Car Wash "Cannon"

Anyone use one of these that you can recommend...A-Zon reviews are all over the place...

I have a Veloci Foam Cannon connected to an electric pressure washer (1600 psi or so). I am very happy with it. IMO, it does a great job cleaning my cars and SUV pretty much hands-free.

I have a chemical guys foam gun that I just use on my hose. Works great.

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I also have one from The Chemical Guys... works fine. I think they're all very similar, I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the minutia...

There are a TON of videos out there comparing the $90 cannons to the $15 cannons and most come to the consensus that the cannons themselves are the same knockoffs of each other from the same factory in China. What really matters is having enough pressure and the correct soap. Personally I think 2300 is the sweet spot for nice, thick foam. Chemical guys makes a nice soap, I've even gotten good enough suds with basic wash like Mother's. I'm sure it's all in the formula but there's a noticeable difference when using proper snow foam liquid.

I bought a karcher K2 1600psi pressure washer and a foam cannon was included in the kit. I used it with Griot garage soap and I must admit it takes alot of soap to cover the whole car. I do like the results but Im looking either at another foam cannon or another type of soap. I will probably give a try with Chemical guys. Any specific soap I should try? Do they specify it can be used with a foam cannon on the bottle?

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Wait, are you saying someone like Chemical Guys would charge more for a foam cannon just because it has their sticker on it? I've never heard of such a thing!

It's been mentioned indirectly in the thread, but just to be clear, there are two forms -- "foam guns" driven by a hose and "foam cannons" driven by a pressure washer. I have a foam gun, and only use it for pre-washing -- foam, soak, rinse, then I do a regular wash with mitt and 2 buckets. I'm not completely sure the foam presoak makes a huge difference, so I haven't been using it lately, but I probably will go back to it now that this thread has made me think about it again. I haven't tried a foam cannon. I have a pressure washer, but pulling it out and setting it up the pressure washer for every wash is too much prep for me to do it regularly, so I won't get a cannon. I don't know how much of a difference there is between a cannon and a gun. When I search online, the cannon/gun difference from most comments seems less significant than I would have expected.

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I'm using this stuff right now in my cannon (with pressure washer). Chemical Guys If I remember correctly, 10:1 mixture in bottle. No need to put pure soap in cannon bottle, as it actually doesn't work as well as uses a lot of soap. My cannon is an ultra cheap ebay version. Took a little initial adjusting to get the foam consistency correct, but it works perfect. Like spraying shaving foam. I foam the car dry (told this allows foam to work better than wet), let it sit, then rinse with pressure washer. I usually then two bucket hand wash, but it is actually remarkably clean after just foam and rinse.

Are these things really worth it? I mean isn't this just a fancy oxidizer? Wouldn't the surfactants within safe automotive detergent applied with a scratch free mitt be as effective as some of these fancy kits? Why would someone want to blow soap suds all over their cars? And yes, I've read the marketing hype. Looks to me people wanting entertainment while washing their cars. Kind of reminds me of the blue dye added to toilet bowl cleaner. My wife insists the blue color makes it more effective. Oh well.

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I think you might mean "atomizer" (hopefully you're not spraying your car with an Oxidizer... ^^ #1- It's quicker (although if you figure in the time to get/hookup/setup the pressure washer, probably not by much). #2- It's certainly easier, and you don't run the risk of wiping dirt/grit all over your paint. #3- If you've got good quality thick suds they stay on the car longer which gives them a chance to loosen dirt/grit more, so it can easily be rinsed away before washing/wiping with a mitt. It does make sense in theory - of course, in practice it also has a lot to do with technique and how careful the "operator" is. There's no such thing as a "scratch free mitt" (regardless of the claims) - if there's grit/salt/debris, whatever on the paint and you wipe it around, it doesn't matter what you're using to wipe it around, it will cause micro scratches/swirls. I don't know about the blue dye making the toilet bowl cleaner work better, but it sure makes it look nicer and lets you know it's there...

^ Foam cannons and not having to use a mitt on the car = Muy Bueno IMO. That and I like making my car look like a really gooey glazed donut.

