Cleaning using foam spray?

[sp3ctre]

I have seen a few of you use the foam sprays to get the grime off your cars. It seems to work pretty well, either as a pre-detail task or an interim clean.

With the UK weather as it is I cannot be arsed cleaning the car properly in winter, but it gets so grimy it's horrible. I was wondering if the foam might be an option, but am concerned it is would be bad for the soft top.

What do you guys think? My initial reaction is it should be ok as long as the roof has been treated and the foam rinsed thoroughly after us.

 

[mmm-five]

Do you mean the snow foam and foam lance?

If so I've found that you need a good base to start from as I did mine the other week and after 15 minutes all the foam had made its way to the floor but had forgotten to take any dirt with it :thumbsdown:

I ended up starting all over, and what was intended to be a 30 minute job ended up being two hours!

Don't know if that is down the the PH neutral snow foam I'm using, or whether it's just because the car hasn't been waxed/protected yet?

 

[sp3ctre]

Mmmm, interesting comments there. To be honesy, yes, the whole purpose of this is because I am extremely lazy/busy at the moment and dont want to spend an hour washing the car. I figured I could just blast it with the foam and come back in 20 mins to rinse it off. Guess you get what you pay for in terms of effort, but thanks for the heads up.

 

[mmm-five]

I was planning on going to OffYourMarks in Liverpool to get them to do a proper paint correction, polish, wax, etc. and then take it from there myself, but with the lack of work I don't think it's wise to spend £300-£400 on making the car look beautiful when I can wash it to a reasonable degree myself for next to nothing.

I'll still endeavour with the snow foam as I've seen some unbelievable results elsewhere - maybe it's just me

 

[Ian_Mac]

I used to love the snow foam on my previous car





always gave it a quick once over with the lambs wool mitt after though. Tried it on my new Z4 avoiding the roof but wasn't impressed at all. Can't think why it'd be any different but couldn't even take any pics as it looked rubbish. Always use the same mix ratio, warm water etc. Maybe it was a 1 off as it's the 1st time I'd tried the foam on the Z4! Who knows what rubbish the supplying garage had put on it!

 

[eyup]

I use snow foam on the Z but mines a coupe so cant help with the soft top query. As far as speeding things up its does help but I alway use it with a lambswool mit as I find a lot of the dirt still requires some persuasion. However I hadnt polished it and waxed it in a while so I hoping for better result next time. For some reason, I assumed because it is dirtier, when I use foam on my girlfriends corsa you can clearly see the crud oozing off the car as the foam slides off. It would be more satisfying if I did this on mine too but I am confident it helps things along quite nicely.