High pH cleaners tend to work well to remove traffic film. However, not all alkaline cleaners are created equal. You can get caustic and non caustic products, with non caustic obviously being preferable on cars paint and for your health. Then you can get products that are cationic or non-cationic. Cationic products are positively charged so don`t rinse off the car as easily as they are attracted to the car, but that means that they are less likely to attract dust, with non-cationic being the opposite.
Bilt Hamber are probably the best exponents of these types of cleaners. They are all non caustic but highly effective. Bilt Hamber Autofoam is a cationic snowfoam/TFR and they have just released Touch-Less (it`s a pun) which is a non cationic snowfoam/TFR. There has been a bit of a groundswell in the UK about the potential for Autofoam to damage or at least hide the LSP`s hydrophobics at 4% concentration, no doubt related to the above. Bilt Hamber have reacted by producing a powerful cleaner that should visually affect LSP`s hydrophobics less.
