Forum menu
Foam seems to do a reasonable job of getting some dirt to come off, that wouldn’t have otherwise come off, before you start wiping it around with the wash mitt. It’s also low effort.
It seems to soften up a lot of dirt. The Hyundai has been parked under a tree and not washed since I dunno, last summer. The snow foam sat there for 5 mins, it softened up all the bird shit and the tree gunge so it just wiped off. When I jetwashed it, there was still a super fine haze of dirt but most of it had gone.
It's not that it doesn't work, it's just I'm not convinced it does any better than putting normal car shampoo in a 5l sprayer for a fraction of the price. And one (well several) less 5l containers and gadgets cluttering up the garage.
Infact the sprayer if you point it directly at the spattered insects, bird poo, yellow spots, will lift them off just with thr weak pressure. So that's one up on snowfoam.
Also anything that means the Jetwash comes out before it's clean, is still blasting gritty water into the paint, which is precisely what you're trying to avoid. I just use it for the wheels, wheel wells, and final rinse and blasting the crap out from behind number plates, badges, seams, seals, gutters etc.
N.b. for Cougar, it's possible to be really geeky about washing the car, but it's like riding a road bike. It looks like hard work but 95% of it is finding ways to be lazy, then 5% effort / showing off at the end with the wax / sprint.
Garden sprayer - zero effort
Rinse with hose - zero effort
Wash with a microfiber noodle sponge - minimal effort as by this point it's basicly already clean by this point.
Rinse with Jetwash and wash the nooks and crannies - zero effort
Dry with microfiber cloth - far less effort than chamois
Wax - use decent quality hard wax, it dries up quicker and takes less effort than endlessly buffing up liquid waxes.
It’s a K4. Just put your hand to gauge the optimal distance.
Isn't that like checking if a gun is loaded by looking down the barrel?
Snowfoam does very little apart from placebo. (Don’t get me wrong I have been snowfoaming for 20 years but mostly for fun). No LSP, however expensive can magically let much dirt slide off. It will certainly help though but sadly unless only a fine dust, it’s not enough.
Snowfoam is a good way of getting a decent amount of shampoo onto the car. On a waxed car, it makes it MUCH easier to clean quickly and gently.
A pressure washer isn't at all required to get suds from a car, it takes seconds with a hose. You're not using it to remove dirt.
Pressure washers don't clean cars! People (with wash mits) do! 🙂 All a wax does is prevent dirt adhering to the bodywork, thus making it easier to clean. It's a protectant, a sealing coat. The better the wax, the longer it lasts, or dependent on type, the more it shines, but usually one is inversely related to the other. I tend to go with protection over additional shine.
My cars are usually grey, so the test is more about colour reflection than about just reflection. I don't do it as much as I used to as I now cycle everywhere. If I polished my car once every 6 months these days, it'd be almost equal to the amount of time I spent driving it.
Infact the sprayer if you point it directly at the spattered insects, bird poo, yellow spots, will lift them off just with thr weak pressure. So that’s one up on snowfoam.
This all might depend on how good your snowfoamer and snowfoam shampoo are. The stuff that came with my pressure washer was rubbish, as was the pressure washer attachement, but a proper snowfoam lance and Maguires Hyper Shampoo turns my cars into something that looks like cotton wool and could be used as shaving foam in a different context. it then slowly dissolves and you can see where is has removed dirt/dust/marks from the surface. It'll not remove bird poo, but as others have said, it does seem to make it easier to remove without needing continued attention from a washmit.
If you’re going this route, I highly highly recommend the bilt hamber autofoam somebody already mentioned above, it’s excellent.
Reading the (really pretentious) blurb on their website it suggests that it's a prewash, is that right? You use that stuff before you wash it?
I wash mine because its a thing that has some value and I’d like to retain that value. I’m not mental about a huge detailing regime but a half hour every couple of weeks isn’t breaking the bank, as it were.
I clean my house, too. And fix stuff when it goes wrong. Hot damn.
I meant no disrespect, it just seemed overkill. It's all I can do to keep on top of housework which needs doing, like with having three cats in the house shoving the hoover around is a weekly job. The bathroom tiles need washing down, but maybe annually rather than fortnightly.
On the car I'll regularly clean out the interior, a space which I actually use on a fairly daily basis, ahead of the exterior which is there to look nice to everyone else.
N.b. for Cougar, it’s possible to be really geeky about washing the car, but it’s like riding a road bike. It looks like hard work but 95% of it is finding ways to be lazy, then 5% effort / showing off at the end with the wax / sprint.
Garden sprayer – zero effort
Rinse with hose – zero effort
Wash with a microfiber noodle sponge – minimal effort as by this point it’s basicly already clean by this point.
Rinse with Jetwash and wash the nooks and crannies – zero effort
Dry with microfiber cloth – far less effort than chamois
Wax – use decent quality hard wax, it dries up quicker and takes less effort than endlessly buffing up liquid waxes.
We seemingly have different ideas about the definition of "zero." Zero effort is leaving it mucky. 😁
I'm assuming you have a drive? For me, getting a hose / power washer in the same place as the car is a pain in the arse before I've even started. I have a tap in the back yard and on-street parking at the front if I'm lucky. I'd either have to run the hose through the house front-to-back through two windows without risking the cats escaping, or shift twelvety wheelie bins to get access to the back and hope I don't get blocked in (there's only one way in/out).
Haha, yea fair enough, driveway, and outdoor tap, and outdoor sockets are probably making it easy.
There's 2 car's in our house. A 20yr old Fiesta that gets the bare minimum to look presentable, hence I'll do anything that will cut out effort. On Sunday I ran outside at 4:30pm and sprayed it with a garden sprayer with a couple of capfuls of cheap turtlewax wash'n'wax. Just ahead of an epic thunderstorm which rinsed it off nicely.
The others a 50 year old MG, which probably get's washed every 2nd time it gets used, and as a result it barely takes any effort as the wax is nice and thick and it barely gets dirty anyway.
This all might depend on how good your snowfoamer and snowfoam shampoo are. The stuff that came with my pressure washer was rubbish, as was the pressure washer attachement, but a proper snowfoam lance and Maguires Hyper Shampoo turns my cars into something that looks like cotton wool and could be used as shaving foam in a different context. it then slowly dissolves and you can see where is has removed dirt/dust/marks from the surface. It’ll not remove bird poo, but as others have said, it does seem to make it easier to remove without needing continued attention from a washmit.
I'm not disagreeing that it works (to an extent), just that car shampoo in a sprayer seems to do the job just as well, but in a less Instagram-able way.
I'm convinced it's mostly just been a way for Meguiars to sell you not just £35 shampoo, but also a £35 lance and a 2nd £35 bottle of special shampoo.
is still blasting gritty water into the paint, which is precisely what you’re trying to avoid.
No, I'm trying to avoid wiping dirt all.over the paintwork and scratching it.