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Old 04-07-2021, 07:19 AM   #1
Josh (PA)
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Car Care Product Recommendations

I thought it would be useful to have a general catch all thread for care care / cleaning product recommendations.

This is something i just found, that seems to work well at eliminating water spots at the last rinse:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure how many washes I'll get out of it, but I put it between the hose and nozzle for my final rinse and did not that water spotting was significantly down.

I am really hooked on Zaino Leather in a Bottle for my seats. It does a great job of conditioning without leaving residue or clogging up the ventilated seats. The leather cleaner is quite nice too.
https://www.zainostore.com/product/Z-10.html

I'm still using Sonax wheel cleaner, is that still the easiest, or has anything taken its place?
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Old 04-07-2021, 08:26 AM   #2
kognito
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I've gone through a shitload of those water filters while we were full time RV'ing. I didn't think they did anything toward deionization.

I'll have to give it a try.

I am getting quotes right now for adding a whole home water filtration system. (maybe a softener too) it will be installed in the small room in the back of my garage (like the room Clyde just got rid of) I'm thinking of having an additional line run to the garage door area that I can filter with one of these

And I want to thank the recent round of stimulus checks for making these home additions possible
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Old 04-07-2021, 08:10 PM   #3
Terri Kennedy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kognito View Post
I've gone through a shitload of those water filters while we were full time RV'ing. I didn't think they did anything toward deionization.
They don't. Activated carbon filters are good for filtering out some biologicals and larger particulates. The particulates are what affect the service life of these things the most. as they clog the filter over time and reduce the flow rate.

Quote:
I'm thinking of having an additional line run to the garage door area that I can filter with one of these.
That unit doesn't include the flow rate in its description. That might be too technical for the product listing, but it isn't in the linked user manual PDF, either.

I'm not sure how much flow you're going to get through a pair of 10" filters. I have a CR Spotless unit, equivalent to their current DIC-20. To be fair, the current product page for the DIC-20 doesn't list flow rate, either. But I am able to run the output through a regular garden hose and a "fireman's nozzle" without any flow restrictor.





Those pictures are 6 years old - some time after they were taken, Chuck sent me the newer-style TDS meter which directly displays in PPM instead of the old-style neon lamp go/no go indicator.

If these are in an un-heated garage, you need to turn off the water flow to the unit and remove and drain the filters before the first freeze. That's how I ended up with a new-style head and canisters on a 2005 chassis (note the old logo compared to recent production).

To answer some other questions - the hose reels are "Retracta reels" by Macnaught and are quite hard to find in the US (they're Australian). I have these 2 water ones and a red compressed air one. The strange looking gizmo to the left of the reels is a WiFi access point.
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Old 04-07-2021, 08:31 AM   #4
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I'll add Meguiars wheel brightener for trying to recondition yellowed wheels. It's aggressive so make sure you don't leave it on for more than the 30-45 allowed. You can then rinse and re-apply. But it does a hell of a job. And it's concentrated, so that gallon will make 5 gallons and you don't need a lot of it. That thing will last me a lifetime.
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Old 04-07-2021, 09:11 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FC View Post
I'll add Meguiars wheel brightener for trying to recondition yellowed wheels. It's aggressive so make sure you don't leave it on for more than the 30-45 allowed. You can then rinse and re-apply. But it does a hell of a job. And it's concentrated, so that gallon will make 5 gallons and you don't need a lot of it. That thing will last me a lifetime.
And when Wheel Brightener won't do it, straight up muriatic acid saved my OZ Superleggeras from caked on track pad dust. No damage to the powder coated finish, but that's definitely a last resort.

CarPro Clearcut is my favorite current heavy cut compound, superceding Meguiar's M105.

Sonax Polymer Net Shield is an absolutely killer product for the lazy. Wipe on, wipe off, durable, flexible.

Sonax Wheel Cleaner is still good, but all of my cars produce brake dust that requires physical effort. This really limits the benefit over soap.

Iron-X is also still better for iron deposits on paint, although the Sonax works reasonably well for that.
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Old 04-11-2021, 11:05 PM   #6
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Sonax Polymer Net Shield is an absolutely killer product for the lazy. Wipe on, wipe off, durable, flexible.
This is the most horrible shit to apply and near impossible to "wipe off."

