Help with soak set up

[wisheewashee]

Plesae give me ideas when you have a minute.

I am not using a 2 step pre-soak but may need to. It was never set up that way when I got the wash 5 years ago. I have a 1.0 Wizard. Initially I had the Supersat system which was good....but real expensive and just not cost effective.

I have switched to ZEP for presoak. Using a pre-programmed recipe from Wizard of pre-soak and tire cleaner on first pass, then just pre-soak on second pass, then blaster on 3rd pass. So the pre-soak has a lot of time to set.

Do I need to go to a 2 step process? Will it make a difference?

I do see quite a bit of residual dirt film left on cars. I know this is touchy subject but please give me your best cost effective chemicle set up. I am open to switching if it is the best cleaning for touch free. I am in the south in the Pensacola area where we get a lot of salt air from the gulf.

Thanks for yourt help

 

[Reds]

Did you titrate your mixture and play with the concentration levels? Do you have any dwell time at the end of each presoak pass - I use 30 seconds at the end of each presoak pass. What speed is the gantry traveling at during presoak? Perhaps you could make your own recipe and tweak the speed and presoak chemical concentration. I use AA concentrated presoak, 30 second dwell, slow gantry speed, and get good results. There seems to be two time a year that for a short while I have trouble with removing the mask on the windshield of some cars. But overall it works good. With a WW2.0

 

[Reds]

I think that finding a chemical that works should be first priority, then cost second. If you don't clean cars then cost controls won't matter because your sales will go up in smoke.

 

[wisheewashee]

Did you titrate your mixture and play with the concentration levels? Do you have any dwell time at the end of each presoak pass - I use 30 seconds at the end of each presoak pass. What speed is the gantry traveling at during presoak? Perhaps you could make your own recipe and tweak the speed and presoak chemical concentration. I use AA concentrated presoak, 30 second dwell, slow gantry speed, and get good results. There seems to be two time a year that for a short while I have trouble with removing the mask on the windshield of some cars. But overall it works good. With a WW2.0

I do titrate and all looks good. I do not use dwell because I have both passes set at slow speed, plus a rear boom drop so the pre-soak is staying on the vehicle for a long time.

I would agree that finding the right chemicle first is the way to go. However with that said there are a lot of chemicles that will do almost the same thing for much less cost. Don't want to ruffle feathers but Turtle Wax is a good example. Yes it cleans great but just not cost effective (depends on your location and competition). There are other chemicles that will do 98% of the job that Turtle wax does but for half the cost.

 

[Tom Thumb]

FWIW we use blendco products and slow pass w/30 sec. dwell, works good .
have you had someone from super sat in to look at your application?

 

[wisheewashee]

FWIW we use blendco products and slow pass w/30 sec. dwell, works good .
have you had someone from super sat in to look at your application?

I got rid of the supersat stuff 2 or 3 years ago. Honestly I think that was a mistake!

 

[Buzzie8]

FWIW we use blendco products and slow pass w/30 sec. dwell, works good .
have you had someone from super sat in to look at your application?

Wow, I use Blendco presoak too. But a 30 second dwell. I think my customers would think there was a problem even 10 seconds would seem long to me. Do customers ever think there is a problem? How many drops do you titrate at?

 

[Tom Thumb]

Sorry about that, the dwell is 5 sec. not 30.

 

[Greg Pack]

You should get your rep out.

We are currently having issues cleaning because it has rained so long. Many people have not washed for weeks or even months. So if this problem is a small percentage of cars, less than 10%, you may be observing that. But if 20% of your cars are not coming clean you need to do something. Presoak that does not clean gets demoted to high pressure soap at my wash.