# 1st use of BH Auto foam & Surfex HD - disappointed



## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

I've just bought a red M3 and a couple of weeks ago I give it a good clean down with citrus pre-wash, PW rinse, snow foam, PW rinse, 2BM shampoo, rinse, clay mitt, rinse and blow dried. Then I applied the Carlak 68 two product paint cleanser and then a protective topcoat. The finished look really good with a good level of shine.

Three weeks on and after only 3 trips totally less than 200 miles in mostly dry but some road spray I thought I'd better rinse it down.

I had been disappointed with the performance of Magnifoam so had bought some BH Auto foam and Surfex HD as it was highly recommended by you guiys and had a good write up in the review section.

So I worked out the dilution rate. This is what I measured:

Lance knob fully -ve gave 6 litres from 400ml in the bottle
Lance knob fully +ve gave 11 litres from 100ml in the bottle.

So at 4% PIR I had to put 240ml of Auto Foam and 160ml of water into my lance bottle and started spraying with the knob fully -ve.

The foam came out very thick almost equal to Magnifoam which surprised me so I gradullay turned it +ve to get it a bit wetter. Covered the car a couple of times and had only used about 200ml of the original 400ml mix.

BTW, forgot to say that I mixed up some Surfex HD at about 2% in a hand pumped sprayer and did the wheels, tyres and all around the bottom edges of the car. PW off and then applied the BH Snow Foam.

Left the BH foam dwell for about 5 mins then PW off and blow dried. The results looked reasonable but when I started to look closer I could see lots of marks and dirt that hadn't been removed. See attached pics for examples.

P1030998.JPG
P1030999.JPG

So I dug out some QD and cleaned the bootlid which was the worst area as it's quite flat and water doesn't tend to flow off easily. Bear in mind the car is not garaged. The results were much better but when I turned the microfibre over I couldn't believe the amount of dirty it had removed. Did the roof and that was even worse. See attached pics of microfibre.

P1040002.JPG

Am I expecting too much from the Auto foam or am I doing something wrong.

Richard


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Sorry guys, have real problems attaching pics on this forum.

Richard


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## Andy from Sandy (May 6, 2011)

I am in the camp that says I don't care how good someone says a snowfoam is there is no way to get a car clean unless you do something mechanical. That is get a mitt and rub it over the car, 2BM method and all that.


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## Deje (Aug 12, 2016)

What is the point off doing a calculation and then ignore it?


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## Radish293 (Mar 16, 2012)

I’m Not slagging off Bilt Hamber because I love a lot of their products.
But Koch Chemie Green star in a pump spray out performs autofoam. 
It can be almost a touch less wash. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Deje said:


> What is the point off doing a calculation and then ignore it?


I followed the calculations exactly to get the required 4%.

I filled my bottle with 400ml of water and then on full -ve I got 6 litres of water from the PW. At 4% this equates to 240ml of Auto foam. So I put 240ml of foam solution in and then topped it with 160ml of water.

When I sprayed it on it was very thick and not at all like everyone has described.

Is this where the problem is?

Richard


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## svended (Oct 7, 2011)

No snow foam or pre-wash removes all the dirt, at best it'll remove 90-95% of the dirt leaving the surface a much safer place to do a 2BM wash, the prewash will also aid the 2BM by softening the remaining dirt but almost all occasions require some degree of contact to remove the last vestiges of dirt, which is usually the traffic film that the dirt was attached to.


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## v_r_s (Nov 4, 2018)

Good pw at the correct angle


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## Blueberry (Aug 10, 2007)

Snow foam doesn’t clean cars. Koch Chemie Green Star is the best car cleaner I’ve ever used in all my years. Wouldn’t use anything else.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

v_r_s said:


> Good pw at the correct angle


The car was PW after the pre-wash with HD and then PW after the Auto foam. The PW is always held at an angle to the surface of the panel, usually about 45 degrees.

Richard


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## neilmcl (Mar 26, 2010)

RichD1 said:


> I filled my bottle with 400ml of water and then on full -ve I got 6 litres of water from the PW. At 4% this equates to 240ml of Auto foam. So I put 240ml of foam solution in and then topped it with 160ml of water.d


That's where you went wrong, by topping up with water.