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No, I didn't mean oxidizer. My bad, I misspoke. I guess I was thinking about toilet chemicals when I wrote that line. hahaha Thanks for the correction. I had a good colleague that was a professor of chemistry and I enjoyed listening to his perspective on such things like detergents. We once enjoyed a good debate on so called "anti-bacterial" soaps. We did a quick experiment in his lab that showed that simple ivory performed better to kill bacteria than all of the highly marketed "anti-bacterial" soaps. When I look at new products like foam cannons, I wonder if we've really solved a problem or caused more for the luxury of car wash entertainment. Back in the day, car wash entertainment involved taking off our shirts off for the girls as they drove by or throwing wet soapy sponges at each other. We didn't care anything about paint swirls and such. For now, foam cannons rank right up there with Blue Blocker Sunglasses and the Shake Weight. hahahaha

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The only thing that matters in washing a car is to prevent tiny undissolved dirt particles from being on the paint when you wash it with a mitt because those particles act like singular bits of sandpaper when you move them over the paint with a mitt. Any method that avoids dirt particles being rubbed against the paint is worth it's weight in gold for preventing swirl marks and tiny scratches. If foam cannons can wash a car without having to touch the paint (and without needing very high pressure wash on the paint surface), then it's well worth it. My experience with a hose-based foam "gun" is that it will not wash the car, it is just a precleaning step. If pressure washer-based foam "cannons" allow a touchless wash -- seems well worth it. I haven't tried a foam cannon, so I can't comment, but some in this thread seem to be saying that it is possible to do a touchless wash with a foam cannon.

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This I know.. I've experienced paint damage as a result from using pressure washers, but never from any microfiber type mitt. I couldn't even imagine using this on a car with a vinyl wrap. Those shake weights are looking more and more attractive.

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Foam cannons are still a "pre-wash step"( but better than the foam gun - they make a denser foam that stays on the car longer, and cover the entire car in about 30 seconds). but, they make this step both quick and effective. You still have to "wash" the car with a mitt. The key is to remove or loosen as much of that grit as possible before using the mitt.

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Bottom line, I don't use my foam gun unless the car is really dirty.

I have an el cheapo foam cannon that I've never used but now I'm inspired to give it a try.

The quality of the power washer seems to matter more than the quality of the foam blaster, at least in my limited experience.

Inspired by this thread, I pulled out my old foam gun (not canon) on a wash this weekend. Used Chemical Guys snowflakes foam -- between the dilution instructions on the bottle and the five different dilution settings on the foam gun, I couldn't do the math, so I just put in what I thought was a reasonable amount and set the gun to the highest foam setting. I foamed it, let it sit, then rinsed, then foamed again. Running my fingers over the paint it did seem to remove most of the surface grit (though the car was not super dirty). Then I washed as normal with two bucket method. My foam gun has been sitting idle for many years, but I'm now convinced it is a good pre-wash step.

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Have you tried shake weights yet?

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I was skeptical also, that's why my foam gun has been gathering dust for several years, but if you set your expectations appropriately, my experience yesterday is that it's worth using a foam gun as a pre-wash. 1. Is a foam gun useful for touchless washing? In my experience, no. 2. Is a foam gun useful for a PRE-wash step to minimize scratches when you subsequently use a 2-bucket mitt wash? In my experience, yes, if you foam first and then rinse before starting the 2-bucket mitt wash (see my last post). Rinsing is key after foam and before the wash so that the foam-lifted dirt is actually removed from the surface, floating dirt isn't much better than attached dirt when you put a mitt on it. 3. Is a foam gun worth it? In my opinion, yes, because it literally takes about 1 minute to foam the car and I think that pre-wash step reduces scratching with the subsequent mitt wash (and foam guns are crazy cheap now, especially on eBay ) 4. Is a foam cannon (not gun) worth it? A cannon probably works better than a gun, but a cannon is not worth it for me time-wise. The "gun" is good enough and I don't have time or the desire to pull out the pressure washer for every wash (I never use the pressure washer for cleaning cars). If you have the pressure washer already out, then the cannon is probably better than a gun. You will never be able to notice any micro-level damage from dirt under a mitt in one wash. However, if you can remove some of the dirt off the surface before you ever put a mitt on it, you will see a difference over the lifetime of the car (20 or 50 washes later). There's no such thing as a "scratch free" mitt. Well, technically, the mitts themselves are all scratch free, but the surface dirt on the paint that gets moved around with the mitt is not scratch free at all. ,

PS : How well a foam gun or cannon works probably depends a lot on what level of polish each car has on it. On a car with no wax or polish, a foam gun will probably not remove much. On a car with a ceramic treatment, or with a high-quality polish, the foam gun (followed by a rinse) will probably lift and remove quite a bit of dirt as a pre-wash step.

Chemical Guys EQP_312 TORQ cannon on a power washer. I used it for in between washes on my car and as a pre-cleaning step for the few times a year mitt and 2-bucket hand wash. I prefer to touch the car as little as possible since it is dark blue.... Really wishing I could have found a white one when I was looking, lol...not only do they hide dirt better, you don't really notice the swirls, lol.

