Thought I'd report my findings having bought and used one of these new Flash home car wash thingies, as advertised on the television!
This is the product in question:
At first, have to admit I was very dubious of this product, as usually the only way to clean your car and get a clean and shiny finish, lacking of any watermarks or smears, is to do it yourself! But I've been reading some decent reviews on the TsN forums so I thought, "ah, what the hell, I'll go and buy one and see what gives"
It turned out to be dead simple. You get a handheld "gun" that attaches to your hosepipe and holds the shampoo and the water filters (more on that later) and you simply follow a four-stage process, rinse--shampoo--rinse--autodry. When shampooing you can havea sponge or wash mitt handy to shift the dirt and wipe the panels over - be sure to have abucket of clean water nearby though as the sponge can get quite dirty after washing a couple of panels! The last stage, autodry, is where the filters come in. Having rinsed the car clean and washed all the suds off, you then switch the dial round to autodry and rinse the car again, this time with water that has been filtered through the built-in cartridge. The difference is that the filtered water forms a light film over the paintwork instead of beading, and evaporated from the paintwork without leaving water marks!
So after the watering and washing, you just bugger off and make a cuppa whilst it dries off. It took about 35-30 minutes, with the roof and bonnet taking longest to dry because they're the only flat panels on the car. The glass dried streak-free apart from one area that was in bright sunshine, so the glass polish will be out tomorrow
All-in-all a good job - had to go round with a trusty chamois and clean the door and boot shuts, and caught a few little runs of water from the wing mirrors and my sponge-like mesh grille (retains water like its on a hosepipe ban!) but the vast majority of the car came up spotfree, which was a pleasant surprise! I normally use Autoglym to clean my car, and I would say that the end result after using the Flash system was on a par with the AG Shampoo/Conditioner that I would normally have used.
The Flash kit itself costs £19.99, and rumours are it'll go up to £29.99 after an introductory period. For your money you get the gun, a bottle of shampoo, a filter cartridge and of course the (very simple) instructions. After washing the car I still have some shampoo left in the gun, and 2/3rds of the bottle left too. The filter, which is needed for that evaporation effect, is supposed to last for three washes before you go out and get some more - I'm yet to investigate the costs of a replacement filter but I've heard you can get a 10-use filter for £4.99, which sounds like pretty good value if its true! 50p per wash!
So, pros and cons:
Pros: fast, simple, does what it says on the packaging, good results!
Cons: You might find the initial outlay of £20 a little off-putting, and you might have to clean your glass after the water has evaporated if the car is in direct sunlight.
End result: a clean and shiny car! In my opinion, is it worth £20? You betcha
Anyone else bought or used this yet?
Cheers
cheers for that! Dunno how it would perform on a silver or white car but on my black Polo it worked a treat and, of course, no drying it off with a chamois! Nice.
