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Optimising cleaning, washing with foam on and 1BM (rinse bucket only)

5K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  Mr Whippy 
#1 · (Edited)
I’m curious if anyone has tried doing a snow foam pass, dwell, pressure wash, then re-foam (same or different) and just getting in there with a sponge and rinse.

It seems weird to have a bucket to add soap and water to the car, when a foamer can add the soap, and then a just rinsed sponge (mitt, whatever) carries clean water, negating the need for soapy water in a bucket.


Is it literally that 2BM gives fractionally cleaner water?

I’m often sceptical that a rinse in a bucket really cleans all the muck off a mitt, and it’ll deposit in the shampoo bucket too.
If you believe the rinse does a totally effective job, then going directly back to a foamed car seems ‘ok’ to me, vs a soapy water bucket mix, then back to the car.


Have people experimented with this?

I just find 2BM a bit of a chore, having the PW do the foam pass and get soap on so efficiently it seems odd to then do it again via a mitt using an entirely separate mechanism.
 
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#2 ·
Well for start snow foam wont necessarily have the slickness of a shampoo and other qualities which you'd want when manually cleaning but even if you used shampoo in your foam lance on the second pass you still have a chance that some of it dries before you get to the panel to wash it with your mitt. Also without a bucket to rinse you will end up simply moving dirt all over your car.

As far as experimenting is concerned I'd rather stick to a method I know that works and let others potentially inflict damage to their cars in the name of research ;)
 
#4 ·
Also without a bucket to rinse you will end up simply moving dirt all over your car.
Hi Neil, I still propose a rinse bucket, but then after rinsing go right back to the car.

In practice you have soap on car ready and a wet sponge ready to go. The issue is how much particulate do you think is left after a foam/PW rinse, to then dirt up your rinse water so much it's not effective.

But if that is a concern I think often the rinse bucket water in 2BM gets contaminated enough that you're passing dirt back to the wash/shampoo bucket and then back to the car any way.

The main question I suppose is how much dirt is passed through.

Remember some people do 2BM without a foam/rinse, or just a hose rinse, and are happy enough.
It's all about the time/cost/quality triangle I suppose. If you can get time fast and quality high but just spend more then I'd rather do that.

I recently bought a raceglaze filter for rinsing and I now can't see me 'drying' a car ever again unless I need to polish/detail immediately.
2BM is good but it does feel clunky and time consuming.

I might start doing a 50:50 on my car haha!
 
#3 ·
I sometimes go over the car with Power maxed TFR in a pump sprayer then powerwash the dirt off.
Followed by a snowfoam and use a wash mitt on the whole car when the snow foam is dwelling, as long as it's not sunny .
I am sure the guys at Orchard Autocare do this.

As far as a chance of inflicting damage, i never get my car that dirty to worry about the chance of that (maybee something to do with my OCD ) and have never used the 2 bucket method

Just make sure you don't do it this way in sunlight as mentioned the foam will dry in too quick.

Alan
 
#5 ·
After snow foam and pressure blast off, I don't ever do 2 buckets. I vary (depends how I feel) from using a shampoo mix in the Mesto foaming pump sprayer, or a shampoo mix in the foam lance. Have done this method for 5-6 years at least.
Depending on shampoo, either:
Mesto - 20-30ml in 2l
Foam lance 50-75ml in 500ml

Spray a panel, give the mitt a little blast with the sprayer, then wash panel and make sure you rinse mitt every panel/ half panel in your rinse bucket.

Give it a go, it's quite an efficient way to wash.
 
#6 · (Edited)
I wasn't a fan of the two bucket method until someone suggested I test it and look to see how much dirt etc. was left in the rinse bucket. It was a fair amount even after using snow foam but I can only wash my car every two weeks due to other commitments. I know it can feel laborious but its cheaper and easier than removing scratches and swirl marks at a later stage!

My process can take a bit longer than to do than a quick wash but it works well:
Spray TFR on lower panels (I don't bother with the upper side coz never dirty enough)
Snow Foam and rinse
Shampoo with 2 BM - both buckets have grit guards to minimise risks

Maybe do the same test I did?
 
