*** The Car Cleaning Thread ***

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dacads said:
4 hours not bad, there's some here who'd spend that time on one car :p
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I could too but during winter it is just a simple hoover, snowfoam and jet wash. Kinda of pointless going all out when your car will be filthy the next day.

All three have had a good mop and wax ready for the winter ahead which took considerably longer. Much to the annoyance of my other half :p
 
wez130 said:
I've just bought a new car that's worth looking after lol. So i need some new cleaning bits, i've got some autoglym polish and zymol wax, i don't have any good wheel cleaner though, so talk to me about wheel cleaners. Merlins blood or Valetpro Bilberry wheel cleaner? Both look good but the bilberry is a couple of quid cheaper. Also looking for a nice leather cleaner / treatment for a white / grey (BMW Oyster) leather interior.
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Bilberry wheel cleaner is fantastic, removes all grime with minimum effort needed, don't see why you would need anything else.
 
Gave the car a quick wash today to try out my new Nilfisk.

Its too powerful! The washer itself seems okay, but every few minutes, the plastic Hozelock connectors for my hosepipe kept popping off, either off the Nilfisk itself, or in most cases, at the hose reel on the wall. It seems that when you take your hand off the trigger, there's a pressure spike which causes it. Absolute ballache :(

Anyone know if it's possible to buy much stronger hozelock connectors, I guess metal ones?
 
Conscript said:
Gave the car a quick wash today to try out my new Nilfisk.

Its too powerful! The washer itself seems okay, but every few minutes, the plastic Hozelock connectors for my hosepipe kept popping off, either off the Nilfisk itself, or in most cases, at the hose reel on the wall. It seems that when you take your hand off the trigger, there's a pressure spike which causes it. Absolute ballache :(

Anyone know if it's possible to buy much stronger hozelock connectors, I guess metal ones?
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Of course there is a pressure spike. You're stopping the flow of running water. How old are these connectors? May have aged badly? I've had no such issue when I do my friends car at his place.
 
In my experience hose connectors do go bad after a few years and start popping off, replace and job done, even the cheap 80p jobs from the local hardware store work fine.
Try just turning the tap down a bit though, little pressure washers don't require much flow at all, 310lph for a c110, your typical tap will flow in the region of 1000lph. Opening the tap more than necessary will increase pressure in the hose and thus connectors blowing off.
Nilfisk could do with a softer shutoff valve though, I get moaned at when using mine because of the fairly loud water hammer that can be heard in the house.
 
They aren't particularly old. Maybe just over a year or so I'd guess. I did try turning the tap down a bit but they still did it. I wonder if there's something dropping them lock properly.

Luckily none of my neighbors were home to witness the hose disconnecting from the reel and completely soaking me :D
 
I use plastic connectors with my Karcher K7 (higher pressure than that Nilfisk) and they don't pop off... French mains water runs at a higher pressure too...

Sounds like you just need new hose connectors. Given that they're not that old, maybe it just got damaged somehow...
 
I've only ever had them pop off when they've gotten old, and it's likely nothing to do with the pressure washer pressure, but the pressure from the tap.

Just buy new Hozelock connectors and be done with it.
 
I just bought some of that bilberry wheel cleaner, and the valetpro leather soap. I may see if my boss wants to go halves on a snowfoam lance, we have a large petrol Karcher at work that does hot and cold so i'll be looking after my car there :p
 
Indeed I will do.

Anyway, the Nilfisk itself is very good. Feels a bit better built and more substantial than the Karcher, nice long hose and the 90 degree nozzle attachment makes cleaning the sills much easier.
 
wez130 said:
I just bought some of that bilberry wheel cleaner, and the valetpro leather soap. I may see if my boss wants to go halves on a snowfoam lance, we have a large petrol Karcher at work that does hot and cold so i'll be looking after my car there :p
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You want to go halves on something that costs £15?
 
wez130 said:
I just bought some of that bilberry wheel cleaner, and the valetpro leather soap. I may see if my boss wants to go halves on a snowfoam lance, we have a large petrol Karcher at work that does hot and cold so i'll be looking after my car there :p
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Snow foam lance is only ~£15...why go halves on that?
 
Picked up a bottle of Auto Finesse Iron Out earlier in the week and gave the car a quick clean with it today in between the rain. Pretty impressed with how quick it got to work and brought up the alloys without much effort - definitely better than the rubbish I was using before.
 
They got two layers of the Poorboys Wheel Sealant after the clean which I picked up with the Iron Out so hopefully that keeps the rubbish off.
 
Is there anything to know about washing large drying towels? Cold wash? Don't spin dry? Or wash like any other towel?

One has a tag, looks like 40oC no spin dry. Other, more fibrous doesn't.
 
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