Eidolon
07-15-2009, 04:34 PM
So I was originally certain that I was quite insane for purchasing $280 in car-wash equipment. I still think I probably am/was. But I was surprised to have actually gotten what I paid for.
I thought I knew suds. I did not know suds.
Now, on to the review and my experience with the items at hand. I'll break my review down into item-level reviews, then average that out for a score for the kit, and a final overall average. Any Adam's guys reading this, feel free to comment and provide any tips on anything in this post.
What I Ordered and Package Contents
Professional Wash Kit - $179.95
Bucket with top, caddy, and grit-guard
Two Great White Drying Towels
1 Gallon of Adams Car Wash Soap
FoamMaster II Spray Gun
Firefighter Hose Nozzle
9"x9" washing pad
Tire and Wheel Essentials Kit - $44.95
1 Gallon Green Wheel Cleaner refille
Spray bottle filled with pre-diluted solution
Spray nozzle for bottle
V.R.T. Cream
Two tire applicator sponges
Boar's hair brush
Glass Cleaning Essentials Kit - $49.95
Two microfiber cloths
1 Gallon glass cleaner refill
Spray bottle filled with cleaning solution
Spray nozzle for bottle
GRRRR8 Coupon Discount: $27.49
Shipping: $33.16 (Not bad considering UPS registered it as 35 lbs combined)
Total: $280.53
Shipping and delivery were prompt. I ordered everything the Friday before Independence Day and received everything the following Friday.
Tire and Wheel Essentials Kit
I start with this kit because this is the kit I started with when washing the car, as suggested by the Adam's guys to limit the presence of water spots on the car.
What can I say? It works. This kicked off my car-wash session with the Adam's products, and I must say I was already getting a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Upon first pulling the boar's hair brush from the box, I was rather unimpressed with the stiffness of the bristles. They're soft. I'm used to having to rub the brake dust off my rims with the same pad I use to wash the car, which is why I would do the wheels after the car. So I was a little curious to see how this was going to work.
After getting the spray nozzle, the tube length for which was notably longer than either bottle I'd been given, to fit onto the bottle, I proceeded to wash down my GXP's rims with the fireman's nozzle before spritzing the Green Wheel Cleaner onto the rims and then agitating with the boar's hair brush.
The result was that the grime on the rim came right off under the soft agitation of the brush. It hit me that I was essentially brushing my car's teeth, and it worked surprisingly well. Because you're using a brush with lengthy bristles, it even makes cleaning the GXP's massive front Brembo calipers a cinch. It doesn't even take much cleaning solution, at least not on the initial pass.
The only downside? Be prepared to hunt for the little bits of brake dust you miss each pass. This was what caused me to use more fluid: I kept rinsing off the rims, then finding I'd missed a spot. It takes a bit longer, but the result is that you softly clean the brake dust from your rims without scratching them. After the wash, the rims were as clean as I'd ever seen them. The tires, too.
I haven't tried the V.R.T. cream yet because I washed the car late in the evening and didn't have time for them to dry before it got rather late. I'll try it at some point in the future and update this review when I do.
Boar's hair brush - 10/10
Green Wheel Cleaner - 10//10
V.R.T. Cream and Applicators - Not used yet, so unrated
Total package: 10/10
Professional Wash Kit
This was the next stage of the washing process. Here I was a tad uncomfortable with my technique, as the use of the Foamy gun essentially means you're using the two-bucket method, with your one bucket serving as your rinse bucket. I'm used to having a wash bucket and then rinsing the car with the hose. Because my progress over the whole car was a little unsteady, I found myself going back and straight-up rinsing the car by disconnecting the hose from the foamy gun. This is where I really need the most work.
Foamy Gun and Wash Fluid
The Foamy gun's construction doesn't inspire oodles of confidence, but its operation is flawless. I filled the fluid chamber with a bit of Adam's wash soap and then diluted it with water using the fireman's nozzle, which proved to be a bit of a chore because the stuff foamed so much! The water pressure at my house is unfortunately rather lacking through the hose, so I'm sure the foamy gun doesn't work quite as well as it could. But the result of the sudsiness of the Adam's Wash Soap in combination with the Foamy gun was that I could, on the highest setting, literally spray a wall of suds onto my car that would stick and run down the sides. The car also looked utterly amazing when all was said and done, better than I'd seen it ever look since I first brought it home.
