Jaddie
New member
Dear Friends
richy over on Live2Detail got me interested in comparing Zep 505 to Amazing Roll Off for cleaning tires. richy's partial to Zep 505, and since he's an awesome detailer, I figured I'd give it a try. So I went to Home Depot and picked up a gallon for about US$9 and a Spraymaster bottle for about US$6.
I phoned my paw-in-law to see if any of his vehicles had dirty tires, and he said they all did. I told him what I was doing and he brought over his gray 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis.
Once I got my butt in gear I realized I had no method for comparing Zep 505 to Amazing Roll Off. Lazily, I decided to try two tires with 505 and two with Amazing Roll Off. Both chemicals were used undiluted.
I'm sorry to report that I found little difference between the two. The only difference I could see is that Amazing Roll Off worked a little faster, or, more factually, I saw brown crud faster with it. Both had similar dwell times of about two minutes, and when I applied the same cleaner to the tire on a second trial, both had white foam with no brown. The tires dried and looked like new.
I was going to try the new Mother's tire cleaner, but I figured it didn't really fit in a pressure washer situation.
I dressed the tires with Opti-Bond.
I got to try the low-pressure version of MTM Hydro's foam cannon, but I can't make a definitive conclusion yet because I used a lot of soap — four ounces of CG Honeydew and three ounces of Meguiar's APC+. The foam was heavy and thick, not quite shaving cream, but not far from it. Here's a short video that I thought to capture at the last moment with my iPhone:
MTM Hydro Foamer - YouTube
I may like the SprayMaster sprayer better than my Kwazars. Its trigger had a more positive feel and it costs about a third of the Kwazar's cost. I wish I'd studied atomization more closely.
I used Blackfire soap to wash the vehicle and wiped it down with Optimum Car Wax afterward.
My father-in-law's car is kept under his deck and gets a lot of debris on it. It was his road warrior during his last years as an industrial electronics salesman and has 151,000 miles on it.
The Optimum Car Wax gave his gray car a ridiculous shine, much more than it's done for my wife's and my white vehicles. There was fantastic distinction of image and, most importantly, my father-in-law was pleased. (He's always doing stuff for us and others and seldom does anyone do anything for him. In our defense, there's not much one can do for my father-in-law, because he already has it done.)
Somehow he got brick-red paint on lower panels of his car. He didn't know what it was and I didn't, either, upon first inspection, but I got most of it off by rubbing the affected areas with Tarminator and then putting our 1800-psi washer's narrow tip right against the paint marks. It was slow work, taking about an hour to remove ninety percent of the stray paint.
So I spent about five hours on the car today and it's only by the grace of ibuprofen that I'm ambulatory.
My in-laws are driving from Georgia to New Jersey next month and I plan to give this car a lot more attention prior to their trip.
richy over on Live2Detail got me interested in comparing Zep 505 to Amazing Roll Off for cleaning tires. richy's partial to Zep 505, and since he's an awesome detailer, I figured I'd give it a try. So I went to Home Depot and picked up a gallon for about US$9 and a Spraymaster bottle for about US$6.
I phoned my paw-in-law to see if any of his vehicles had dirty tires, and he said they all did. I told him what I was doing and he brought over his gray 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis.
Once I got my butt in gear I realized I had no method for comparing Zep 505 to Amazing Roll Off. Lazily, I decided to try two tires with 505 and two with Amazing Roll Off. Both chemicals were used undiluted.
I'm sorry to report that I found little difference between the two. The only difference I could see is that Amazing Roll Off worked a little faster, or, more factually, I saw brown crud faster with it. Both had similar dwell times of about two minutes, and when I applied the same cleaner to the tire on a second trial, both had white foam with no brown. The tires dried and looked like new.
I was going to try the new Mother's tire cleaner, but I figured it didn't really fit in a pressure washer situation.
I dressed the tires with Opti-Bond.
I got to try the low-pressure version of MTM Hydro's foam cannon, but I can't make a definitive conclusion yet because I used a lot of soap — four ounces of CG Honeydew and three ounces of Meguiar's APC+. The foam was heavy and thick, not quite shaving cream, but not far from it. Here's a short video that I thought to capture at the last moment with my iPhone:
MTM Hydro Foamer - YouTube
I may like the SprayMaster sprayer better than my Kwazars. Its trigger had a more positive feel and it costs about a third of the Kwazar's cost. I wish I'd studied atomization more closely.
I used Blackfire soap to wash the vehicle and wiped it down with Optimum Car Wax afterward.
My father-in-law's car is kept under his deck and gets a lot of debris on it. It was his road warrior during his last years as an industrial electronics salesman and has 151,000 miles on it.
The Optimum Car Wax gave his gray car a ridiculous shine, much more than it's done for my wife's and my white vehicles. There was fantastic distinction of image and, most importantly, my father-in-law was pleased. (He's always doing stuff for us and others and seldom does anyone do anything for him. In our defense, there's not much one can do for my father-in-law, because he already has it done.)
Somehow he got brick-red paint on lower panels of his car. He didn't know what it was and I didn't, either, upon first inspection, but I got most of it off by rubbing the affected areas with Tarminator and then putting our 1800-psi washer's narrow tip right against the paint marks. It was slow work, taking about an hour to remove ninety percent of the stray paint.
So I spent about five hours on the car today and it's only by the grace of ibuprofen that I'm ambulatory.
My in-laws are driving from Georgia to New Jersey next month and I plan to give this car a lot more attention prior to their trip.
