Would you believe ANOTHER ONR thread????

[SuperBee364]

I've been obsessed with ONR for quite a while now. It's capable of doing things it just shouldn't be able to do.



For instance, how in the heck is it able to prevent marring when used as a waterless car wash? I mean, you're doing *exactly* what you're *NOT* supposed to do; smashing a wash media against your dirty paint, then rubbing all those abrasive particles around on it. Before I tried ONR, I thought it must be REALLY slippery stuff in order to provide enough lubrication to keep marring from happening. Imagine my surprise when I got my first bottle of ONR, mixed it up, and saw that it really felt no different than water. Shot my lubrication theory down.



So I go to the web site, and it says something about "polymer encapsulation", which I immediately dismissed as snake oil mumbo jumbo. Big mistake that was. Recently, I've been learning a lot about carpet cleaning. One of the big "new things" in carpet cleaning is encapsulation-type chemicals. It works by encapsulating dirt. The chemicals are allowed to dry, and the chemical (as well as the dirt it is encapsulating) is then sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. There are some very interesting sites that show this process, and it does indeed work. So when ONR claims to do "polymer encapsulation", I'm not gonna doubt Dr. G at all; it's a viable statement to make.



My theory is since the particles are "encapsulated", as long as you don't apply too much pressure, the dirt is never really allowed to come into direct contact with the paint, thereby preventing abrasion, and hence marring. Since I've had some marring occur with ONR use, I've really been trying to figure out how the stuff works, and how it should be used.



What I've seen so far:

• Don't use too much pressure. Too much pressure allows the dirt to directly contact the paint and cause marring.
  
• Make sure all the dirt gets "encapsulated" before you take it for a ride across your paint. This means using a completely saturated, dripping wet wash media. I also like to pre-spray the panel I'm working on with ONR at QD strength.

• It's more important to make sure your wash media is *completely* saturated with ONR than it is to use a clean wash media. Yeah, I know that seems weird, which is why I'm stating it. You just *can't * use too much solution on the wash media before it hits your paint. As long as the dirt is encapsulated, it's not going to mar.

As long as I keep those things in mind, I haven't had any problems with ONR washings marring my paint.



A couple months ago, I had some dirt on the outside of my glove compartment. I thought for sure that no mattter what I did, I was going to end up scratching the plastic when cleaning off the dirt. ONR to the resuce; it came completely clean without scratching the plastic one bit.



ONR is some serious juju. IMO, one of the very best and most versatile detailing products.

 

[imported_MBenz]

ONR is some serious juju. IMO, one of the very best and most versatile detailing products.

Like most i was skeptical at first, and now i was with ONR 95% of the time. For really dirty surfaces, pre soaking works great and it will almost never mar.



I like the fact that ONR is fast and "eco friendly." Washing a car in 10 minutes or less with 2 gallons of water at any location is revolutionary.

 

[Apollo_Auto]

I've just recently purchased a bottle and will be playing with it more this week... good stuff so far!

 

[Dsoto87]

You can actually see the encapsulation working. When my GS doesn't pick up all the grime in ones pass, you can see the dirt inside the water/solution left behind.



My method has been to use one pass with a dripping wet GS. Cover the entire panel leaving behind a lot of solution. The bigger grit should have been picked up. Rinse it out on the GG. Get it clean. Than I like to squeeze out as much solution as possible but still leaving it damp. I call this a "dry" pass. It should pick all of the tiny particles that weren't picked up in the first pass since the sponge was so saturated. You don't need to worry about having the sponge soaked since all the dirt should be encapsulated. It also helps with drying since it soaks up so much more.



I've had no problems with marring since using this method.

 

[craigdt]

I just finished doing an ONR wash on my Malibu about 10 min ago and am still pleased with how well it works. I can do a wash and with a WOWA, UPGP in my case, have a great looking vehicle in about 40 min.



Amazing!



Thanks for you observations and tips.

 

[a.k.a. Patrick]

I also like to pre-spray the panel I'm working on with ONR at QD strength.