Foamy Gun - 9/10
Adams Wash Fluid - 10/10
Bucket, Grit Guard, and Caddy
Adams charges a lot for this bucket and caddy. Thankfully, you get a lot. The construction is fairly thick and still flexible. And it's just a bucket. The top screws on, rather than popping on, and seals tight should you need it to. The grit guard is well made out of a rigid plastic.
I used the grit guard in the base of the bucket, which I overall used for rinsing the car after I'd soaped it down with the Foamy gun. The 9"x9" pad was kept in the clean water in the bucket until I needed it, when I would use it upon the car to actually do the washing. After using it on the car, I would return it to the bucket and rub it against the grit guard to dislodge any dirt in the pad. At one point I accidentally tipped the bucket, and it looked like I had quite a bit of junk at the bottom of the bucket. From this, and from the final look of the car, I'd say this combo did its job.
Bucket Combo - 10/10
Wash Pad
Let me state before this that I'm used to a wash mitt that is covered in thick microfiber threads, like if an oven mitt and Medusa got together and had microfiber kids. That stated...
This wash pad was the one disappointment in the kit. Adams claims that the wash pad material is specially designed to get the dirt off your car, then release it when it's submerged.
Sort of.
It's a synthetic tangle of fibers that, while soft to the touch and soft on the car, nonetheless likes to hold onto the dirt it picks up because of the tangled nature of the fibers. It makes the grit guard in the bucket a near necessity. In combination with the grit guard, it does release a good portion of the particles it picks up, but I would likely want to run it through a washing machine before trusting it to have been fully divested of any particles it may have picked up from the lower half of the car. That said, I will say I'm not so worried that using it without first washing it would terrify me to use it on my car.
The other thing I noted was that, during use, I would occasionally find bits of the fiber coming out of the pad. This was its first use, though, so I wasn't entirely surprised. We'll see how it holds up.
The other trick is that the pad is double-sided with no seams and a foam core. It's flexible and, when weighted with water, a tad awkward to move over the surface of the car. Plus, with the rinse method I was using, I wasn't sure just how much water I wanted to bring out of my rinse bucket. I found myself refilling my rinse bucket frequently just because I was pulling so much water out with the pad. That particular note is more a matter of my newness to the method, but it's not as easy to use as a mitt. This trade-off is at least mitigated by the fact that the pad itself is large and lets you cover quite a bit of area.
9"x9" Wash Pad - 6/10
Fireman's Nozzle
Um... It sprays. And works as it should. I had one of these before I ordered the kit, so I was already a fan. Now I have one extra to give away! The one thing I will say is that it doesn't seem to focus the water into quite such a jet as the old one I already had, nor does it rotate as freely. But those are minor quibbles against... a sprayer. And I'm sure it'll loosen up with use.
Fireman's Nozzle - 10/10
Great White Drying Towels
This is a truly great product. The Meguiar's Drying Towel I'd had to this point was also a waffle weave, but the material was rougher, and the way it felt going over the paint was... worrisome. It also had a stitched nylon border that was a little questionable, plus a nylon tag. The Adam's Great White Drying Towels have no such border, only soft stitching around the edges. They also have no tag. Just a stick-on label that comes right off. They're absorbent and SOFT. We'll see how long the softness lasts, but I was amazed at how well they picked up water off the car. In combination with the incredibly simple advice to run water straight from the hose onto the car to cause less beading, I was able to use the towels to dry off the car posthaste and nearly eliminate water spots. In combination with the Adams Wash Fluid, these towels greatly contributed to the final cleanness of the car.
Great White Drying Towels - 10/10
TOTAL PACKAGE: 9.16/10
Glass Cleaning Essentials Kit
Now on to cleaning the interior glass after the wash job.
Glass Cleaning Fluid
I've discovered a serious flaw with this product.
It smells tasty.
Seriously! I wanted a glass of lemonade after using this product!
Oh, you wanted to know how it works on glass? Right, right...
Perfectly. Removes streaks just as well as the Windex I was using before, and I'm much more confident that I'm not slowly killing my tint job with this stuff.
