Anyone tried Bilt Hamber Autowash, and if so, what did you think of it?
I wanted to give the car a quick wash this afternoon, but had finished my Meguair's Gold Class shampoo last week. So I started on the BH Autowash bottle I'd ordered last month. It only came in a 500ml bottle, but it only requires 5ml in 10 litres of water. You'd think then that it would be quite thick, almost gel like, but it's very thin.
Instructions say 5ml in a bucket then fill with hot running water to a max of 10 litres. I did this, but it still looked a bit anaemic - but, if it's anything like Autofoam, I thought that perhaps thick suds wasn't the best indicator of performance.
However, when I went to apply it to the bodywork, it was terribly thin - it was almost as if I'd just used plain water, there was very little "soaping" action to speak of. As I said, I usually wouldn't worry too much about looks; but for washing, it seems to me that it's the action of touching the paint with the wash mitt that's the key cleaner, so really a shampoo just provide decent suds to keep it lubricated. This, however, was terribly thin, it didn't feel "slick".
The car was actually pretty clean as I'd done it last week, and the main aim was just to give the bumper and windscreen a going over to get rid of the summer bugs, so I did that. I then decided to mix up another bucket and give the whole car another wash. This time, I used probably double the amount of the first bucket, and then half filled it with running water. I then took it outside and filled the rest using the jet nozzle on the hose. This seemed to work better - it frothed up much more and gave some longer last suds, which felt better when used to wash. However, unlike Meg's Gold Class, where you can apply it to the paint and it seems to stay quite thickly on the bodywork, this was still pretty thin. It just didn't feel like it was giving a nice thick solution to keep the wash mitt lubricated.
Anyone else find this? I will persevere with it - perhaps it just needs a stringer concentration (although that will mean the bottle won't last as long), but I was a little disappointed, having been previously very happy with BH stuff.