David Fermani said:
We need Accumulator to chime in on this one..
Yeah, I use 'em at every wash. I use the smaller-bottle version as it's easier to control when doing it my way, which has the nozzle of the foamgun very close to the surface of the car.
I spray the foam at the point where the wash media contact the paint, moving the foamgun so the suds cover the entire area of contact. I "jiggle" the medium in use so that any marring that does occur is very small (no 6" scratches from wide-arcing wash movements). Don't apply significant pressure to the wash media, have it barely touch the surface. Try to keep suds between the media and the paint.
BHBs will, within reason, pretty well self-rinse when used this way (you can maybe do a whole panel before rinsing them out), but mitts will have to be rinsed out per usual, i.e., whenever there's a possiblity that some dirt has stuck to them (I'll rinse them out maybe six times for a hood, more if it's truly dirty).
I still use the two-bucket method, the foamgun is merely providing additional lubrication and better flushing of the surface being washed. I've noticed that when I use the BHBs for the intitial passes, my rinse buckets are almost perfectly clean at the end of a wash, even in the winter! That tells me that my "dislodge and flush" approach is working, no dirt is sticking to the wash media to cause marring.
I keep a gallon jug filled with diluted wash solution and I fill the foamguns from that. I have the foamguns on dedicated hoses and use different hoses for rinsing.
Using foamguns makes my washes take *longer* then they used to, but I don't have to polish out wash-induced marring every year, even after a nasty winter. Not polishing vehicles for ages is worth it to me, especially on the old ones that can't stand much more abrasion.
Heh heh, doing it my way is pretty tough when it comes to the roofs of SUVs or the minivan...trying to hold the foamgun at the right angle, while moving it just right, takes effort and practice.
For that matter, I must've used a foamgun a few dozen times before I got my technique sorted out. After the first dozen tries I gave up on it for a while, thinking it was a toy/gimmick, until I thought the whole thing through thoroughly and had a few :think: :think2 moments.