Here's a question for the people bored enough to read this gargantuan post (and if you're actually reading this sentence, you know I mean you): can I use this product on the LCD screen of my radio, since it has no ammonia?
Glass Cleaning Fluid - 10/10
Microfiber Glass Cloths
A slight mis-step in this kit. The clothes are two-sided. One side is more fibrous and soft, and the other is slightly more coarse and thickly woven. Using the more fibrous side of the pads, these cloths began slowly shedding fibers, micro fibers though they be, that stuck to the inside of my windshield. Those fibers are still there. The fibrous side is also difficult to move over the glass. Using the coarser side, I found, prevents this and also makes the cloth easier to move over the glass. This still means half the cloths aren't really usable. We'll see if being put through a wash cycle helps at least remove the loose fibers.
The problem is that the two microfiber glass cloths I already had, purchased from Advance Auto Parts, are still relatively soft and yet they neither shed nor are they as difficult to move over the glass. And that's both before and after they were washed.
My advice? Sorry to any Adam's guys reading this, but at this juncture my advice would be to purchase the cleaner and skip the cloths. Buy some from your local auto parts store.
Microfiber Glass Cloths - 6/10
I realize I may take some flak for not bringing this up with an Adams rep first, but this is my off-the-cuff, first-receipt review of the products. If any Adam's guys reading this believe I may have simply received defective products, feel free to contact me.
TOTAL PACKAGE: 8/10
Overall Impression
Overall, I was very impressed. It took a bit longer to do the full wash, since I'm still working on the technique, but the end effect upon my car was astounding. It looked ridiculously clean, and it even seemed to my eye that the swirls on the car and rims were reduced or at less visible. It was clean.
In the end, not everything in the kit was perfect, but would I purchase from Adam's again?
Oh heck yes. I'll be purchasing refills of all the cleaner products when I run out. The cleaning solutions themselves are stellar. I'll also be purchasing the Porter-Cable Dual Action Polisher Kit, plus some Americana Carnauba wax at some point.
My only complaints in this entire review lay, as you'll note, with the wash cloths/pads. They're the only missteps in an otherwise great set of packages.
OVERALL RATING : 9.053/10
I thought I knew suds. I did not know suds.
Now, on to the review and my experience with the items at hand. I'll break my review down into item-level reviews, then average that out for a score for the kit, and a final overall average. Any Adam's guys reading this, feel free to comment and provide any tips on anything in this post.
What I Ordered and Package Contents
Professional Wash Kit - $179.95
Bucket with top, caddy, and grit-guard
Two Great White Drying Towels
1 Gallon of Adams Car Wash Soap
FoamMaster II Spray Gun
Firefighter Hose Nozzle
9"x9" washing pad
Tire and Wheel Essentials Kit - $44.95
1 Gallon Green Wheel Cleaner refille
Spray bottle filled with pre-diluted solution
Spray nozzle for bottle
V.R.T. Cream
Two tire applicator sponges
Boar's hair brush
Glass Cleaning Essentials Kit - $49.95
Two microfiber cloths
1 Gallon glass cleaner refill
Spray bottle filled with cleaning solution
Spray nozzle for bottle
GRRRR8 Coupon Discount: $27.49
Shipping: $33.16 (Not bad considering UPS registered it as 35 lbs combined)
Total: $280.53
Shipping and delivery were prompt. I ordered everything the Friday before Independence Day and received everything the following Friday.
Tire and Wheel Essentials Kit
I start with this kit because this is the kit I started with when washing the car, as suggested by the Adam's guys to limit the presence of water spots on the car.
What can I say? It works. This kicked off my car-wash session with the Adam's products, and I must say I was already getting a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Upon first pulling the boar's hair brush from the box, I was rather unimpressed with the stiffness of the bristles. They're soft. I'm used to having to rub the brake dust off my rims with the same pad I use to wash the car, which is why I would do the wheels after the car. So I was a little curious to see how this was going to work.
After getting the spray nozzle, the tube length for which was notably longer than either bottle I'd been given, to fit onto the bottle, I proceeded to wash down my GXP's rims with the fireman's nozzle before spritzing the Green Wheel Cleaner onto the rims and then agitating with the boar's hair brush.
