Mr. Clean isn't just for your grimey tiles now; the bald dude has taken on the challenge of our dirty cars! After leaving my car in North Carolina over christmas break, my poor 330i has gone through 2 snows and about two months without a decent wash! Sinful, I know. Today, I went over to Target to buy a wash bucket, some sponges, etc, but decided to purchase the Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash starter kit instead.
http://www.homemadesimple.com/mrcleanautodry/index.shtml
The kit includes their magic washer gun, the filter element and a bottle of their soap. Here's my experience with it:
The washer gun is a great tool. It's ergonomically designed to accomodate cold and wet hands. Everything moves easily and the controls are extra large, unlike the average garden faucet gun that is impossible to operate with swollen, cold fingers. The spray of water (the rinse water) is light, just the right amount to clean most dirt off without forcing particles to etch the finish.
The soap setting (and the provided soap itself) proved to be the negative part of the entire package. The amount of soap the instruction manual recommends is not enough to carefully wash an entire car. There is also a definite lack of suds or lather. Even when I used my wash mitt, I could not get a decent amount of suds on the car. It was somewhat unrewarding, although the soap itself does smell good. The instruction manual claims that using any other soap than theirs will cause clogging in the device. I don't know whether that's truth or just marketing BS. The soap, combined with my vigorous scrubbing, did do a very good job of getting all the dirt/dust off of my car, though.
Once I completed washing the car (in quarterpanels, as recommended by the manual), I used the "money maker" of the Mr. Clean AutoDry system: the de-ionized water spray. In case you didn't know, dried water spots are not formed by water, but by dust, calcium, minerals and the other impurities in water that are left when the H20 evaporates. The idea behind rinsing your car in de-ionized water is that the filter removes all of these impurities, rinsing your car in pure H20. When the H20 evaporates, there is nothing left behind except your spotless finish.
Believe me, it works. This feature is worth the 20 bucks alone. I sprayed the car top-to-bottom with the de-ionized water and the car dried spotless.
In summary, it's a very good product. The place I used to wash my car at was a coin spray-wash place that had a de-ionized spray option. It worked about the same. It saves the hassle of drying and the risk of scratching your finish with poor quality towels. The only downside to the Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash system is that the soap part is such a poor alternative to Mequiar's Gold Class, Zaino, Zymol and the other high-quality shampoos recommended by board members. My recommendation is to use a seperate shampoo and use the Mr. Clean gun for initial rinsing and final spraydown. That, or someone should test to see if you can use different shampoos in the gun. If you guys have any questions, feel free to post them here or PM me.
http://www.homemadesimple.com/mrcleanautodry/index.shtml
The kit includes their magic washer gun, the filter element and a bottle of their soap. Here's my experience with it:
The washer gun is a great tool. It's ergonomically designed to accomodate cold and wet hands. Everything moves easily and the controls are extra large, unlike the average garden faucet gun that is impossible to operate with swollen, cold fingers. The spray of water (the rinse water) is light, just the right amount to clean most dirt off without forcing particles to etch the finish.
The soap setting (and the provided soap itself) proved to be the negative part of the entire package. The amount of soap the instruction manual recommends is not enough to carefully wash an entire car. There is also a definite lack of suds or lather. Even when I used my wash mitt, I could not get a decent amount of suds on the car. It was somewhat unrewarding, although the soap itself does smell good. The instruction manual claims that using any other soap than theirs will cause clogging in the device. I don't know whether that's truth or just marketing BS. The soap, combined with my vigorous scrubbing, did do a very good job of getting all the dirt/dust off of my car, though.
Once I completed washing the car (in quarterpanels, as recommended by the manual), I used the "money maker" of the Mr. Clean AutoDry system: the de-ionized water spray. In case you didn't know, dried water spots are not formed by water, but by dust, calcium, minerals and the other impurities in water that are left when the H20 evaporates. The idea behind rinsing your car in de-ionized water is that the filter removes all of these impurities, rinsing your car in pure H20. When the H20 evaporates, there is nothing left behind except your spotless finish.
Believe me, it works. This feature is worth the 20 bucks alone. I sprayed the car top-to-bottom with the de-ionized water and the car dried spotless.
In summary, it's a very good product. The place I used to wash my car at was a coin spray-wash place that had a de-ionized spray option. It worked about the same. It saves the hassle of drying and the risk of scratching your finish with poor quality towels. The only downside to the Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash system is that the soap part is such a poor alternative to Mequiar's Gold Class, Zaino, Zymol and the other high-quality shampoos recommended by board members. My recommendation is to use a seperate shampoo and use the Mr. Clean gun for initial rinsing and final spraydown. That, or someone should test to see if you can use different shampoos in the gun. If you guys have any questions, feel free to post them here or PM me.