I live in an apartment complex without access to a hose to do regular washes. I'm in New Jersey so I need to devise a system that will handle removing the winter road salt and grime from my new Porsche.

What do the professional detailers on this forum think of using ONR for regular washes? Is it safe or likely to induce scratches/swirls? Maybe it would be safer if I did a pretreat with the ONR to loosen the grime before washing with ONR?

The other option I've been pondering is to get one of the portable Nomad pressure washers that holds 3.5 gallons and doing a regular two bucket wash with the Nomad as my water source.

Thanks in advance for any input and advice.

 

Well I live in a place that I can't wash cars because its right off of a stream. I either wash my cars and other cars with ONR once a week if its not too bad, or I take it to the local brown bear car wash with my wash mitts, brushes, buckets, soaps and other cleaners. I only use their pressure washer and foamer...

 

ONR is an amazing product. I use it regularly for clay lube, window cleaning, etc. along with washing cars. I was a skeptic for a little while when it first came out. After I started using it however, I found that it not only cleaned the cars very well but also left a very slick and glossy finish.

I always have a 32oz. spray bottle mixed 8oz/1gal (ONR/water). I use this as clay lube, quick detailer, glass cleaner, etc. but I also use it to spray the paint right before an ONR wash. I spray an area that I will be cleaning hoping to loosen up most of the dirt on there so it comes right off. During winter months, I always tell clients to run their cars through a rinseless auto wash in order to get off a lot of the dirt, salt, grim, etc. that's really stuck on there. This has worked great with the ONR washes and I can easily recommend it.

I do believe it has its limitations but that's speculation as I've never honestly done an ONR wash on a muddy/soiled vehicle. As mentioned above though, I think if you do a pre-rinse at a rinseless wash place, ONR will do a great job and your Porsche will be perfectly clean.

 

I am also confronted with this situation in my town home complex, so I use the Detailing Caddy. Using Poly's Clear Tech Detailing Fluid and the caddy allow me to clean my vehicle or my boat on the spot without having to depend on a water spigot. It simply plugs into the 12v accessories outlet in my vehicle or boat and will handle up to 5 gallons of premix of your favorite rinseless product. When cleaning my boat at the marina, I just drop the portable unit, wrap the 50ft hose around the boat, pre-mist to emulsify the contaminants. Then using a bucket with 1 cap of Poly's per gallon, I use this mix to rinse out the MF as I wipe. Then wipe completely dry or flash remaining product off with a dry MF for awesome results.

Here I was cleaning my Mazda 3 in the adjacent parking lot of the elementary school across from my town home..

Before rinseless wash



During wash



After rinseless wash



It took me only about 20 minutes to achieve these results with this rinseless system, then it just folds up and packs into the back of the Mazda 3

 

Neat little set up.

 

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I am a pro detailer and am not a fan of ONR or other rinse less wash systems. I have used it on my own vehicles for a winter just to test it and see how it worked. Yes it does leave a small level of slickness behind, big deal, that does not mean it will not mare or scratch the finish by dragging dirt particles accross the surface.

Dirty cars with road salt and other winter sludge really need to be prerinsed to remove the larger dirt particles first before being washed.

I would strongly suggest the traditional bucket wash method for your situation and if you're able pressure wash all that sludge off before you wash it.

If we were talking about a garage queen car that was just dusty I might say otherwise, but that's not the case as you mentioned.

Josh

 

I'd agree there is only so much a polymer can encapsulate and any grit particles left behind will cause surface scratches, although the Opti™ - Clean concentrate has an increased polymer content there are limits to particulate encapsulation

 

NOTHING takes the place of a simple wash. IMHO, products like ONR are good but have their limitations.

 

Thanks much to everyone for the helpful input!

I think I'll grab a Nomad 3.5 gallon portable powerwasher and see if I can pull off a normal two bucket wash with that.

Maybe, if the car is not that dirty, I'll experiment with using ONR after rinsing the car with the powerwasher.

 

When I used to own my 02 black Corvette and lived in an apartment (before I was a pro detailer) I used to drive to the coin wash, spray it down well, then drive back, then I used to fill up the buckets with warm water from the bathtub and carry them out to the car and wash and dry it. Not the best way to do it but sometimes you have to work with what you got....

Josh

 

So how much does one of these set up cost? Tell me more about this "polys" product in comparison to ONR.

Cheers,
GREG

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Before rinseless wash



During wash



After rinseless wash



It took me only about 20 minutes to achieve these results with this rinseless system, then it just folds up and packs into the back of the Mazda 3[/QUOTE]