ilogikal1

There are a couple on here these days I can think of that I personally think have gone too far and look "hideous", but I don't see the benefit of naming names. Not least of all because one of those has demonstrated their lack of acceptance of other people having opinions.

"Relisted due to time-wasters".

Like I say, not the worst thing seen on here... but each to their own.

Each to their own, Dan.

Domestic use water softeners and DI filters do different things (well, the same thing but to a different degree); as I understand it (happy to be corrected by someone who knows better, of course!) softeners reduce the level of, but leave some, minerals in the water which is good for human consumption (as pure de-ionised water doesn't taste nice at all) whereas a DI filter removes all minerals to 0ppm, leaving pure de-ionised water which is good for washing stuff like cars. I could be completely wrong of course.

Spend more for the outlay and get refillable DI resin tank. A) it'll last (much!) longer in the first place, and 2) it'll be much cheaper to refill with new resin than it will be to replace an inline one. I've also just noticed that the Aqua Gleam in-line version has increased in price, so it's actually not that much cheaper anymore anyway! There's a review of both in my thread somewhere (search DI filter, Aqua Gleam or Daqua rather than water softener though), but in short; 11 litre tank from Daqua will last a lot longer than the in-line jobbies and replacement MB-400/MB-114 resin is readily available from various sources (including, but not limited to Daqua) - https://www.daqua.co.uk/divessels.htm

To be fair, it's not that much worse than some of the cars we've seen on here.....

Not disagreeing with you. To someone like me a proper wash means all in, every little detail in a very regimented process. The car is still “dirty” to me if you don’t do a full decontamination & de-tar... To some people so long as it looks shinier than when they started it’s enough. The point I was trying to make is that it depends on what you’re trying to achieve and how far you’re willing to go to achieve that, that’s all.

You’re right, pre-wash alone won’t get the car as clean as a proper wash. But a proper wash alone won’t be as safe as a pre-wash. When you’re not able (or willing, because sometimes we all CBA) to do both you need to choose the lesser of two evils... which will depend on how concerned you are for the other. The less you can touch the car, the safer though, so DI filter FTW!

Ceramic coatings are awesome but they do have limitations to what they can actually do. Despite any amount of marketing, they simply can't be an apply-once-last-for-eternity, completely self-cleaning, one-stop-solution to soft paint miracle cure to everything. One of my favourite myths about coatings is increasing the hardness (Mohs rating) of your paint - whilst true to tiny degree if the paint underneath a coating is soft, then by its nature it allows for more movement under the coating - think of the coating like a plank of plywood; place it on a concrete floor (hard paint) and it'll take a fair bit of pressure on it to break the plank (coating). Put it on a mattress (soft paint) and it'll break much sooner and with much less pressure. Sorry, random tangent... Polishing will be enough to remove even stubborn coatings applied properly.... it's just a question of how much polishing! Wet sanding is only really needed if you need to remove a particularly stubborn coating quickly. Or at least with less effort. But yes, in cases of scratches, a coating is no different to paint. The only saving grace is if it's not deep enough to penetrate the coating, it'll "fix" itself over the 18-24 months that the rest of the coating lasts... or you can actually fill the scratch by topping up the coating, similar to a smart repair for paint, but easier to colour match.

I have to agree with Ekona, TBM makes a massive difference for every single wash. Grit guards are a waste of money as well, they do nothing but encourage unsafe wash technique, frankly. But given it’s the bending over to the bucket that is the problem here there’s no reason to use one bucket instead of two anyway. I would suggest, to save your back, do your snow foam and rinse as usual, then apply the shampoo to the paint work via the foam lance instead of a bucket - it’s best to do so one or two panels at a time or reapplying the shampoo regularly to ensure a safer wash, and make sure you’re still washing out the mit regularly as you go as well. Elevating the bucket is a good shout if you can, even if you then combine the two methods and just have one rinse bucket for the mitt. Open hose with slow running water to encourage sheeting on the final rinse is also good advice, but it might be worth considering a DI filter so you can rinse and walk away without worrying about water spots, no drying needed.

In those circumstances I would skip the expense of Bathe+ (using via a foam lance would either dilute it too much to be effective or use an obscene amount) and just stick to Wetcoat instead.

Turtle Wax throw more money at “reviews” than they do R&D. :lol: So yes, if you consider their budgets, I do believe they would “win” ;) AutoExpress in particular are also known for this. They are not widely considered for their unbiased, independent reviews! BH is a QD. Anglewax is a rinse aid. And AutoGlym is absolutely not a premium product! Can be used as a wax is different from being a wax. See BSD, albeit in reverse. Im not saying any of them are terrible products, by the way, but half of them do something completely different to the purpose of the test. It’s akin to me testing CarPro Iron X against IPA and Fairy Liquid then coming to the conclusion that Iron X is the best fallout remover...

A test of durability over 3 weeks, measuring water beading when “relatively dry” for those weeks and putting Halfords stock of spray waxed against rinse aids and QD’s... I’ll say it; I question the validity of that test. might as well have just rated them by how pretty the bottle was!

As G1en mentions above, check out Car Chem offering s from him, specifically Spray Wax if you specifically want a wax or better still HydroCoat. It’s a sealant-almost-coating rather than wax but it’s much less effort than even wet waxing. The alternative would be Gyeon Wetcoat, like HydroCoat but premixed; spray on, pressure wash off, job done. Swap out your current shampoo for Bathe+ and add even more protection. I use & recommend Polished Bliss for Gyeon stuff. In terms of snow foam lances, expect to pay anywhere between £25-45 for a decent lance but there’s little-to-no difference between them so just go for the cheapest you can find. Bin the Demon Shine. Discard the Nilfisk shampoo bottle. Stop going to Halfords altogether. Especially for cleaning stuff! And I don’t really recommend buying chemicals from eBay either, there’s often scant regard for what they’re actually selling and how to handle it and that’s in the seemingly few cases where they’re actually selling what they claim to at all! Stick to reputable retailers.

Which I’m sure comes as a massive disappointment to her.

The only way of finding that out would be to ask your specific insurer to confirm. Of course, you could just give them your licence number and let them figure it out for themselves, that way there's no ambiguity at all.

And a dodgy one could do that without needing your car at all....

Check levels and top up regularly as required. Provided you don't run low on oil the only damage you're doing is likely to your cats... if you still have them.

I never knew Coventry was so hilly...

Not used it myself, but after a quick search it looks like a fairly standard ceramic coating. My only concern would be how easy it will be to apply - their website does state it's professions use only and should not be used as a DIY coating. Whilst it's possible that this is just them covering themselves, given the age of the product and the seemingly sparse updated variations I suspect that it will be particularly demanding to use. If you're comfortable with applying coatings and you particularly want to use this, I don't see any reason not to. Otherwise there are plenty of better known alternatives that I suspect will be (much) easier to use that are readily available.

But what about; fast, practical, four door, overpriced, wwd? Not so many of those on the market.

To be fair, you'd still be in a sh*tbox either way.... (I'm not a Civic fanboy, can you tell? )

I'm going to guess it's some kind of Toyota... MR2?

Designing broken engines? Probably no more than "designing" hideously ugly cars...