I've got both a Hong Kong eBay special $25AUD cannon as well as a PA one (made in Italy) ~$100AUD Not a whole lot of difference if you're only washing a few times a month. Build quality on the Italian one is way beyond the HK special but that one still works perfectly well.

Bought a cheap Simoniz cannon in the spring and I use it with my Sun Joe electric pressure washer using Optimum Car Wash. As others have said, it makes washing the cars very quick and efficient. My steps: -Blast/rinse the car with water -Foam the entire vehicle with the cannon -Using a bucket of clean water and 3 wash mitts, I move the foam around the car. -Rinse the car off with the pressure washer -Dry I can do the Porsche in 15 mins start to finish.

In my opinion, it's not really necessary but they are fun to use, I find I use mine less and less except for cars that are truly disgusting. I can rinseless wash my car quicker.

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Shake Weights..meh. Blue Blocker or Computer glasses are legit good for your eyes.

Washing cars is so overrated! It gets dirty within 24 hours unless kept in a garage all day and not driven. Every time I wash my car, it rains...

Quality of soap probably matters more than the use of a foam cannon. At least nobody has chimed in about covering the snorkel.

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I fell for that joke. Covered my snorkel with a plastic condom thinking that washing the car would flood and damage the airbox. I drove off and the car was stalling. I thought it was misfires or something. But eventually remembered my mistake.

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hahaha! I got some of the Blue Blockers for my birthday. They made me look 80s... and so I went and bought some Costas. Now I'm the cool and modern!

Those old school BluBlockers were really good fishing glasses....I think they are better than my Costas, lol. You looked like Jr. Soprano wearing them, but they worked. "-Blast/rinse the car with water -Foam the entire vehicle with the cannon -Using a bucket of clean water and 3 wash mitts, I move the foam around the car. -Rinse the car off with the pressure washer -Dry" should probably rinse the first foaming off rather than move it around with the mitt...refoam and use the mitt if you don't wanna go with a 2 bucket wash. Purpose of the foam is to lift and hold the dirt, better to rinse it than rub it around.

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I dug out the foam cannon today and blasted away at the 530i. The jury's still out on whether it's worth the extra bother of setting up the power washer. I will say it WAS fun shooting the foam though. If you decide to buy a foam cannon don't spend more than $15.00 or so. My pressure washer is from Home Depot and doesn't seem to be anything that will ever make the Pressure Washer Hall of Fame but it seemed to do fine.

I'd like to change my answer, after using the PA and the HK special back to back (with the same solution) he PA is so much better. If you can justify the extra cash the PA is definitely the way to go.

Now that I've started using my foam gun again, I've found that it's very good for two particular areas: 1. Salt-Away -- I use a product called Salt-Away ( Amazon Amazon ) to clean road salt off the undercarriage. The Salt-Away solution is great -- I recommend it for anyone in a region where the roads are salted. The Salt-Away faucet attachment dispenser, however, is pretty bad -- difficult to use, it leaks and is pretty easy to break. I used the Salt-Away solution with the foam gun yesterday and it's perfect. Super easy to use and it applies with foam and works much better than the Salt-Away dispenser. Not having used Salt-Away for a while (because it was so inconvenient with Salt-Away's dispenser), I rinsed the undercarriage after using it, but they recommend that you leave it on and not rinse after applying because it will leave a transparent coating that prevents corrosion. On another forum a guy who ran a sizable snow cleaning business said that they use Salt-Away on their trucks and the difference in longevity is night and day. 2. Dusty Garage Queens -- If you have a seldom driven car with built-up dust, it's important to get the dust off before putting a mitt on the paint. I haven't found that rinsing with pure water removes accumulated dust very well, but a pre-wash with foam works very well to remove the dust.

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Agreed on the hassle for pulling out the power washer. This is why I recommend a foam gun over a foam cannon. The cannon does foam better than than the gun -- all of the "cannon" pics posted produce better foam than my hose-powered "gun", but the foam from the gun is good enough to work well in my experience. A foam gun very literally only adds one minute to the washing time. To make it easy to switch between the foam gun and washing nozzle (without having to go back to the faucet), I use one of these valves ( Amazon Amazon ). Note that it's better to get cheap plastic valves like the ones in the Amazon listing -- I had a solid brass shut-off valve and it was heavy and it made it very easy to scratch the car if you weren't careful. The plastic valves will eventually break after a year or two, so buy a couple (the Amazon listing includes 5 valves).

I may bust out my old "Mr. Clean" car wash system with "Deionized" rinse cartridge...