Is pre soaking ONR really necessary???

[MattPersman]

No need to unless you r trying to decon for some reason. The polymers encapsulate the dirt by themselves and you don't need APC

I thought we were taking about maint washes which is what ONR is great for

 

[fellipe]

I need to be prepared for all cases but extremes, since I'll be using rinseless was for my mobile car wash business.

 

[fellipe]

Just found this:

A former spokesperson/expert for Optimum products (he's now running his own Detailing Business) would recommend to use Optimum's APC: Power Clean (3:1 ratio)...as a pre-soak prior to the ONR wash...rather than mixing any APC "with" ONR.

BTW:
-Optimum's APC...Power Clean is paint safe.
-Nowadays: Detergents are more common than soaps,
in car-wash products' and APCs' formulations.

Bob

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...illips/83751-3-bucket-method.html#post1145208

 

[fellipe]

Also this one: adding OPC to ONR wash solution? - Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine - Optimum Forum

 

[PiPUK]

I agree, if you are foaming...do a 2BM

What is the "environmental contamination" caused by SnowFoam?

Isn't it pH neutral and biodegradable?

When I wash, the water never reaches the street
Does the sunlight and other environmental factors break down the product before it could go any further?

You are putting foamy chemicals down the drains and this is adequate for problems in certain areas (i.e. someone complains and you have the local authorities chasing you!). In practice, there is very little harm. Certainly in the EU, all our chemicals are supposed to meet certain standards for biodegradability (though, with foams, it is plausible that some may add chemicals which break the rules, in an attempt to maximise the foam - it would be almost impossible to prove otherwise). pH... not that it is a big concern but most snowfoams should not be expected to be neutral. A snowfoam should really have an elevated pH to give a good cleaning action. There are examples where you can achieve almost comparable results with a pH neutral product but most pH neutral snowfoams, inspite of what the brand/manufacturers tries to tell you, will never come close to the cleaning power of a good alkaline snowfoam.

No need to unless you r trying to decon for some reason. The polymers encapsulate the dirt by themselves and you don't need APC

I am afraid that the truth is that the polymers help to encapsulate the dirt. If the polymer concentration is too low (or there is too much dirt), there simply wont be enough to do this properly. Also, if the dirt is big enough, it wont be encapsulated (try putting some sand onto your wash media and soaking in ONR, give that a good rub on your paint and tell me that the dirt can be entirely encapsulated!).

 

[Bunky]

A pressure wash with a typical consumer pressure does not use that much water. You can foam a car well in about a minutes so at most it is around 2 gallons. You add the 2 to 3 gallons used in the rinseless and your total usage is still lower than any typical 2BM wash not using a pressure washer.

You should always tailor the wash process to the condition of the paint and not to a fixed routine no matter what wash "method". If you need to know off some grit to be same to finish in the garage, then it would make sense.

 

[PiPUK]

A pressure wash with a typical consumer pressure does not use that much water. You can foam a car well in about a minutes so at most it is around 2 gallons. You add the 2 to 3 gallons used in the rinseless and your total usage is still lower than any typical 2BM wash not using a pressure washer.

You should always tailor the wash process to the condition of the paint and not to a fixed routine no matter what wash "method". If you need to know off some grit to be same to finish in the garage, then it would make sense.

Woooaahh... so you are foaming and then putting ONR on, without an intermediate rinse? That is basically mixing chemicals. Did you realise that many low water solutions are based around cationic chemistry? Did you know that snowfoams are almost exclusively based around anionic chemistry? Did you know that mixing the two basically cancels out (like fire + water)? Without Optimum confirming that there are no crucial cationic/quat based components to ONR, you could very well end up neutralising the components which make ONR so good...

Dare I ask why you would bother using snowfoam at all? The original concept was that you would pressure wash the foam away (carrying dirt with it). Most snowfoams are pretty impotent without that high pressure water jet. If I was designing something for doing what you are, I would be suggesting a pre-wash product which you dilute like an APC and apply with a pressure sprayer (you know, like that you use to spray the weeds). The cleaning potential is much better, you would use less water and would (depending upon who formulated it) be able to get away with using non-ionic chemistry which would not have the potential to interfere with ONR.

Personally, if I was snowfoaming without power washing it off, I would be avoiding ONR and using a traditional wash technique.

 

[Bunky]

Woooaahh.

Woooaahh....No! My point was a pressure washer can knock some of the stuff off and using a snow foam too can help soften some of the bonded crud wasting a significant amount of additional water either.

As someone said earlier, if you rinse before you do a two bucket wash why not ONR? It accomplishes the same goal unless you are severely restricted on how much water you want to use.

 

[swanicyouth]

I pre-rinse or foam before rinseless washing. The point is, it will always be safer to rinse dirt off than to wipe it off. So, to me it makes 100% sense to pressure rinse a car before you wash it via any method. Of course, that is my cars... If I was doing this as a business I'd have to do what I had to do.

Maybe I'm alone, or maybe other people are just afraid to say it; but - I could care less about "wasting water". I'm paying for the water - and I'm using it for a purpose (my enjoyment), and it's legal where I live. So, I use as much water as my heart's content.

Now I know there are legal issues certain places about washing a car with a hose. If I lived there - I'd have to follow the law or find a legal way to use water. But, there are no such enforced laws where I live (NE PA USA). And if there are technical laws on the books about "run off" effluent here - the cops don't care and the neighbors don't care either.

So, until someone bothers me about it, I'm going to keep pre-rinsing and using all the water I please to do the safest car wash I can do. That is my goal when washing a car - not to save water.