I think it took me a few times until I discovered pretreating with a 1 gal Sprayer, made a huge difference. Its not that you have to or should pretreat, but it certainly helps "pre" encapsulate any debris, just like mother nature does when it rains (but with lubricants) ((Sorry mother nature, I dont think you can do that, can you?))

With that said, I dont use NRWS without pretreating, not to mention other advantages the 1 Gal sprayer has.

 

[Bigpikle]

the sprayer is a great tool for ONR washes IMHO and as said you can then see the product doing its stuff and lifting the dirt away. I also like the way it can be used to 'wash' vehicles in showrooms or other dry areas

 

[citizen arcane]

Yeah I bought a gal and have been playing w/ it as well. First off I've only done a full wash to my cars four times and to this point I find it no faster than a conventional wash. Now where it's come in handy for me is doing a quickie to the front end to remove bugs that would have otherwise dwelled there.



What I really like is incorporating it into my conventional wash routine. I now spray the car w/ a one gal sprayer and 2 oz/gal for a presoak then rinse. Reapply to each panel before touching w/ wash media really helps glide the media along. The washed panels are once again sprayed as I find that this helps keep the panel wetter than water in our Texas heat. When finished I saturate the car once again w/ solution then blow dry leaving about 30% on the car. Combined w/ a wrung out WW I feel as if this has way less potential to mar than my past conventional wash method. Owning three black vehicles I need all the added advantages I can get!

 

[Barry Theal]

Im curious for someone who has never used onr. how do you clean wheels and such? like the wells tires?

 

[imported_sal3291]

Great for glass, interiors, wheels, wells, chrome, paint.... I love this stuff

I spray tires, wells and wheels with diluted apc, dip a brush, mitt or towel in ONR and clean, dry, then rinse once again with mitt and dry

 

[Dsoto87]

Yeah I bought a gal and have been playing w/ it as well. First off I've only done a full wash to my cars four times and to this point I find it no faster than a conventional wash. Now where it's come in handy for me is doing a quickie to the front end to remove bugs that would have otherwise dwelled there.



What I really like is incorporating it into my conventional wash routine. I now spray the car w/ a one gal sprayer and 2 oz/gal for a presoak then rinse. Reapply to each panel before touching w/ wash media really helps glide the media along. The washed panels are once again sprayed as I find that this helps keep the panel wetter than water in our Texas heat. When finished I saturate the car once again w/ solution then blow dry leaving about 30% on the car. Combined w/ a wrung out WW I feel as if this has way less potential to mar than my past conventional wash method. Owning three black vehicles I need all the added advantages I can get!

Being in texas, onr is made for people like you. Mix 2 gallons of distilled water and you won't even have to touch your car to dry. As long as your wash media is removing everything than it will dry streak free.

 

[yo2tup]

Being in texas, onr is made for people like you. Mix 2 gallons of distilled water and you won't even have to touch your car to dry. As long as your wash media is removing everything than it will dry streak free.

won't it leave water spots?

 

[armoredsaint]

out of curiosity how can you truly clean a dirty wheel with ONR? don't you really need to spray it down afterwards to rinse all the dirty stuff/brake dust?

 

[dervdave]

won't it leave water spots?

NO water spots because your drying almost immediately.

 

[dervdave]

out of curiosity how can you truly clean a dirty wheel with ONR? don't you really need to spray it down afterwards to rinse all the dirty stuff/brake dust?

NO need to rinse off because the dirt is pulled off into the wash mitt, sponge or microfibre which is rinsed into the ONR or rinse bucket where the heavy stuff sinks to the bottom.

 

[TortoiseAWD]

won't it leave water spots?

You only wash a panel or two at a time, then go back and dry those sections. With ONR, you shouldn't ever run into water spots because the wash solution doesn't have time to dry.





And, since we're talking about ONR wash methods . . .



