Hey everyone!
A few weeks ago, I saw AG offering this product on sale. Immediately I thought that this product would be a great timesaver in offering a wash & coat service to customers.
If you've never heard of it (like I hadn't) it's a car wash shampoo by CarPro, that washes and coats the vehicle in one step.
"During rinsing, an effect called “hydroelectric bonding”, is caused by the water pressure. This hydroelectric bonding accelerates the bonding on the surface creating that glass like shell you’ve come to expect from Hydro2. The sleek coat that is left behind not only enhances your paints’ finish but is also resistant to UV exposure, almost all acids, solvents, and alkaline solutions. Your paint is also now more dirt and water repellent than it ever was before."
It's pretty cool to watch. You just rinsed off an uncoated vehicle that the water basically pooled up on, wash it with this product, and now the second you hit it with a stream to do your final rinse, the water goes flying down the car.
Product page: CarPro HydroFoam
So I'll let the pictures mostly speak for the product. This is my personal vehicle. It was due for another application of sealant, and I decided to use the HydroFoam. The paint was in very good shape before application - I had compounded it a year ago and had several coats of Klasse on it. It was then put through a New York winter, driving it through rain, snow, and salt for several months, plus all through Spring into almost the end of Summer. I had only washed it twice since I compounded it a year ago - I know, tisk tisk. I had been busy with my Chevelle and customers. As you could guess, there were a lot of water spots on the car. The Klasse did a great job of protecting the freshly compounded & polished surface underneath, but it's time had passed - no more protection remained on the vehicle. After the wash, all I did was use Menzerna's machine glaze with my PC 7424 to remove any stubborn water spots that remained.. Surface was smooth as butter. That's when I decided to break out the HydroFoam and wash it again...
All I can say is - WOW!
I applied the HydroFoam yesterday, and these pictures are from today after it poured for an hour. These are all from my iPhone. No HDR, no filters, no editing, yadda yadda. The car glows. Note that everything you touch with the wash mitt gets coated. Check out the plastic cowl trim at the bottom of the windshield, bottom left of the first photo.
Of course, the glass, plastic, and everything else you touch with the wash mitt is coated as well. I actually needed to polish the glass, and it still did this:
Here are some reflection shots before it started pouring:
I even sprayed some onto my sister's truck, which is NEVER washed and does have surface contaminants. After spraying it on, the moment I went to rinse it the water flew off. Of course, not too sure how long it would last. But that went from looking like the paint was absorbing the water immediately to great beading. No pics of that, that was the day it arrived and I was excited to try it. :buffing:
Okay, so here are your options for application.
They suggest using an HP foam gun or a wash bucket. Seeing as I don't have the high pressure version of the foam gun, that was immediately out of the question. As for the wash bucket, the product directions state to use a dilution ratio of 1:9 - 1 part HydroFoam to 9 parts water. So you'll either be working with a few inches of product in your wash bucket, or you'll be dumping the entire contents of the bottle into your wash bucket just to do one car. Here are my recommendations:
1. Use a HP foam gun. If you have the High Pressure Foam Gun and a pressure washer, then great! That would be my first choice. Pour a couple ounces of product by itself into the reservoir (don't add any water) and set your gun ratio - usually 10:1 is the highest concentration on a foam gun, I believe.
2. Use a regular foam gun! This is what I did. On the back of my foam gun, it showed that the highest setting provided a 10:1 ratio. Just like above, pour in a couple of ounces of HydroFoam and go for it.
3. Use a spray bottle with a foaming nozzle. I thought of this while looking around my supply cabinet. I had an empty spray bottle, and a foaming nozzle from a previous product I bought. I poured in 2 ounces of HydroFoam, and 18 ounces of water to achieve the 1:9 dilution ratio. This is the one I tested on my sister's truck. I rinsed the door off, wet my wash mitt, sprayed the product liberally onto the door while also spraying some onto my wash mitt, and wiped down the door. Obviously, this doesn't provide the snowy foam coverage of a Minnesota winter, but it did the job. Rinsed it off and immediately had great beading. I do believe there are also pump-style pressurizing sprayers that have foaming nozzles, you can look into one of those too.
Tip for using the foam gun - since you'll only have a few ounces in there, keep the gun as level as possible to avoid "starving" the pickup tube. If this happens, you'll just be spraying water onto the panel and end up wasting product. I suppose to could always pour more in and pour whatever is left back into the product bottle, but I didn't like the idea of that - just in case.
That about wraps it up! All in all, I was very impressed. The ONLY complaint I have is that it doesn't foam up quite like our usual car shampoos do. You may have better luck in an HP gun, but in my normal garden hose style gun, the foam didn't linger very long. So if the the vehicle is very dirty, I would consider a pre-wash just in case.
Hope this was worth the read! Time will tell how well it holds up. I'm going to try out the regular Hydro2 next. They didn't have any in stock when I ordered.
Thanks for looking!
