Haynes' World is a regular feature that reveals what the staff at Haynes are doing with their vehicles. This time, Rob’s got out the big guns (the snow foam) to help his brother remove months of grime from his van.
Van: Volkswagen Caddy LWB
Owner: Rob Keenan’s brother
I'm very old-fashioned when it comes to how I wash vehicles. My car-washing kit typically comprises a bucket, a couple of sponges, a bottle of wash ’n’ wax, a brush for the wheels, a chamois leather, a bottle of wax, and a cloth to apply it and another to buff it off. Comprehensive enough, in my opinion.
In recent years, snow foam has become a thing with the ‘detailing’ crowd (I hate that word!), but I've bravely/cynically carried on with my bucket and sponge. I have, at least, upgraded the products I use, preferring Autoglym's stable of products – I even ditched the chammy for their Instadry microfibre cloth, which works remarkably well.
But then, while visiting my parents one weekend, my brother turned up in his VW Caddy van, which has been parked under trees and hadn't been washed in ages. Truly grim. So I told him I’d help him to clean it on my next visit – but I knew my bucket and sponge wouldn't be up to the job, so I did some research.
Operation Scrub a Dub Dub was going to be carried out at my parents' house, which doesn't have mains water. Instead, they have a borehole-fed system but the pressure is too low to run a pressure washer (some don't need a mains supply to work, but we didn't have one of them). Luckily, I'd read a test in Auto Express magazine on snow foam bottles (similar to hand-pumped bottles gardeners use to apply chemicals), and Hydro's V2 had won, so I bought one. I also knew that the Autoglym snow foam – dubbed Polar Blast – was said to perform pretty well, so got that, too.
How does snow foam work?
Snow foam is designed as a pre-wash treatment. You apply it to the whole of the vehicle's exterior, including the glass and, according to the instructions on my Polar Blast bottle, the "magnificent blanket of foam" is meant to loosen and lift dirt that may otherwise get into a sponge or wash mitt and scratch the paintwork as you wash.
How much snow foam to water?
I applied the snow foam at the recommended dilution rate of 100ml of product to 500ml of water. Two things were immediately obvious: there was no magnificent blanket of foam, and the handle on the bottle had to be pumped regularly to keep the pressure up. Perhaps the foam issue would have been better with a pressure washer? Who knows, but it still clung on fairly well.
The instructions said to leave the foam to dwell for up to 10 minutes, and not let it dry. We then rinsed it off with clean, cold water before getting to work with Autoglym Ceramic Wash & Protect, which I'd also bought specifically for this job because we weren't going to have time to add a layer of wax. This shampoo is designed to leave a hydrophobic layer behind.
I must admit, the green algae came off remarkably well. Yes, a fair bit of elbow grease was needed, especially on the roof, but the snow foam had definitely done a decent job of loosening it. Most patches were removed with one pass of the sponge.
With that done, it was a case of going over it with the microfibre cloth.
The results speak for themselves. The Caddy was sparkling clean and will hopefully stay that way for a while.
To answer the question at the top of the page – is snow foam a gimmick? – I think your vehicle needs to be particularly dirty to justify using it. If that happens regularly enough, for whatever reason, then perhaps you should give it a try.
But would I use snow foam on my own car? I'll use the rest of the 2.5-litre bottle – it's still half full – on it; the car is metallic orange and always looks good after a clean. However, unless it's covered in road salt after a long, mid-winter drive, I rarely let it get that filthy before I wash it. So, even at a reasonable £16, I don't think I'll be a regular user.