If you are a smart car owner, you probably have already opted to wash your car with foam cannons. But, despite being fast and efficient, foam cannons can’t remove all the road grime from your car’s surface.
So, the question arises, do you hand wash after foam cannon while washing your car? Well, in short, Yes, you should hand-wash your car with microfiber mitts after cleaning it with a foam cannon. It’s because the foam cannon/pressure washer cannot remove 100% of the dust and dirt off your car’s exterior.
However, this is not the only reason why I always recommend hand washing your car after foam cannon washing. There are other benefits to this as well.
So, to know more about this, just dive down below right now!!
Do You Hand Wash After Foam Cannon?
Automotive experts suggest that you should hand wash your car after foam cannoning on it. Although people commonly only use the foam cannoning technique to clean their cars, it is not a fully effective way to clean the car’s surface.
It’s because foam cannoning cannot provide enough displacement to remove the contaminants from your car.
In order to fully remove the dirt, dust, oil and other contaminants from your car’s surface, you will need to manually clean your car. So, you have to hand wash your car from time to time regardless of whether you foam cannon or not.
Why Do You Hand Wash After Washing Your Car With Foam Cannon?
There are multiple reasons why it’s important to hand-wash your car after washing it with a foam cannon. For your convenience, I have listed the major ones below. Here we go:
1. Surface oil doesn’t get cleaned:
As a car owner, you must understand that dust and dirt are not the prime enemies against your car’s cleanliness. Rather, the main enemy is oil and grease.
As you ride your car for multiple days, it accumulates oil on its surface from the atmosphere. And, the oil accumulates more dust and dirt on it later on.
Now, even if you clean the dust and dirt from the upper layer of your car’s surface with a foam cannon, your car will not be properly cleaned because the layer of oil will still be there. Hence, to remove the stubborn layer of oil, you must hand wash your car after doing a foam cannon wash.
2. Speed doesn’t necessarily bring efficiency:
We tend to use a foam cannon in order to finish the cleaning process faster. However, we must understand here that a “speedy” cleanup does not mean an efficient cleanup.
That means that if you use a foam cannon to wash your car, the washing process will not be 100% efficient and effective. Rather, you must manually hand wash your car with microfiber mitts so that it’s thoroughly cleaned.
3. Foam Cannon can’t reach narrow edges/carve:
A foam cannon only works upside down while rinsing your car with the soap solution. This means that when you apply the soap solution to your car surface with a foam cannon, the cleaning liquid only travels downwards.
That’s why the soap cannot reach all of the small pockets and carves on your car’s surface. On the other hand, hand-washing your car means that you can apply the soap solution to all the areas of your car’s surface.
So, when using a foam cannon to wash your car, you’ll notice that dust and dirt are accumulating in these narrow edges/carves over time.
Therefore, to remove these residual contaminants from your car’s surface, you have to hand wash your car after doing a foam cannon wash.
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Hand Wash vs. Foam Cannon: What’s The Best Way To Wash Your Car?
The best way to wash your car is to mix the 2 methods of cleaning: hand washing and foam cannon washing. Yes, I recommend utilizing both methods to get the best result when washing your car.
To do that, you can follow the simple below-mentioned steps:
- First off, you have to apply the cleaning solution over your car’s surface with a foam cannon.
- Then, you’ll have to let the soap solution stay on the car’s surface for half an hour. Now, the question comes, can you use any soap in a foam cannon? No, you can only use designated car soaps in a foam cannon.
- After the above-mentioned step, you should use microfiber mitts to scrub off your car’s surface. This process will remove stubborn contaminants off your car’s paint.
- Next, you can finally use a foam cannon to apply clean water to your car, so the cleaning solution/soap water can get washed away.
How Often Do You Have To Hand-wash After Foam Cannon Washing?
I wholeheartedly recommend that you hand wash your car after using the foam cannon every time. This will make sure that your car’s surface paint is super shiny and crispy clean all the time.
However, if you don’t have enough time to manually scrub your car, you can hand-wash your car after every couple of times of doing foam cannon wash.
Remember, a foam cannon wash gives you a speedy cleanup, but the quality of a hand wash is always better than a cannon-assisted one.
Final Verdict
Well, that was my take on this query, do you hand wash after foam cannon? As you can see, it’s always a good idea to hand-wash after doing a foam cannon wash.
However, if you are not able to do a manual hand-wash for the time being, it’s not going to be a big deal. But, if you want a total cleanup on your car, you must hand-wash your car after foam cannoning.
Thank you so much and have a nice day ahead!!!
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