Also, Autofoam, or any snowfoam for that matter has never claimed to leave you car spotlessly clean so you can use it as a touchless wash. It, like all pre-washes, is designed to soften up the dirt so most of it comes off via rinsing leaving only a small amount to be removed by a manual wash method.


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## neilmcl (Mar 26, 2010)

RichD1 said:


> The car was PW after the pre-wash with HD and then PW after the Auto foam. The PW is always held at an angle to the surface of the panel, usually about 45 degrees.
> 
> Richard


No real need for a pre-wash, after all that's what a foam application is for, just apply the BH AF to the dry surface.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

svended said:


> No snow foam or pre-wash removes all the dirt, at best it'll remove 90-95% of the dirt leaving the surface a much safer place to do a 2BM wash, the prewash will also aid the 2BM by softening the remaining dirt but almost all occasions require some degree of contact to remove the last vestiges of dirt, which is usually the traffic film that the dirt was attached to.


From the state of my microfibre it looks like it hardly took any dirt off.

Richard


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## neilmcl (Mar 26, 2010)

Radish293 said:


> I'm Not slagging off Bilt Hamber because I love a lot of their products.
> *But Koch Chemie Green star in a pump spray out performs autofoam.*
> It can be almost a touch less wash.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I don't agree, both about the same when applied via a pump sprayer.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

neilmcl said:


> That's where you went wrong, by topping up with water.


Ahhh, we might be getting somewhere now. So you think I've misunderstood the dilution method as I read in the detailed review in the 'Review' section on here. This is the method I followed copied from the review by Brian1612:

_

1. Fill your snow foam bottle with exactly 1L of water. *(In my case I used 400ml)* Measure this as it must be exact.

2. Connect your foam lance up and make sure the foam nozzle it turned to full foam output (Usually all the way to -).

3. Grab a large container, I used my 20L wash bucket and spray the foam lance nozzle into the bucket until the 1L bottle is empty. Add a little food dye to the water within the bottle if you struggle to see the water level.

4. Measure the total amount of water contained within the bucket. I done this by scooping the water out in my measuring beakers.

5. Once you have your total volume (mines is 12.76L), *(In my case this was 6.0L)* simply multiply this figure by 0.04. This tells you how much auto-foam needs to be used to used to achieve the 4% PIR.

By doing the above calculation I ended up with a figure of 510ml. *(In my case the figure was 240ml)* I need to use 510ml *(so mine was 240ml)* of auto-foam to 490ml water *(mine was 160ml to make up the total of 400ml)* in my 1L snow foam bottle to achieve the 4% PIR. 510ml of auto-foam was added to the foam bottle using my measuring beakers for an exact measurement._

Is this not correct then?

Richard


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

neilmcl said:


> No real need for a pre-wash, after all that's what a foam application is for, just apply the BH AF to the dry surface.


Hi Neil,

I used the HD on the lower surfaces and wheels as I was under the impression that it was more aggressive for these areas which get a greater battering from the road elements.

Richard


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## MrMatt (Apr 15, 2011)

I can't see a problem with your maths.

For 6000ml of output you had 5600ml of flow water, 160ml of bottle water and 240ml of auto foam. Therefore you got 240/6000=4% PIR.

Had you not added your water you would have had the concentration of 400/6000=6.7% PIR

I always thought foam was a pre wash anyhow, it just takes the bulk of stuff off and it looks fairly clean at this time of year.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

So dilution rate was OK then. Any idea when I applied it the resulting foam was very thick. As I said almost as dense as my old Magnifoam.

From all the videos and pics I've seen BH Auto Foam has always come out quite watery.

Richard


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## MrMatt (Apr 15, 2011)

Sounds like you dialled it back to a weaker concentration to make it thinner? When I use it it comes out quite thick similar to this vid


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Sorry, you've got it round the wrong way. I started with the knob fully -ve for the 4% dilution but the foam came out very thick probably thicker than the video link. I had to turn the knob back toward the +ve to get it more watery.

I'm thinking now it might have been because I had the spray pattern too tight. When the foam was hitting the panel the spread of foam was about 30cm wide. This was with the lance about 60cm to 80cm from the panel.