Absolutely aces for something that goes on super tacky and leaves streaky, though.

On a scale of 1-10 for ease of use in application compared to Fast Finish, I'd put FF at a 7 and PNS at a 2. Applying a coat of FF to a Camaro takes about 8-10 minutes, tops. One coat of PNS took near 90 minutes with most of that time spent working the "wipe off" step. I went though a bunch of microfibers and ultimately had to go back over the whole car with a big waffleweave and I'm not sure I got all of it. Oh, and that time doesn't include the hood because I didn't know how well it would play with the black vinyl. I did one small edge and will how that performs before deciding whether to do the rest of it.

No opinion yet for how it actually does its job or for how long. Based on the youtube comparisons, my expectations are for it to beading and sheeting performance to be similar, but probably last longer (but doubt it will last so much longer that I'll ever willingly use it again).

edit: I reversed the ease of use ratings. I believe this is what prompted JST's response below. Whoops. Corrected now.
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Last edited by clyde; 04-12-2021 at 01:03 AM.
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Old 04-07-2021, 09:32 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by Josh (PA) View Post
This is something i just found, that seems to work well at eliminating water spots at the last rinse:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure how many washes I'll get out of it, but I put it between the hose and nozzle for my final rinse and did not that water spotting was significantly down.
Somewhere in the description/questions/comments, I saw something about 500 gallons.

This guy didn't seem to think it was a good bet for eliminating water spots:
Quote:
Originally Posted by some guy named "Greg" on amazon
[I purchased this to produce a spotless rinse while cleaning cars but ran some tests on the filter. Long story short, it didn't work out. Here's how I tested:

After receiving the filter, I attached to my water spigot and purged for 2 minutes. I took glass 1, rinsed and filled the glass with filtered water. I removed the filter again and filled glass 2 with tap water. Examined 3 areas:

1) VISUAL: Both tap water and filtered water appeared clear or colors or sediment. PASS

2) TASTE: The filtered water had slightly less taste, but hardly noticeable: BARELY PASS

3) TDS metering: I bought a "Total Dissolved Solids" meter than measures purity. (ex. tap water: 100-400ppm - Distilled water: 0ppm). My tap water measured at 402 ppm, but the filtered water came in at 442ppm!! What?? The filtered water came in LESS pure?

Most likely the higher TDS rating likely came from harmless excess sediment from
the carbon filter. It appears these carbon filters are designed to only filter out non TDS solids (ex converting gross well/hose water into more pleasant drinking water).

OVERALL: These may still be good for converting clean hose water into something more palatable for RVs, but certainly not for creating a spot-free rinse. I don’t think any carbon filter can obtain a low TDS (spot-free) rinse. If that’s what you’re looking for, your remaining options are likely either triple osmosis or distilled.
Water spots have become relevant to me. I never had an issue on the gray Camaro, but have noticed them the last two washes on the orange car despite using the same big ass and waffleweave drying towel process on both cars. It was not a problem with earlier washes of the orange car, but I had to replace the hose recently, and that's the only thing I can think of unless the water authority made some changes.
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Old 04-07-2021, 10:36 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by clyde View Post
Somewhere in the description/questions/comments, I saw something about 500 gallons.

This guy didn't seem to think it was a good bet for eliminating water spots:


Water spots have become relevant to me. I never had an issue on the gray Camaro, but have noticed them the last two washes on the orange car despite using the same big ass and waffleweave drying towel process on both cars. It was not a problem with earlier washes of the orange car, but I had to replace the hose recently, and that's the only thing I can think of unless the water authority made some changes.
In DC, they just swapped chloramine for chlorine for the spring decontamination of the water pipes. I wouldn't be surprised if there's extra deposits in the water for the next month.
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Old 04-07-2021, 10:55 AM   #9
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I use raggtopp cleaner & protectant 2-step for the boxster's top, only about once or twice a year; it seems sufficient as it's almost never parked out.
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Old 04-07-2021, 11:19 AM   #10
Josh (PA)
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I use raggtopp cleaner & protectant 2-step for the boxster's top, only about once or twice a year; it seems sufficient as it's almost never parked out.
I've been happy with 303 products for my convertible tops.
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