I use an old Sonus buffing towel (microfiber, but feels more like cotton terry) as my wash media. I get the bulk of the dirt off of a panel with one side of the towel, then flip to a clean side for my final wipe on the panel. Then, to dry, I use two MF hand towels. One is dampened with ONR solution (dunk it, wring it out as much as possible), the other is just dry. I use the damp towel first, for two reasons: First, with our hard water, anything but brand-spanking new MF just doesn't absorb quickly until it's damp - it tends to just push water around. Second, I figure the damp towel has at least a little lubrication to it just in case I missed any dirt with my wash towel. Then, to finish, I follow with the completely dry towel to get the tiny amount of wash solution left behind from the damp towel.



FWIW,

Tort

 

[Eisen Hulk]

Just to make sure I'm playing it safe, if I'm going to do an ONR wash, I'll use nothing but distilled water in my wash AND rinse bucket. That way I'm 99.9999999% sure water spots will not be an issue.

won't it leave water spots?

 

[Less]

Just my two cents here:



I'm still somewhat in the "snake oil" camp regarding this product. I'm not saying that it doesn't do what it claims. I believe that polymer encapsulation is possible. I just don't believe that it's an true alternative for washing cars..



As SuperBee mentioned, your wash media has to be soaked and dripping with ONR. And you get alot more mileage out of the product when you pre-spray using a heavier dilution ratio.



Everyone seems to forget that when you wash with ONR, you're using MOSTLY just plain water. As I said, I believe that polymer encapsulation exists, however, I don't believe that a capful or two of ONR has enough encapsulation power to clean an entire car. Especially if that car is particularly dirty.



Regardless of whether or not you think I'm wrong, you can't argue that there is a MUCH smaller margin of error when using ONR compared to a traditional wash. And I don't think that ONR can hold a candle to a traditional wash when it comes to wheels, wheel wells, and engine bays.



one more thought:



How much of ONR's success is attributable to the advent of Microfiber? We all know that Microfiber has superior cleaning ability because its strands are engineered to capture dirt, pull it away from the surface being cleaned, and trap the dirt deep in the fibers until the towel can be washed.

 

[CocheseUGA]

I agree that's it's probably not best for dirty cars. But for guys like me who wash once a week, and top up with QID in-between, it works great. I did five cars last weekend, and I still have about a half-gallon of mixed solution left. I keep some Cali Gold on hand for very dirty cars or wheels.

 

[Less]

Basically for me, it comes down to this:



There is NO SUCH THING as a marring-free wash. I simply don't believe any product that makes such claims. I also don't believe anyone who says that he NEVER swirls a car when he washes it.



While it's true that certain products and techniques can minimize the potential for such defects. And it's also true that some people can produce marring free washes once, twice, ten times, or even one hundred times. But we're all human beings, and we make mistakes sometimes.



Certain products or techniques can compensate for SOME of those potential mistakes, but never ALL of them. And if you look at different wash products, in general, you'll see that as products are able to compensate for more mistakes, they become more expensive.



Just look at Microfiber. For decades, people used cotton or terry cloth towels to buff paint. And there is nothing to say that a careful detailer couldn't use those products exclusively with good results today. However, microfiber reduces the risk, and shrinks the margin of error involved in buffing. In order to do that, it takes more engineering, better materials, more care in manufacturing, higher quality standards, and therefore, more money. Same goes for wash mitts, brushes, or just about anything else. Granted there are always exceptions, but generally speaking, higher price usually equals higher quality.



For me, I think ONR is the opposite. It costs more than traditional soap. It takes longer to wash (and time is money if you do this professionally). You have to be even more careful than normal. The margin of error is smaller. So I think that money/swirl ratio is going the wrong way.



If it's 35 degrees outside, and for some reason, I absolutely MUST wash my car, ONR is the product of choice. But other than that, i just don't have a use for it.



If the same person washes 100 cars using ONR, and 100 cars using a traditional wash, I'll bet dollars for doughnuts that the ONR cars will have far more wash-induced marring than the traditionally washed cars.