All Purpose Cleaners and their Qualities

L

Lonnie

Active member
I know many of you Autopians use over-the-counter and "professional" car-care manufacturer's APC's. My question is what qualities are most important to you and why?

Obviously, the most important quality may be how well they clean. But I know over-all cost is big consideration and for some of you, environmental and personal safety concerns are another factor that may entery into this equation. What are your thoughts?



Personally, I like Meguiar's Detailer Line All-Purpose Cleaner D103. Works well; smells great; not too expensive, and is not too harse on the hands when diluted properly (I'd still wear rubber gloves, though, if I'm using it for any length of time!), and my biggest concern, it doesn't cause discoloration/etching of bare aluminum (Unlike OTC Simple Green. Don't even go there:nono).
 
I find P21s TAW to probably be the "platinum standard" when it comes to safe-for-all-surfaces APCs. I'd like to find the effectiveness of its cleaning at dollar store pricing but I know that's asking for too much.



What I in turn do is have different kinds of APCs, for example one for heavy,oil and grease cutting jobs and others for light spills, light dirt. Before I got rid of my Maxima, I liked using Spray Nine's Greez Off on the undercarriage. It cut through grease and oil nicely, and safely. Clean up was easy and the price ( per gallon) was decent. I'd buy another gallon to have in my arsenal for this type of cleaning.



In a pinch, for quick clean ups of say the wheel wells, and my garage floor I use LA's Totally Awesome diluted. Yep, the stuff from Dollar Tree. I go through it regularly.



But for serious interior work and stuff more important than the bottom of my engine block or my wheel wells, I'd use P21s, the Meg's APC, Folex, Kids n Pets, a variety of cleaners. I bought them gradually one by one over time so through recommendation or just plain fun of using them and curiosity, I still have enough and price wasn't so much of a factor that way.
 
Lonnie, i'm with you on the regular SG, its nasty stuff. However one of my most used APC's is Simple Green HD. Its available to me at my local Home Depot by the gallon. Its safe on aluminum and if diluted properly it can be used on pretty much everything.
 
I currently have 2 APCs that I use. Megs APC+ for interiors and wheels. Then I use Purple Power for wheel wells, engines, tires, and the really grimy stuff. Just watching the brown sludge come off the tires when you just spray it on the tires is AWESOME. APC+ does not do that at all, even at 4:1.



About 5 years ago, i used to use Zep APC (Purple). It worked well, but was pretty harsh. Home Depot carries it so it made it easy. I may consider picking up more when the purple power runs out, but I think it costs more and I do not think it will be as effective (costwise).



I am still dying to get some Optimum APC, but I have a few gallons of stuff currently and want to use that up first. Might have to try the P21 TAW since i hear a lot about it.
 
I still have a bit left of the original, vintage Megs APC+. The blue stuff that works particularly well on interior surfaces. It was discontinued/ sold off years ago when the Detailer line got revamped. I use it pretty sparingly, reserving it to try if my other APCs aren't doing what I'd like.
 
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