The result was that the grime on the rim came right off under the soft agitation of the brush. It hit me that I was essentially brushing my car's teeth, and it worked surprisingly well. Because you're using a brush with lengthy bristles, it even makes cleaning the GXP's massive front Brembo calipers a cinch. It doesn't even take much cleaning solution, at least not on the initial pass.
The only downside? Be prepared to hunt for the little bits of brake dust you miss each pass. This was what caused me to use more fluid: I kept rinsing off the rims, then finding I'd missed a spot. It takes a bit longer, but the result is that you softly clean the brake dust from your rims without scratching them. After the wash, the rims were as clean as I'd ever seen them. The tires, too.
I haven't tried the V.R.T. cream yet because I washed the car late in the evening and didn't have time for them to dry before it got rather late. I'll try it at some point in the future and update this review when I do.
Boar's hair brush - 10/10
Green Wheel Cleaner - 10//10
V.R.T. Cream and Applicators - Not used yet, so unrated
Total package: 10/10
Professional Wash Kit
This was the next stage of the washing process. Here I was a tad uncomfortable with my technique, as the use of the Foamy gun essentially means you're using the two-bucket method, with your one bucket serving as your rinse bucket. I'm used to having a wash bucket and then rinsing the car with the hose. Because my progress over the whole car was a little unsteady, I found myself going back and straight-up rinsing the car by disconnecting the hose from the foamy gun. This is where I really need the most work.
Foamy Gun and Wash Fluid
The Foamy gun's construction doesn't inspire oodles of confidence, but its operation is flawless. I filled the fluid chamber with a bit of Adam's wash soap and then diluted it with water using the fireman's nozzle, which proved to be a bit of a chore because the stuff foamed so much! The water pressure at my house is unfortunately rather lacking through the hose, so I'm sure the foamy gun doesn't work quite as well as it could. But the result of the sudsiness of the Adam's Wash Soap in combination with the Foamy gun was that I could, on the highest setting, literally spray a wall of suds onto my car that would stick and run down the sides. The car also looked utterly amazing when all was said and done, better than I'd seen it ever look since I first brought it home.
Foamy Gun - 9/10
Adams Wash Fluid - 10/10
Bucket, Grit Guard, and Caddy
Adams charges a lot for this bucket and caddy. Thankfully, you get a lot. The construction is fairly thick and still flexible. And it's just a bucket. The top screws on, rather than popping on, and seals tight should you need it to. The grit guard is well made out of a rigid plastic.
I used the grit guard in the base of the bucket, which I overall used for rinsing the car after I'd soaped it down with the Foamy gun. The 9"x9" pad was kept in the clean water in the bucket until I needed it, when I would use it upon the car to actually do the washing. After using it on the car, I would return it to the bucket and rub it against the grit guard to dislodge any dirt in the pad. At one point I accidentally tipped the bucket, and it looked like I had quite a bit of junk at the bottom of the bucket. From this, and from the final look of the car, I'd say this combo did its job.
Bucket Combo - 10/10
Wash Pad
Let me state before this that I'm used to a wash mitt that is covered in thick microfiber threads, like if an oven mitt and Medusa got together and had microfiber kids. That stated...
This wash pad was the one disappointment in the kit. Adams claims that the wash pad material is specially designed to get the dirt off your car, then release it when it's submerged.
Sort of.
It's a synthetic tangle of fibers that, while soft to the touch and soft on the car, nonetheless likes to hold onto the dirt it picks up because of the tangled nature of the fibers. It makes the grit guard in the bucket a near necessity. In combination with the grit guard, it does release a good portion of the particles it picks up, but I would likely want to run it through a washing machine before trusting it to have been fully divested of any particles it may have picked up from the lower half of the car. That said, I will say I'm not so worried that using it without first washing it would terrify me to use it on my car.
The other thing I noted was that, during use, I would occasionally find bits of the fiber coming out of the pad. This was its first use, though, so I wasn't entirely surprised. We'll see how it holds up.
