[Music] is the two bucket wash method dead is it a thing of the past we're going to talk about that today so what's up guys welcome to another episode of pan the organizer so in the past year I've been doing some secret testing I've had some discussions with a few professional detailers a few of my YouTube detailing Channel friends as well as some Chemists in the industry and we kind of came to a conclusion that things have evolved enough in the past years where the two bucket method might not be the method of choice anymore
and I'm going to explain why it might not be fully dead so follow me as we're going to go through the motions why we're alternating this method what my preferred method moving forward will probably be at this point I'm going to show you the equipment and tools you're going to need to do this new method and of course you're going to see it in a demo on my own vehicle as it's due for a cleaning right now so first of all the current technical or most used wash methods for a vehicle are traditionally the the
one bucket method and the two bucket method now I've covered that extensively in the past in a video the one bucket versus two bucket method I'll link that in the description if you want to check that out but in a nutshell the one bucket method is a method where you only have one bucket but multiple washing media so either multiple microfiber wash mitts or multiple microfiber towels whatever you like to use to clean your vehicle and the principle is that you're dunking that media inside your uh your bucket you're cleaning a section you're flipping the
towel or mitt to the clean side do another section then discard that wash mitt or towel so it never goes back with the so-called dirt inside the wash bucket you pick up another microfiber wash mitt or microfiber towel and you continue on so on and so forth and the two bucket wash method has two buckets so one bucket is your soapy wash solution and your second bucket is just some clean rinsing water so the principle in that one is that you're dunking your wash media your microfiber wash mitt or microfiber towel inside your soapy solution
you're going to clean a section of the vehicle you're going to come back and rinse that mitt or towel inside your rinse bucket so that's going to remove a bit of that loose dirt and debris so that way you're not recontaminating your second bucket which is the wash solution when you're dunking it back in and you're of course those both of those methods are made to kind of alleviate or help to reduce the chances of marring the paint when you're contact washing your vehicle now fast forward to 2023 and things have evolved quite a bit
so for those who don't believe in snow Foams by the way yes 5-10 years ago we had mainly pH neutral snow Foams and they were used mostly for lubrication they didn't have any real cleaning properties but today it is very important that we have a pre-wash stage so before the contact wash with a proper snow foam because there's some Alkaline snow Foams out there so the higher on the pH scale that do have some cleaning properties and I'm going to talk about which products you need in just a few seconds but those I've done extensive
testing you can see that on other channels as well they actually do some pre-cleaning for you and when you do a proper pre-wash with either a foam Cannon or a foam gun regardless if you have a pressure washer with a foam Cannon or a garden hose with the foam gun you're basically spraying that soapy solution letting it dwell it's going to help to lift and encapsulate any loose dirt and debris and then of course it's going to help to remove a bit of that grit as well that's on the surface then you flush that away
before the contact wash so 80 to 85 percent of that dirt is knocked off before you actually get to a point where you're using your wash media and case in point if you watch any of those channels of the disaster details right those disgusting filthy vehicles that people bring in for a detail you should be able to notice that after the pre-wash so as soon as they foam the vehicle and do that pre-rinsing the majority of that dirt is off in the car almost looks clean right now don't get me wrong we always have to
follow a pre-wash with a full contact wash because it's the only way to get a hundred percent clean there is no such thing as a touchless car wash at the moment if you want 100 clean so pre-wash followed by a wash so in this case today I'm going to show you what I've come through a full year of conclusion because I wanted to go through all four seasons here in Montreal Canada including winter months and see if there's any Marine done on my own vehicle because I used my own car as the the test subject
and uh well the conclusions were super good you can see the smile on my face so basically we're using one bucket and we're not even using multiple wash media we're using one microfiber towel but you're gonna see how we do it so first let me show you what tools and equipment you're going to need by the way don't worry I'll leave the links to all the tools equipment and products in the description under the video for you guys to check them out so all you have to do is sit back relax and enjoy the show
also quick disclaimer this is not a sponsored video nobody paid for this video I am just here to share my thoughts and methods so first order of business obviously you're going to need a wash bucket you're also going to need a wash media so by this what I like to use is either a microfiber Chanel wash mitt Channel because they have these kind of fingers to trap that dirt inside there or a more traditional style microfiber wash mitt like this microfiber Madness incredimate which I absolutely like so obviously something gentle for the paintwork inside the
