I live in a condo and therefore have no access to water. Someone on here suggested the Nomad Portable Washer for a water source. I decided what the heck and picked one up.


The unit costs $300. Its powered by an 18V battery. It can hold 3.5 gallons of water. You can go through 3 tanks of water on one charge. The Nomad is built very well. It suprisingly has very good water pressure. My only complaint is the quantity of water that it sprays. It seems almost like a squirt gun on steroids. It makes rinsing the soap suds off the car a little difficult. It took me close to a full tank just for rinsing. And then even after the car was rinsed there was still a film leftover after drying the car. My guess is this was leftover soap that I didn't get completly off.

After some trial and error I used some ONR to wash the car instead of traditional soap and came out with great results.

I use regular car wash soap for the wheels. I then wash the car with ONR.

I'm able to get the entire process done with only one tank (3.5 gallons) of water and I get good results.

After washing today, I clayed the car and then added a coat on Glanz wax. I never thought I'd be able to get these kind of results without having a traditional driveway/garage.

The only downside to whole process is that my neighbors think I'm crazy.

Here are some quick pics from my cell phone...

 

Seems pretty cool. Great looking car by the way.

 

Thanks for the review...your persistence is commendable Your Z06 looks very clean and the unit looks promising for those without access to water.

 

Awesome!!

I was that "someone"!

I really dig the Nomad, that's why I started carrying them.

I hadn't tried it with ONR though. Did you mix the ONR in the machine and then spray it on that way? I had only used the system with DI water.

I find that if you adjust the nozzle so that it is not spraying in a full stream and rinse top to bottom that it rinses fairly well. I can generally do something the size of a large Lexus SUV on 1 and a half tanks.

D!

 

I don't mix the ONR in the machine. I just use the 2 bucket method as described on here with a sheepskin mit. The rinsing was a pain and took way too much water. Maybe I'm just too impatient. By skipping the rinse I can get through the whole wash using less than one full tank of water. Its a lot quicker too. I have a 150 foot walk to the garage though, so each every little bit of water conservation helps.

 

ok, I'm confused as to what you are using the Nomad for. Pre-rinse? Or are you rinsing off the ONR?

D!

 

I just use it for the wheels and for the pre-rinse.

The ONR didn't work too well when I tried it on the wheels so I use regular car wash soap for those.