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What kind of soap?

mac

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The Istobal I have is a hybrid unit. It will do friction or completely touchless. Almost half chose touchless. The contouring top bar is impressive.
 

mac

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OK, here is the supplier for the chemicals I use. Call Fragramatics and ask for Steve. Be prepared to talk for a while as he is not shy. I will try to post pics of my car after a touchless wash. It not only passes the white towel test, but there is absolutely no eyebrow. This is a game changer.
 

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tdlconceptsllc

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OK, here is the supplier for the chemicals I use. Call Fragramatics and ask for Steve. Be prepared to talk for a while as he is not shy. I will try to post pics of my car after a touchless wash. It not only passes the white towel test, but there is absolutely no eyebrow. This is a game changer.
Thank you Mac I know Kelly @ fragramatics very well
 

slash007

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If this works, I'd switch in a heartbeat. Had no luck with Blendco or JBS getting rid of eyebrow and not happy with how cars come out. My car at least.
 

OurTown

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Okay Mac was correct about Steve. Carve out a tad bit of time before you call him because he is a talker. 501-554-6129. Since we can only put down one chemical and not a two step he said there is a chance we won't get the car perfectly clean. It is also colder here so that does not help. He pretty much said if you have two step then they will come out clean. The only thing that I don't like is that is is not that concentrated so it is going to a bit more expensive because of freight plus will take up more room. He is talking 4 oz per gallon for the alkaline. In about two weeks or so he is going to stop by and set it up for us to try. Thanks Mac for letting us know about this.
 

OurTown

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Also I forgot Steve said that with a two step it should cost around $1.00 or less per car including the freight. He also said the high PH does not have any sodium hydroxide in it. Fragramatics does not have an SDS sheet on their website yet.
 

soapy

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Every part of the country has different soils that require different soaps to clean a car. Road film when the temps hit 90+ followed by a rain are usually the toughest to clean. Game changer soaps have been mentioned for the past 25 years in this forum. I don't think anyone has found a soap that covers all areas of the country. Like Greg said you have to test and experiment for your
 

John J Spokas

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Ok...my apologies for not giving enough information! South Dakota. They do salt our roads here now and we have dirt and dust. And pollen. Lots of it. Bugs hit the windows like a hard rain in summer. We use soap and wax and foam brush soap from dultmeiers that is turtle wax brand. (The soap is turtle wax...I haven’t had to order the other products yet so I’m not sure if they are the same.) water is hard but we do use a softener for wax. Hot water wash. Cold rinse.
The IBA is coming from Petit. We are installing it ourselves. I did check in with them today and they said they would connect us with a distributor.
?? You use soft water for wax but not for soap passes? ? That seems backwards. Or did you miss a few words in your post??
 

mac

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Soapy you have a right to be skeptical. There have been many claims over the years.I have fooled around with soap ever since touchless machines came on the market. Never did have good consistent results till now. Look at it this way. Most everyone here has a dishwasher at home. When they first came out you had to hand wash things to get them to come out clean. Now they all do a pretty good job. Touchless will ALWAYS take more effort to get consistent results. You have to monitor your water pretreatment and all aspects of chemical mixing and delivery. I have known Steve several years and this chemical is now on several places around the country. And so far all of them are getting the same results.
 

soapy

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Mac, time will tell. In Florida I doubt you have to deal with Magnesium chloride during the winter like we do up north. In my area we also have clay based soil. I am happy with my presoak setup that gets 99% of the cars clean at a cost of .30 cents per car for a double pass of presoak. I did not say that your stuff is working for you, just that it may not be the thing for other areas.
 

mac

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Yes, we do not get the same dirt as other places. We do get though many cars that are parked outside and not moving for 7 to 8 months. Our winter residents do this and the cars are covered in dirt, pollen, and bird poop. I also get cars driven 1,000 miles from up north covered in bugs. And I get all of them clean. My goal is 100% satisfaction. If you are getting 98-99% clean you are doing better than most. I do not mind spending a buck on soap to do this. I get $15.00 for my two top washes, and 60-70% are those. So I net at least 13 bucks. That is still a 87 % margin. To me that’s worth it. And to those of you that only have one soap instead of a two step, most can be modified to add another. If your Plc has an output for this it might cost a grand to do it. If the pic doesn’t have that output the manufacturer most likely has a program to do it.
 

Nimble

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?? You use soft water for wax but not for soap passes? ? That seems backwards. Or did you miss a few words in your post??
Sorry that was my wrong understanding...all the water in the self serve side is softened. And that will be the case on the IBA side also.
 

soapy

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All my automatics have been setup from the factory to be 2 step but I have not needed acid. I did not choose my soap for the cheap application price, I chose it because it does the job. Not even a full blown friction tunnel gets every car 100% clean every time. I am glad you found a product that works in your area Mac. Just trying to restrain some of the newbys and save them some grief.
 

mac

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Soapy it’s sort of like women. They are all different, and yet the same. Finding a good one can be challenging. Nimble if you are softening all of your water, IMO, you are just wasting salt. I just use soft for chemicals andRO. It won’t hurt anything, just more work.
 

lb60605

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I am in the Midwest (Illinois) start using Equipment manufacturer soaps as I was new to the car wash business too. I switched to Lustra
car wash soap used for a year, very expensive and the quality was no different. Last year I switch to S&S good price, very competitive and the quality is the best I have had in the 11 years in business. I agree to start off with the equipment manufacturer and as you gain experience you will know going forward.
 

SLEDGE

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Has anyone tried the fragramatics chemicals mac referred to??? If so what results are you having?
 

soonermajic

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Sledge, i was wondering if anybody had yried Mac's Fragramatics PS as well...
 
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