About a month ago I read a thread on Autopia about a foam gun that could be had at Target under the Vroom brand for less than $10 bucks. I finally got around to picking it up yesterday, and am pretty impressed. I am way too cheap to buy a Gilmour, much less a Cam Spray type unit, but I was always intrigued with the idea of a foam gun. Increased wash safety and the replacement of the soap bucket with this unit make it a great tool for me. It has a 2 oz. canister that one puts the soap in, and a switch on the top for easy changing from straight water to foam. The water pressure isn't as nice as my other "conventional" hose nozzle, so I would use that for wheels/tires/wells first and then switch to this for the paint. In the following pics I used about 1.5 oz of Duragloss #902 in the canister, which was more than enough to thoroughly foam the entire car twice. Right after spraying: After a minute or two of dwelling: I paid $8 for what IMO is the coolest detailing tool I've added to my supplies this year. The elimination of a rinse bucket in my wash routine and the fact that it doesn't use that much soap (one ounce of concentrate would be enough for the entire car) make this a great investment for me. I wouldn't really use this as a pre-soak unless the car was really filthy, but rather to lube up the panel with soap right before going over it with the mitt. Time will tell to see how it holds up, but so far I give it 2 thumbs up! :thumb:
I tried one of these, and thought it was really a POS. There was way too much water, and not enough suds. The foam was more like sudsy water on the car, and the extra water caused a lot of the foam to be washed off. additionally, I set it down and broke the little jar. It lasted I think 2 washes and I threw it out.
How much fun can you have for 8 bucks? Thats cool. I just ordered a Foam Master from Auto Geek. It was 10 bucks off so what the heck. I couldn't take it any more I had to have one. Still want a one for my pressure washer too...:shrug:
I was always curious about the one from target and Lowes but after looking at the actual sprayer I decided that it was going to produce more of a watery suds than what a fan nozzle will produce......so I decided to buy a Gilmour from Amazon for a "heck of a deal". Next up is a sprayer for my PW.
It looks too watery IMO. I believe my Gilmour can achieve better results and the foam cannon even better results than the Gilmour. However, if this is it works for you then great!
I had bought the same unit in my quest to avoid the 60 someodd bucks it would cost to get a Gilmour. I was disappointed with the foam production of the $8 tool after seeing pics of the foam the Gilmour produced. After using it for awhile, I ordered the Gilmour from Amazon for 39.00 and now get to play with that thick foam. However, now that I think about it and have used both, I've come to the untested conclusion that the $8 tool works fine. Certainly it's more watery than the Gilmour, but I believe that's a good thing. It squirts out enough soap to emulsify the dirt, and the watery consistency rinses the dirt down and off the car. I think that's a bit better-working than pure foam which might be too "foamy" to provide the one-step wash/rinse. YMMV, this is a purely unscientific conclusion. That being said, I always reach for the Gilmour anyway because foam is so much fun!
I bought a similar unit from Lowe's for around $10 and it worked perfectly fine for me until it broke after using it for about a year. I have not replaced it yet as for my own vehicles, foaming isn't needed as it will strip my wonderful layers of wax... The foam that I saw with my Lowe's attachment is about the same as you're seeing with your Vroom attachment.
You might actually end up spending more over the long run because of how much car wash soap it goes through compaired to a foam lance. To each his own though
Thanks for the offer, but honestly 90% of my washes right now are done in the garage with ONR and the heaters on. I'll definitely take you up on that in ths spring though. Like I said before, this thing only used ~1.5 oz of Duragloss 902 to foam the entire car thorougly twice, and I still had some left over. So soap consumption is not an issue. By "Cam Spray type unit", I meant a fancy foam lance. No way would I drop the $$ on that. *I* still think it is cool, despite what everyone says, especially for the price, maybe I will feel differently if it breaks or stops working. Unfortunately, the weather is really getting crappy around here, I don't do conventional washes unless it is a comfortable (ie. no wind) 35F or over, so I probably won't use it much in the coming weeks/months.
Okay, just let me know whenever you want to give it a shot. I'm basically in the same boat as you with being stuck using ONR unless it gets above 40°F then I pull out conventional stuff.
