New Valeting shop near me

[ioneabee]

had a flyer put in my post box and as its just round the corner in a unit (so not your common old tesco type jobbie), thought I'd go a take a look to see what they do

He was power hosing a car as I pulled up and asked him costs etc, as he was answering I looked into his bucket and copped an eyeful of a yellow sponge floating on the surface............. turned around and said "oh, you use sponges - never mind) and off I drove 

 

[glrnet]

Ha! So he's a car washer.

[ioneabee]

not even that - anybody who decides to take this up as a career, should at the very least have done "some" research 

[GMballistic]

You should of told him the errors of his ways, ...I'm sure his face would of been a picture.  

 

 

[ioneabee]

I think my rapidly disappearing back gave him the message

[G1en]

I dread to think what products some of these places use if they are happy to use a sponge. Even the local £5 hand car wash near me use "woolen" mitts although i still only take the daily there. 

Just a thought occurred to me. How in the technicolor world we live in have sponges remained yellow?

[Ekona]

Did you ask what sponge it was? Could've been a Zymol or DJ one...

 

Not all sponges are created equal, and there's a good argument for using a decent sponge over a wash mitt. Also a good argument the other way, mind!

[ioneabee]

I was close enough to see that it was a bogo off the shelf Halfrauds sponge

He thought he was going to impress me with the fact that he uses TFR as his shampoo ........... geez

 

TFR = (generic) Trafic Film Remover

[Roicey]

I use diluted TFR. Does the job

[Ekona]

TFR will strip wax, so that's fine if that's the goal. Personally I only use the stuff on commercial vehicles, as it can be quite harsh if you're not careful. But then, that's the idea!

[Stutopia]

19 hours ago, Roicey said:

I use diluted TFR. Does the job

 

Any reason you don't use a shampoo?

I mean there's loads of things that do the job, like fairy liquid, but it's not like car shampoo is expensive.

[KyleR]

TFR will only strip the wax if you leave it on too long after using it like a snow foam, if its just mixed in a bucket like shampoo it'll be fine. I actually have a TFR that is meant to be used with a lance and is validated wax safe.

 

As for sponges, they're fine if the car is pre-washed correctly and a new sponge is used every wash. But lets face it, that probably wasn't being done.

[ilogikal1]

Just to clear a few things up;

 

TFR will strip wax no matter how long you leave it on if it's not heavily diluted, that's the point of it. Granted there are now a number of products sold as "TFR" that are just slightly more concentrated snow foam (or in one case, literally just "their" shampoo in a different bottle!) but much like super resin polish isn't a polish, these "TFR's" aren't TFR's.

 

Closed cell sponges aren't "fine" if there's as much as a single grain of dirt on the surface, as that will cause damage. If the car is perfectly clean then they can be "fine" but even then I've seen a brand spanking new closed cell sponge marr perfectly clean soft paint. This however isn't any different to microfibre cloths though, anything that touches the paint can damage it if you're not careful enough.

 

Finally, "should have", not "should of". [/pet hate]