#7 ·
Yeah my rinse bucket often gets quite dirty, but then I think that’s bad because it’s just going into my ‘clean’ shampoo bucket too.

So what if you drop the shampoo bucket and foam panels as needed, and then improve the rinse bucket process... say two rinse buckets. Or go crazy and just have a load of mits you use and just throw in the washer and never even do more than one pass on the car?



Right now I have my car sat outside but it needs cleaning regularly due to sap and so on. It’s not that dirty and a foam/blast rinse with filtered water does an almost perfect job.

Doing 2BM for what is ultimately only a minimum need for a bit of surface agitation seems excessive, especially as 2BM doesn’t do anything ‘extra’ that my method above would offer, bar the tiny extra potential for further mitt rinsing in the wash bucket... but as noted that’s not actually what you want either any way.

I can’t imsgine there is much in it on a generally clean car. Maybe different in winter or a filthy car?
 
#8 ·
I think spraying the panels and rinsing as you mention above might work but I would be nervous that the foam hadn't removed all the build-up. I already only do one pass with the same mitt - from top down so that the dirtier bits don't transfer to the top panels of the car.

You could be right that it doesn't make much difference if the car is cleaned regularly especially in the summer months.
 
#9 ·
Just to be clear you’d still do a foam + PW rinse.

Then rather than 2BM you’d just use PW to apply shampoo/suds/foam, thus removing need for the soap bucket... but still needing the rinse bucket to clean mitts.


In theory if you trust the rinse bucket is doing it’s job right then this process should be no worse than 2BM, and possibly better if you have suds ready and waiting on the paint rather than being applied via the mitt upon contact?


I’m just wondering now what to spray/foam on for the 2nd pass for sponging... I only have the AG purple trade shampoo... let’s see how the elite foamer manages with it!


Cheers

Dave
 
#11 · (Edited)
Well I gave it a bash.

I used 100ml of AG BS (purple) to about 600ml water but it was very thin and runny but still slick on the panel, and ok to use on a clean panel that just needs wiping.
I then tried 100ml BS to 150ml ish water and this was thicker, but still heavy. It’d dwell ok to do a panel or two at a time... but seemed quite wasteful on product.

The issue was having a foamer on and if you wanted to rinse it’d be lots of swapping lance to foamer.
On a hot day it’d be impossible to do without tens of lance/foamer swaps, or using a hose and PW together.

On a cool damp evening like to night it worked ok.

I think it’d work well with a shampoo that really foamed. I have some elite foam and bouncers foam so will try those on a small clean test area just to get a feel without risking swirling.


Also dragging around the PW more spraying odd panels was a chore as my hands got dirty and needed rinsing before using the mitt again.


All in the extra time saving was offset with some extra faff (cleaning/setting up foamer again, rinsing hands etc)


A quick foam/2BM/rinse 0ppm on a hot sunny day took me about 1hr.

My quick test tonight took about 1hr, so there isn’t really enough in it to make it useful given the extra faff steps.


Maybe with a dedicated shampoo pump foamer or QR guns and a perfect soap that dwells you could shave off some time.
But it seems in trying to avoid my 2BM faff and extra bucket filling/rinsing is just offset with other faff and rinsing other tools.


Time to look for other time saving methods :)
 
#14 ·
Hmmm I don’t think I could clean my F30 3er with winter salt and mud in 5 mins with ONR.

You literally get a 1mm thick layer of dried on mud on the lower parts of the car around here... then again in winter we have a river flowing 25 cumecs average about 30m from the garage so no water shortage issues.

I suppose if you live where it’s very dry then you don’t have salt and mud to contend with.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Hmmm I don't think I could clean my F30 3er with winter salt and mud in 5 mins with ONR.

You literally get a 1mm thick layer of dried on mud on the lower parts of the car around here... then again in winter we have a river flowing 25 cumecs average about 30m from the garage so no water shortage issues.

I suppose if you live where it's very dry then you don't have salt and mud to contend with.
He did say that it wasn't intended to be used for a full on deep wash.
 
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