Foaming Question

[Dan]

The funny thing to me is how comfortable everyone seems to be with pressure washing these days. I remember being chastised for daring to use one a decade ago.

[Accumulator]

The funny thing to me is how comfortable everyone seems to be with pressure washing these days. I remember being chastised for daring to use one a decade ago.

It wasn`t all *that* long ago that Mickelin released their TSB about never using one on wheels/tires lest you mess up the tire`s bead.

I was leery of them and *never* would`ve (nor would now) use on on some of the vehicles I used to have; too great a risk of damage. On the `93 Audi I have to be *VERY* careful even with my weak AR lest I blow something like a trim piece off the car. Fragile vehicles are, well...fragile. Even on the sturdier vehicles I don`t use it on things like the wipers.

I still don`t like rinsing shampoo off with it; I prefer water *volume* over water pressure for that.

[BudgetPlan1]

I still don`t like rinsing shampoo off with it; I prefer water *volume* over water pressure for that.

Yup

[SWETM]

Eh, this might sound much more, uhm..critical/snarky/bad than I intend, but if things didn`t get quite clean with just the pre-wash pressure washer rinsing, I`d want a different LSP. The rinsing gets caked with Winter [crap] vehicles look "already clean" before I even start with what I think of as "the real wash".

SWETM- I`m actually a little surprised that the "extreme dirty paint" isn`t a *LOT* worse! I don`t think that looks all that dirty for Winter, ours get much worse. Although the dirt/etc. you`re dealing with sounds a lot harder to wash off, so your products are indeed working well.

Coatings=crack- I`ve never seen any indication that the dirt "tumbling off" will cause even the lightest micromarring. I don`t have stupid-soft paint or anything, but still...I just pressure washer rinse utterly crusty vehicles with zero problems at all. Yeah, I was a little surprised that I could get away with it, but I always have. Whenever I tried pre-treating before using the pressure washer, it seemed like a complete waste.

YMMV of course, just relating my experience.

The LSPs of some I use works pretty well in the self cleaning ability from them. But with winter dirt it`s not that much of a difference. You can see slightly differences between them. And it`s also much about how the vehicals is with accumulate dirt build up as that`s a difference between them too. Like mostly in Sweden on new vehicals if you go back around 20 years. They had mud flaps or how to describe it. The bigger wheels gets vehicals higher up from the ground but also sling up more dirt. Station wagons and hatchback is the most popular modells here. And those with a flat/vertical kind of back of the vehical that don`t have any roof wings that`s effective to get the air stream down on the back of these vehicals. Can get real messy fast. Then how it`s driven and stored comes also in the play.

Even if the LSP was failed on it. It some how gets less dirty. So even if it don`t beads any so maybe there where some sheeting properties from it until the wash. It`s somewhere in the middle of the dirt amount generally speaking this winter season. It`s just above the freezing point and sometimes just under it during the nights. Therehas been raining a lot though for being here. So the most of the road salt and road film gets flushed off the roads I think. It`s when it`s just under the freezing point and some snow now or then that the road salt keeps the roads wet and they spread it out around 4-5 times a day. And then gets dry and under the freezing point it`s usually a great combo of it to get a lot of dirt build up on the vehicals. The biggest difference I think is that we have a law of having winter tires on here between december to april when it`s winter weather. So the winter tires stays on even when not needed to be on. And that it`s a least 50/50 with studded winter tires and winter tires. This wears hard on the roads the studded winter tires as you see it is on this Ford Focus.

Then it`s also much about if you are able to be washing your vehical or not. That can be much of a difference too and much about where you live and what options that you have to wash your vehical. So it`s so much difference in the environment you live in and anything else.

[Accumulator]

SWETM- Yeah, I always figure your situation over there is very different from what I experience here.

And yeah, my wagons/SUVs have always gotten *filthy* on the trailing surfaces too, literally can`t tell what color they are and gotta be so careful that nothing touches them lest they get marred. But it all washes right off, with 99% of it coming off with the initial (pressure washer) rinse even if I let them stay nasty for weeks (yeah, that`s Autopian Heresy but I`m not letting the Vehicle Tail wag Life`s Dog any more ).