-Brian
A few weeks ago, I saw AG offering this product on sale. Immediately I thought that this product would be a great timesaver in offering a wash & coat service to customers.
If you've never heard of it (like I hadn't) it's a car wash shampoo by CarPro, that washes and coats the vehicle in one step.
"During rinsing, an effect called “hydroelectric bonding”, is caused by the water pressure. This hydroelectric bonding accelerates the bonding on the surface creating that glass like shell you’ve come to expect from Hydro2. The sleek coat that is left behind not only enhances your paints’ finish but is also resistant to UV exposure, almost all acids, solvents, and alkaline solutions. Your paint is also now more dirt and water repellent than it ever was before."
It's pretty cool to watch. You just rinsed off an uncoated vehicle that the water basically pooled up on, wash it with this product, and now the second you hit it with a stream to do your final rinse, the water goes flying down the car.
Product page: CarPro HydroFoam
So I'll let the pictures mostly speak for the product. This is my personal vehicle. It was due for another application of sealant, and I decided to use the HydroFoam. The paint was in very good shape before application - I had compounded it a year ago and had several coats of Klasse on it. It was then put through a New York winter, driving it through rain, snow, and salt for several months, plus all through Spring into almost the end of Summer. I had only washed it twice since I compounded it a year ago - I know, tisk tisk. I had been busy with my Chevelle and customers. As you could guess, there were a lot of water spots on the car. The Klasse did a great job of protecting the freshly compounded & polished surface underneath, but it's time had passed - no more protection remained on the vehicle. After the wash, all I did was use Menzerna's machine glaze with my PC 7424 to remove any stubborn water spots that remained.. Surface was smooth as butter. That's when I decided to break out the HydroFoam and wash it again...
All I can say is - WOW!
I applied the HydroFoam yesterday, and these pictures are from today after it poured for an hour. These are all from my iPhone. No HDR, no filters, no editing, yadda yadda. The car glows. Note that everything you touch with the wash mitt gets coated. Check out the plastic cowl trim at the bottom of the windshield, bottom left of the first photo.
Of course, the glass, plastic, and everything else you touch with the wash mitt is coated as well. I actually needed to polish the glass, and it still did this:
Here are some reflection shots before it started pouring:
I even sprayed some onto my sister's truck, which is NEVER washed and does have surface contaminants. After spraying it on, the moment I went to rinse it the water flew off. Of course, not too sure how long it would last. But that went from looking like the paint was absorbing the water immediately to great beading. No pics of that, that was the day it arrived and I was excited to try it. :buffing:
Okay, so here are your options for application.
They suggest using an HP foam gun or a wash bucket. Seeing as I don't have the high pressure version of the foam gun, that was immediately out of the question. As for the wash bucket, the product directions state to use a dilution ratio of 1:9 - 1 part HydroFoam to 9 parts water. So you'll either be working with a few inches of product in your wash bucket, or you'll be dumping the entire contents of the bottle into your wash bucket just to do one car. Here are my recommendations:
1. Use a HP foam gun. If you have the High Pressure Foam Gun and a pressure washer, then great! That would be my first choice. Pour a couple ounces of product by itself into the reservoir (don't add any water) and set your gun ratio - usually 10:1 is the highest concentration on a foam gun, I believe.
2. Use a regular foam gun! This is what I did. On the back of my foam gun, it showed that the highest setting provided a 10:1 ratio. Just like above, pour in a couple of ounces of HydroFoam and go for it.
3. Use a spray bottle with a foaming nozzle. I thought of this while looking around my supply cabinet. I had an empty spray bottle, and a foaming nozzle from a previous product I bought. I poured in 2 ounces of HydroFoam, and 18 ounces of water to achieve the 1:9 dilution ratio. This is the one I tested on my sister's truck. I rinsed the door off, wet my wash mitt, sprayed the product liberally onto the door while also spraying some onto my wash mitt, and wiped down the door. Obviously, this doesn't provide the snowy foam coverage of a Minnesota winter, but it did the job. Rinsed it off and immediately had great beading. I do believe there are also pump-style pressurizing sprayers that have foaming nozzles, you can look into one of those too.
Tip for using the foam gun - since you'll only have a few ounces in there, keep the gun as level as possible to avoid "starving" the pickup tube. If this happens, you'll just be spraying water onto the panel and end up wasting product. I suppose to could always pour more in and pour whatever is left back into the product bottle, but I didn't like the idea of that - just in case.
That about wraps it up! All in all, I was very impressed. The ONLY complaint I have is that it doesn't foam up quite like our usual car shampoos do. You may have better luck in an HP gun, but in my normal garden hose style gun, the foam didn't linger very long. So if the the vehicle is very dirty, I would consider a pre-wash just in case.
Hope this was worth the read! Time will tell how well it holds up. I'm going to try out the regular Hydro2 next. They didn't have any in stock when I ordered.
Thanks for looking!
-Brian