Richard


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## MrMatt (Apr 15, 2011)

100ml in 11000ml at +ve is 0.9% so if you turned it towards that you made it weaker as I said?


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## Marve (Jul 5, 2013)

RichD1 said:


> I had to turn the knob back toward the +ve to get it more watery.


It is at this point you changed from 4% PIR to something weaker.

I also note in another post that it sounds like you snowfoamed onto a wet car. 
The surface water there would have watered down the PIR even more.

However, that being said, I think you are expecting too much from snow foam. I use BH but always prior to a 2bm wash. What I find is that my rinse bucket is rarely very dirty.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

OK guys, things to try next time.

1. Stick with the fully -ve 4% setting on foam lance based on my original dilution calculations.
2. Try increasing the spray pattern width.
3. Spray onto a dry car.

Richard


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## Marve (Jul 5, 2013)

RichD1 said:


> OK guys, things to try next time.
> 
> 1. Stick with the fully -ve 4% setting on foam lance based on my original dilution calculations.
> 2. Try increasing the spray pattern width.
> ...


I've added a little bit!


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

I was basing my expectations on the BM AF review on here where he wiped the panel with a cotton pad after a rinse down. If you wiped a panel with what I had left the pad would have been black like my microfibre.

So you can see I was expecting something a bit better.

Are the cars that these reviews are done on have a better initial protection and therefore easier to clean off?

Next month I'm getting a complete paint correction and then a pro ceramic finish applied. Hopefully I will get better results then?

Richard


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## Surrey Sam (Dec 29, 2008)

Quite a few variable factors there, like the LSP in use, pressure washers, water temp, dirt types etc. However it's very hard, I would say nigh-on-impossible to get a touchless wash by just spraying a product on and jet washing off. A truly clean wash will require mechanical intervention.

Good ceramic coatings/LSP's and cleaning products, along with light soiling will certainly help towards that Utopia touchless wash though.


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## tomstephens89 (Jul 17, 2018)

Firstly, you have adjusted the +/- knob to let more water through, so your 4% dilution is infact wayyyyy weaker. Leave it fully -.

And also, make sure the car is not wet before you start snow foaming. The foam needs to stick on the paint for a while to do anything.

Then pressure wash off.

Remember, the car will still be FAR FROM CLEAN. This process is only to remove any large and loose dirt particles.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

OK, thanks guys for all your input. I will try again with my 'to do list' next week.

Richard


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## MrMatt (Apr 15, 2011)

Obviously if you don't add water to the mix in the bottle you will get a stronger 6.7% concentration which will have more power than the 4% but as above its not going to replace a full wash.


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## Brian1612 (Apr 5, 2015)

Think the good members of DW have explained the possible reasons for such poor results. That said you are expecting a touchless wash and you simply won't get it with any pre wash after weeks of dirt has been allowed to latch onto the paint.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Hi Brian,

It was only 3 weeks and a couple of trips less than 200 miles that I did the wash and the car wasn't filthy. Also car isn't garaged so the bodywork has experienced several weeks of wet weather.

I read your review which convinced me to buy some BH AF, so how did you achieve your results and the minor contamination on the cotton wipes after a touchless rinse down.

Richard


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## Soapybubbles (Feb 10, 2014)

80ml BH AF and 2L warm water into a pump sprayer, apply to car and leave to dwell for 10mins, mist with lance if conditions require, then PW off.

Does the job for me every time.


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## percymon (Jun 27, 2007)

There is an interesting paragraph in Brians review..

''I spoke to Richard with regards to the thin viscosity and without getting into too much detail, he explained that a thin foam will be far wetter than a thick one. This thinner viscosity foam is better at allowing the surfactants within the product to absorb into and loosen the dirt. The balance of surfactants to foaming agents has been finely tuned within auto-foam but some of these thicker foams tend to have too much foaming agent. When the balance is wrong the foaming agent actually hampers the ability of the surfactants to clean and this is why auto-foam is the viscosity it is. Using auto-foam I witnessed something I haven't seen before in that I could visibly see the foam pulling the dirt off the paintwork.''