bucket this is one of the crucial parts that is non-optional because they are important and we're talking about a grid guard so uh it's basically a grill that sits at the bottom of your wash bucket and this is to keep that dirt that's instead of floating inside your bucket it's going to stay underneath that Grill it helps basically prevent the water from splashing back up and there are different types so this is the original OG grid Guard from the grid guard company and this one's here the dirt lock this is from the detail guards so
this is a bit different in the design a bit higher performance so more expensive but you are getting more for your money has these locking tabs when you're putting it deep inside your bucket and inside here if you're looking it has these Venturi funnels that's going to filter your water once again but the principles are the same it keeps the dirt at the bottom of your bucket so it's not going to be suspended in your wash solution so you're always dunking your media in the top part where the clean wash solution is next you're going
to need something for the pre-wash stage so the pre-wash once again is very important because we are using some sort of a surfactant base detergent in this case a snow foam inside either a foam gun so if you have just a garden hose don't worry you can use this this is a foam gun so you put your solution in here this attaches directly to your garden hose and you have this trigger so obviously you're not going to generate as much foam as a pressure washer and foam Cannon setup for obvious reasons you don't have the
same water output and pressure but still at least you're going to be able to get that foam and if you do have a pressure washer obviously I highly recommend a foam cannon in this case this is the new mjjc foam Canon version 3.0 the S Series so we already pre-mixed in here one of the snow Foams I'll be talking about but you do your dilution it connects to your pressure washer thanks to the quarter inch quick connect and that's it you're blanketing the surface of your vehicle with a layer of that snow foam you're going
to let it dwell never work in direct sunlight always on a cool surface and in the shade or if you're lucky like me and you can work in a garage perfect in a more controlled environment but never let these things dry on the surface obviously not only for the better washing experience but also for the fact that the product is going to perform better because you're going to let it dwell dwell time is important follow the instructions by the way of the product that you are using because some of them have different dilution ratios some
of them also have different dwell times on the surface so the purpose is you're going to start to soften up a bit of that loose dirt and debris encapsulate it inside the surfactants the detergents all that technology and chemistry that's inside the pre-wash lift it on the surface and then you're going to rinse that off the surface so you're going to get 80 to 85 percent clean already with just that pre-stage then we're going to re-foam the vehicle again as you're going to see in the demo to add lubrication now for the contact wash so
we're going to have a bucket with your favorite soap your favorite car shampoo inside there diluted properly but with the add in snow foam on the top a second time for that snow foam because we're re-foaming well you're going to have added lubrication so your wash media is going to glide on the surface we want a lubrication which is very important that's what minimizes the chances of marring the paint having any micro scratches or micro swirls anytime you touch the paint right it's the wash phase and the Hand drying stage if you're using a microfiber
drying towel at the end that's where the majority of the love marks or the marring occurs so how do you alleviate that well with methods like these so if we have a traditional Washoe for your weekly washes you can use a pH neutral snow foam just like this one this is a kochemy the gentle snow foam pH seven and a half pH neutral let's consider that neutral that's fine and you have another neutral shampoo but made more for ceramic Coatings for your wash process in the bucket this is Car Pro reset so this is more
than enough for your traditional weekly washes when you want to bump it up a notch and do an actual pre-wash stage it has a bit of cleaning or a bit more bite so there's two categories of snow Foams so there's the light alkaline and there's the heavier alkaline so let's start with the light ones so things like DIY detail this one here incredible Suds is can be used in the foam Cannon and in the wash bucket this is their pH eight and a half shampoo it's still wax safe seal and safe and coating safe obviously
but it has a bit more bite when you're doing when you're using it as a snow foam in your foam Cannon another one that's very good is W4 from g-technic out of the UK this is a citrus foam so still pH neutral but has a bit more of that bite so that Citrus technology in there to start removing a bit of that Grime and a bit of that traffic film and last but not least which is the one we're using in today's demo pH nine and a half for this one this is the active foam
by kosami so basically think if they had GSF and you added a bit of GS green star that's their all-purpose cleaner mixed inside there you would kind of get this one here so that's the the baby that came out this is the active foam so again ph9 and a half a bit more bite so this you could use for the pre-wash and now you're getting a bit of that cleaning not heavy duty cleaning like some of these that we'll talk about but for your regular weekly washes these are more than fine and you can use
