Mishri

So...for my regular car washes I have been doing mcguires gold in a bucket of water with micro fiber mitt and my garden hose with a nozzle for pressurized jet...
Worked great for my mustangs.. I could get my whole car looking great in 20 minutes.


Enter the truck... It took me 45 minutes to do it, and I still didn't feel like I got it really good, especially in the wheel wells where you can see all the suspension and stuff..

so.. I bought a pressure washer, cheap $115, 1700PSI 1.6gpm Everything I've read says GPM matters more than anything.. however, hitting that numbers seems to be mostly in more expensive ($300-$400) pressure washers.. and most of the recommendations I see online for pressure washers for cars also lists mostly 1.4GPM or lower...


Now, the question..

I ordered this foam cannon:
which says 2.0GPM and 1000+ PSI... think my pressure washer will do alright with it?

I also ordered this for the foamer:

Chemical Guys CWS_110_16 Honeydew Snow Foam Car Wash Soap and Cleanser (16 oz), some say it's harsh and less expensive ones work just as well..


My pressure washer also allows me to fill a tank with detergent and do a soap mode with an included nozzle.. but most people recommend not bothering with that.. just spray down with water, then foam it, then spray off, then wash with mitt+soap, then rinse.

Does that sound correct? Any thoughts? Sounds like I'm adding extra steps that will make cleaning my truck even longer... or should I just spray down, foam, rinse and call it good? skip the whole mitt and bucket?

mikem8560

[QUOTE=Mishri;8588693]I could get my whole car looking great in 20 minutes.


Enter the truck... It took me 45 minutes to do it, and I still didn't feel like I got it really good, especially in the wheel wells where you can see all the suspension and stuff..
QUOTE]
just did my car and truck m I feel your pain

Mishri

so.. nobody on this forum has used a foam cannon? mind boggling...

edit:

So.. from what I've read elsewhere I'm supposed to:

Pre-Rinse
Foam Cannon
Rinse
Foam Cannon
Mitt wash
Rinse
-Foam cannon again if desired followed by another rinse.

I'm guessing that way I just use a rinse bucket for my mitt and don't need a bucket of suds.


So.. I just got my foam cannon in this morning. I'll post up what I did and results.. my truck isn't very dirty but.. I guess it'll be good to make sure the foam cannon works with the lower than desired gpm. If not I'll return the pressure washer as all the foam cannons I saw say they need 2.0gpm.

Mishri

foam cannon works alright, followed directions on bottle of 2oz of fluid and fill rest with water.. it made foam, but it wasn't super thick that stayed there.. was kind of runny but still had foam behind 5 minutes later.. just not really thick. I found people online say they use 5oz to achieve the super thick foam.. so next time I wash my truck I'll try that.

People also usually talk about washing their cars when doing the method i mentioned above, and they only use 1 bottle full of the foam cannon.. I used 1 bottle just for 1 foam cannon pass on the truck.. so I'll probably just do rinse down, foam cannon, mitt wash, rinse...

Derf00

Foam cannon is what I've been thinking about doing. Most of the videos I've seen, Including chemical guys I think say to rinse, hit it with the cannon, then use a mitt and then once more with the cannon if needed. I've never seen the rinse, foam, rinse, foam, rinse....blah blah blah method. Seems counter productive to me to foam it more than twice as in it defeats the purpose of convenience and being "green" cos you're just wasting water then.

dkpGTCS

I had an electric 1300psi washer and I had foam - good but not great. I ended up buying a gas washer w/ a honda engine for working on my pool and tried it out for cleaning the car - foam is now absolutely fantastic. So the cheaper electric washers will work, just like you found out, but the powerful gas models are a lot better.

A while back I tried a foam gun and all I can say for future readers is; Don't wast your money. Cheaper to fill a bucket with water/soap and throw it on your car.

mustangman02232

Never used the foam canon just the line off the pressure washer into the soap, i would think it would probably be the same with the cannon of rinse it down to get the big stuff off, foam it, use a brush/sponge, then hit it one more time before going to clean water. Never had a problem doing it that way but then again I'm probably spoiled with the hot water power washer.