The fact that you got a heavy foam would suggest the foam gun fan pattern blades need adjustment, and with a heavy foam a lot of the active ingredients weren't potentially in contact with the paintwork, purely carried within the foam itself.

And whilst Brian's make up swab test does look pretty good, they are only a small pad / are wipe - your test of the much larger boot lid with a more absorbant microfibre cloth would clearly pull more dirt off anyway.


Hopefully the second use you will hit the sweet spot and get some better results.

AutoFoam does seems to be one chemical that has lots of great followers and reviews, but it also throws up a lot of questions about best use, and miss-use


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## Midlife (Sep 6, 2016)

Andy from Sandy said:


> I am in the camp that says I don't care how good someone says a snowfoam is there is no way to get a car clean unless you do something mechanical. That is get a mitt and rub it over the car, 2BM method and all that.


Hi Rich
If you read what has been mentioned above several times over theres your answer I've been washing, cleaning, detailing, valeting since my teenage years and snow foaming for FUN only its great isnt it.:lol:


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## Clean-my-sxi (Feb 5, 2008)

I think the op has probably got the impression that the car would be clean after using the foam, which is not suprising as some people give foams alot of hype. As said already in this post , you wont get the car clean without the use of a mitt or sponge with shampoo.

I use bilt hamber af in a pump sprayer, in all honesty im not sure if using a shampoo mix in the pump sprayer would do the same thing, but its one of those things you convince yourself you need to do to help the wash process.

I havent used my foam lance in a long time, just seemed a waste of time and i had to clean up the foam after on the drive


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

I've now bought a cheapo 5L garden pump sprayer from Screwfix so will give that a go on my next wash.

I've used Magnifoam in the past and now my first try with BH AF and I have never seen dirt fall off with the foam that I've seen on so many videos. I guess they must have a much better LSP on so that the dirt doesn't hold as well.

I'm hoping that the results will be better when I get a full Pro ceramic coating applied.

Richard


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## Soapybubbles (Feb 10, 2014)

RichD1 said:


> I've now bought a cheapo 5L garden pump sprayer from Screwfix so will give that a go on my next wash.
> 
> I've used Magnifoam in the past and now my first try with BH AF and I have never seen dirt fall off with the foam that I've seen on so many videos. I guess they must have a much better LSP on so that the dirt doesn't hold as well.
> 
> ...


Just out of interest what PW do you have?


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## Brian1612 (Apr 5, 2015)

RichD1 said:


> Hi Brian,
> 
> It was only 3 weeks and a couple of trips less than 200 miles that I did the wash and the car wasn't filthy. Also car isn't garaged so the bodywork has experienced several weeks of wet weather.
> 
> ...


Hi there Rich,

I'm not really sure what more I can tell you other than what's in the review. Everything is well documented on how I used it. Out of the two methods I prefer using AF at 4% through the pump sprayer with warm water (not boiling). This is usually 80ml to 1920ml water, I go around the full car with this in order (front to back in a clockwise fashion). My only issue with this method is it can dry out very quickly, especially in the warmer months. Once completed I grab the foam lance with any cheap foam solution in it, preferably one with a high concentration like OW blizzard, Waxaddict or ODK and apply a quick layer of foam over the AF pre wash in the same order. This is allowed to dwell for a few minutes, cleaning power isn't important for the foam as it's purely used for preventing the pre wash drying out and dragging the dirt off the panel. You will see all the dirt accumulated in the foam as it falls off.

It won't be touchless but you'll get 90%+ dirt off the car easily. I also should say I pre rinse the car to get as much dirt off as possible before any chemicals go on the car. People argue you shouldn't as it dikites the chemical mix further etc but I don't see that as an issue. My the time I rinse the car down, set up my foam lance, set up my pressure sprayer and all my buckets etc I find a lot of the water has ran off.

I hope this helps bud.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Soapybubbles said:


> Just out of interest what PW do you have?


Karcher K7.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

Hi Brian,

I've still got some Magnifoam so I could try that next time.

Thanks for that.

Richard


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## ///M Sport (Apr 5, 2009)

I haven't had great experiences with BHAF either. I think after reading the reviews you do naturally expect this product to leave your car 90%+ clean, but in my experience it hasn't done that yet! 

