam?!
As a final note - surfactant films. Many of these products are INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED to leave residues. As above, many are lifted from industrial vehicle wash applications where it is desirable to avoid water spots and to expedite the drying process. We have beading and sheeting agents (nothing to do with wax, just surfactants) which stick to the surface, temporarily, and modify how it behaves in contact with water. It is not a case of whether it happens or not, because it does. It is a case of how much. As I have alluded to many times before, these temporary films DO deposit and they do seem to confuse the life out of the detailing sector. You just should not be able to strip a decent LSP with a dilute water based mix. As before, if you manage to do it, your LSP is either rubbish or you have probably got a surfactant film over the top and have not stripped at all.
Christopher.Brown
New member
- Jun 4, 2013
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- 0
Pipuk im in your camp....
but alas no matter how many time the subject is talked about and surface tension, residue films left behind and the chemical composition of things. People for some reason REFUSE to give up on the notion that certain car washes/detergents can strip.
I have no idea why, but thats how it is...
I just wanted to say I do DEFINITELY appreciate your knowledge and insights into it
rops
but alas no matter how many time the subject is talked about and surface tension, residue films left behind and the chemical composition of things. People for some reason REFUSE to give up on the notion that certain car washes/detergents can strip.
I have no idea why, but thats how it is...
I just wanted to say I do DEFINITELY appreciate your knowledge and insights into it
rops
Helltopay
New member
- Dec 15, 2012
- 320
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PiPUK,
I have noticed that when discussing the damage that can result from using aggressive products, the conversation is primarily limited to paint. I imagine that is because the paint is the most noticeable. Could the use of aggressive products also cause damage over either the short or long term to other parts, including trim, rubber seals, or even wiring?
I have noticed that when discussing the damage that can result from using aggressive products, the conversation is primarily limited to paint. I imagine that is because the paint is the most noticeable. Could the use of aggressive products also cause damage over either the short or long term to other parts, including trim, rubber seals, or even wiring?
To be honest, my view would be that the majority of hazards would NOT be to the paint. OK, if you are using lots of solvents or using things really strong (to the point of being silly), you will be elevating the risk for damage to paint. However, most of the time, it is going to be things like chrome and sensitive trims which will be the first to suffer. Taking the caustic based alkaline cleaners I noted above, a single application (with the product too strong) will be adequate to cause permanent clouding and damage to some such finishes. Quite why people are willing to risk it when they can spend a bit more on a product which wouldn't do it, even when applied neat, is beyond me.
From there I would say that you need to worry about metal elsewhere on the vehicle. With more aggressive products (not, in this case solvents, they won't do any harm here - in this case I mean water based) you will start causing corrosion where there is damage or even where you just get product trapped against the surface. In modern vehicles, this should not be a big deal but it will still occur over time. Certainly, with older vehicles, getting corrosive chemicals in and around the underside of the vehicle is not at all sensible! I am sure that you would find Mike to have methods for dealing with this, which do not require the liberal use of highly alkaline and reactive products!
Basically, from my perspective, wheels (powder coat) are going to be the most chemically resilient of finish, followed probably by the paint.
Helltopay
New member
- Dec 15, 2012
- 320
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Thank you PiPUK for your insight into this issue. Years ago I used a number of highly caustic chemicals when cleaning my vehicles; however, AGO has helped to educate me on the potential damage I could do to my vehicles and, more importantly, me. I know Mike has stated that he is a proponent if waterless or rinse less washes for older vehicles due to the potential damage that water can produce when it is allowed to enter and remain in hidden places (rust). This is making me rethink my procedure of always performing a full wash on my vehicles and I am not considering going to a waterless or rinse less wash when they are not terribly soiled (particularly my car, which is always garaged and almost never driven in the rain.
Pipuk, would you say that the best thing to do is have a pH meter on hand if msds is not readily available or you just want to check your dilution, then avoid higher than say 10-11pH or something?
Youve given us good info on what not to use in a broad sense but how to know what particular products to avoid would need testing.
Youve given us good info on what not to use in a broad sense but how to know what particular products to avoid would need testing.
A pH meter is something to buy only if you have more money than you know what to do with! It is just going to get most people hung up on the wrong thing.
pH, in isolation, is not what we are worried about. I can put acids with negative pH levels onto my vehicle and not be concerned. I wouldn't just do it with any acid though! You need to know more about what is giving rise to the alkalinity and this is beyond many university science students.
Whilst I do not personally trust many of the brands I have encountered, you, the users, are somewhat forced to do so. The best you can do is avoid anything which has a corrosive hazard on it and stick to the recommended dilutions. The former, I suspect, is routine for you guys in the US, unfortunately, in the UK, there are a whole lot of amateur 'detailers' who use away at real nasties without a second thought (because someone else on a forum said it works well...).