The other trick is that the pad is double-sided with no seams and a foam core. It's flexible and, when weighted with water, a tad awkward to move over the surface of the car. Plus, with the rinse method I was using, I wasn't sure just how much water I wanted to bring out of my rinse bucket. I found myself refilling my rinse bucket frequently just because I was pulling so much water out with the pad. That particular note is more a matter of my newness to the method, but it's not as easy to use as a mitt. This trade-off is at least mitigated by the fact that the pad itself is large and lets you cover quite a bit of area.
9"x9" Wash Pad - 6/10
Fireman's Nozzle
Um... It sprays. And works as it should. I had one of these before I ordered the kit, so I was already a fan. Now I have one extra to give away! The one thing I will say is that it doesn't seem to focus the water into quite such a jet as the old one I already had, nor does it rotate as freely. But those are minor quibbles against... a sprayer. And I'm sure it'll loosen up with use.
Fireman's Nozzle - 10/10
Great White Drying Towels
This is a truly great product. The Meguiar's Drying Towel I'd had to this point was also a waffle weave, but the material was rougher, and the way it felt going over the paint was... worrisome. It also had a stitched nylon border that was a little questionable, plus a nylon tag. The Adam's Great White Drying Towels have no such border, only soft stitching around the edges. They also have no tag. Just a stick-on label that comes right off. They're absorbent and SOFT. We'll see how long the softness lasts, but I was amazed at how well they picked up water off the car. In combination with the incredibly simple advice to run water straight from the hose onto the car to cause less beading, I was able to use the towels to dry off the car posthaste and nearly eliminate water spots. In combination with the Adams Wash Fluid, these towels greatly contributed to the final cleanness of the car.
Great White Drying Towels - 10/10
TOTAL PACKAGE: 9.16/10
Glass Cleaning Essentials Kit
Now on to cleaning the interior glass after the wash job.
Glass Cleaning Fluid
I've discovered a serious flaw with this product.
It smells tasty.
Seriously! I wanted a glass of lemonade after using this product!
Oh, you wanted to know how it works on glass? Right, right...
Perfectly. Removes streaks just as well as the Windex I was using before, and I'm much more confident that I'm not slowly killing my tint job with this stuff.
Here's a question for the people bored enough to read this gargantuan post (and if you're actually reading this sentence, you know I mean you): can I use this product on the LCD screen of my radio, since it has no ammonia?
Glass Cleaning Fluid - 10/10
Microfiber Glass Cloths
A slight mis-step in this kit. The clothes are two-sided. One side is more fibrous and soft, and the other is slightly more coarse and thickly woven. Using the more fibrous side of the pads, these cloths began slowly shedding fibers, micro fibers though they be, that stuck to the inside of my windshield. Those fibers are still there. The fibrous side is also difficult to move over the glass. Using the coarser side, I found, prevents this and also makes the cloth easier to move over the glass. This still means half the cloths aren't really usable. We'll see if being put through a wash cycle helps at least remove the loose fibers.
The problem is that the two microfiber glass cloths I already had, purchased from Advance Auto Parts, are still relatively soft and yet they neither shed nor are they as difficult to move over the glass. And that's both before and after they were washed.
My advice? Sorry to any Adam's guys reading this, but at this juncture my advice would be to purchase the cleaner and skip the cloths. Buy some from your local auto parts store.
Microfiber Glass Cloths - 6/10
I realize I may take some flak for not bringing this up with an Adams rep first, but this is my off-the-cuff, first-receipt review of the products. If any Adam's guys reading this believe I may have simply received defective products, feel free to contact me.
TOTAL PACKAGE: 8/10
Overall Impression
Overall, I was very impressed. It took a bit longer to do the full wash, since I'm still working on the technique, but the end effect upon my car was astounding. It looked ridiculously clean, and it even seemed to my eye that the swirls on the car and rims were reduced or at less visible. It was clean.
In the end, not everything in the kit was perfect, but would I purchase from Adam's again?
Oh heck yes. I'll be purchasing refills of all the cleaner products when I run out. The cleaning solutions themselves are stellar. I'll also be purchasing the Porter-Cable Dual Action Polisher Kit, plus some Americana Carnauba wax at some point.
My only complaints in this entire review lay, as you'll note, with the wash cloths/pads. They're the only missteps in an otherwise great set of packages.
OVERALL RATING : 9.053/10