The best results I got was when applied through a lance at the 4% PIR ratio, you could see the dirt dripping along with the white foam off the car - reassuring me that foam was taking the dirt with it..

Worst experience was when applied through a pump sprayer and then rinsed off with a garden hose attachment. Let the car dry after the rinse only to see the same amount of dirt still on the car. Waste of time. 

My next attempt will be with a pump sprayer and pressure washer combo. While I like to believe the BHAF softens the dirt, I think its really the strength of the pressure washer that removes the dirt off the paint, hence why very little was moved off when using a standard hose attachment.


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## ///M Sport (Apr 5, 2009)

Brian1612 said:


> Hi there Rich,
> 
> I'm not really sure what more I can tell you other than what's in the review. Everything is well documented on how I used it. Out of the two methods I prefer using AF at 4% through the pump sprayer with warm water (not boiling). This is usually 80ml to 1920ml water, I go around the full car with this in order (front to back in a clockwise fashion). My only issue with this method is it can dry out very quickly, especially in the warmer months. Once completed I grab the foam lance with any cheap foam solution in it, preferably one with a high concentration like OW blizzard, Waxaddict or ODK and apply a quick layer of foam over the AF pre wash in the same order. This is allowed to dwell for a few minutes, cleaning power isn't important for the foam as it's purely used for preventing the pre wash drying out and dragging the dirt off the panel. You will see all the dirt accumulated in the foam as it falls off.
> 
> ...


Hi Brian!

So you AF through a pump sprayer and then go over with another snow foam? Doesn't that defect the object of one product for the job? Why not use the AF in the lance in the first instance? Genuinely intrigued...

I'm trying to cut my wash times down so am not a fan of multiple steps which add time.


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## ///M Sport (Apr 5, 2009)

RichD1 said:


> Hi Brian,
> 
> It was only 3 weeks and a couple of trips less than 200 miles that I did the wash and the car wasn't filthy. Also car isn't garaged so the bodywork has experienced several weeks of wet weather.
> 
> ...


That did it for me too....


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## Andy from Sandy (May 6, 2011)

As I see it the auto foam stops the water from just beading up when it hits the car. This is what is called a wetting agent.

I don't use a PW but a pump sprayer. The water now runs off the car and along with any cleaning effect will take some dirt with it.


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## Soapybubbles (Feb 10, 2014)

RichD1 said:


> Karcher K7.


I have a K5 and with the above method it works great for me, not 100% touch clean but very noticeably cleaner than before.

Hopefully you get better results with a pump sprayer

Keep us posted


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## Brian1612 (Apr 5, 2015)

///M Sport said:


> Hi Brian!
> 
> So you AF through a pump sprayer and then go over with another snow foam? Doesn't that defect the object of one product for the job? Why not use the AF in the lance in the first instance? Genuinely intrigued...
> 
> I'm trying to cut my wash times down so am not a fan of multiple steps which add time.


Hi bud,

I have quite a few snow foams that used alone really aren't very good for cleaning. The only use I have for them now is going over the top of something that can perform. With AF through the pump sprayer being prone to drying out quickly especially in warm weather, the foam allows the autofoam to stay wet and work for longer.

As for Autofoam through a lance I just find it easier to use via the pump sprayer and have more control over how much I use. It's very easy to over apply auto foam via the foam lance. Hope this helps bud.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## neilmcl (Mar 26, 2010)

RichD1 said:


> Hi Brian,
> 
> I've still got some Magnifoam so I could try that next time.
> 
> ...


Don't bother, it's rubbish.


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## Soapybubbles (Feb 10, 2014)

The only 2 decent pre wash cleaners I have used are. 

Bilt Hamber Auto foam 
Autoglanz Spritzer


The rest I’ve used have not been effective at all.


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## cadmunkey (Jun 8, 2015)

RichD1, you may be more impressed with a citrus prewash rather than a foam, especially at this time of year when the roads are filthy. Something to consider anyway.


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## RichD1 (Jan 22, 2014)

I have some ValetPro citrus prewash that I used to use first before the Magnifoam. Sometimes even put a splash into the Magnifoam. Still didn't provide much cleaning power, that's why a bought some BH AF and Surfex HD.

Richard


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