them no problem they will not weaken or harm your ceramic coating and if you have some normal protection as a wax or a sealant as long as it's still in its lifespan or life cycle it should be pretty fine so next we move every probably once every month or every other month or especially at the start of a new season so after winter so when Springtime comes in you want a deeper clean right you're going to move to the higher alkaline pH so something like this this I wouldn't these by the way I would not
recommend on regular waxes or sealants because that could start breaking them down and stripping them and I wouldn't recommend them weekly even on a coated car because eventually you can start weakening the properties of your coating although Coatings that are well within they're um they're considered a lifespan should be fine they can resist this just don't use this too often right so the first one ph-12 this is super foam by koshemi so very powerful against dirt grime traffic film the next one you guys follow my channel you know Bill Tambor of some of the best
snow films for cleaning properties so autofoam pH 13 they also have their build timer touchless this one here is sugar based and ph-12 so I like this one especially in the winter months for that road salt this works especially uh well so another high alkaline and this one here close to pH 11 is Car Pro lift designed for coated Vehicles so this again is a intense pre-wash so these four I would use every once in a while when you want that deeper clean that higher cleaning potential to remove traffic film Road Grime before the contact
wash so this kind of going to shock that surface right and that's another way you can also help to restore a bit of the properties of the Coatings when they're starting to be clogged because a lot of the mineral deposits they dig into the coating and you want to remove those and that's going to restore the hydrophobic properties assuming that the coating was properly applied and it's still healthy enough or well within its durability claim right so we have our bucket we have the grit guard we have our wash media we have the foam Cannon
or form gun and now we know which pre-wash snow foam we are using so these ones here with a bit more bite again the DIY detail incredible Suds the Citrus foam W4 from g-technic or the active foam from koshimi you can use weekly so it does have a bit more bite compared to a traditional snow foam that's just pH neutral that only lubricates the surface but not real cleaning and then you have the super high alkaline pH 11 12 13 Snow Foams once in a while for that deeper cleaning and they do clean the surface
I have a video on that by the way ph7 versus pH uh 12 or 13 if you want to see what kind of a cleaning difference you get so these actually do some work that's how much progress has been made with the technology so the purpose is blanket the vehicle let that dwell rinse it off re-foam the vehicle then you have that lubrication and then do the contact wash rinse dry the vehicle and that's pretty much it you can use of course your a detailer if you want at the end if you're mechanically drying with
your microfiber drying towel you should be using a quick detail spray or some sort of lubrication on the surface for the towel to act as a buffer between the paint and the towel or if you're using a blow dryer or a car dryer like I like to use or a leaf blower because you have a coated car the water just flies off quickly or more efficient and then you can just grab a microfiber towel and a quick detailer to quickly remove any residual water boost the gloss the slickness and that's it you're done so in
today's demo let's jump I'm going to show you how I do this now I started by cleaning the wheels and tires because that doesn't change I always start with that it's the dirtiest parts of the vehicle you can clean your wheels and tires at the end if you prefer that's just my preferred method of cleaning the wheels and tires first as you normally would this is not a wheel and tire cleaning tutorial this is a body wash so you can see how we clean the paintwork so now that the wheels and tires are clean I'm
going to show you how I would start with the pre-wash stage so let's check it out alright guys so for the demo I have the pressure washer this is my crensley 1122 TST for those work curious I set it for roughly a thousand PSI for washing Vehicles thanks to a 4.5 nozzle orifice I use a 40 degree tip when I'm rinsing the vehicle in this case also I have the mjjc foam Canon s version 3.0 inside there is the koshimi active foam diluted one to ten one parts of product to 10 parts of water so
I'm going to clip it on we're going to foam the vehicle we're going to let that dwell we're going to rinse we're going to re-foam and then do the mechanical contact wash foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] guys so we blanketed the entire vehicle surface with the koshimi active foam that specific snow foam requires a five minute of reaction time or dwell time on the surface so we're going to let that do its thing again with all the principle of this is to help emulsify lift encapsulate soften up that dirt and grime so we can rinse it
off and then we're going to refilm before we do the contact wash all right guys so it's been roughly five minutes we're gonna switch to have the lance on there we're going to rinse the vehicle at this point thank you all right guys so a few thoughts before I re-foam the vehicle with the snow foam another reason we're foaming the vehicle before we rinse it because if you notice the car was dry before the initial foaming uh it doesn't really make that much of a difference if the car is pre-rinsed or dry yes you're diluting
the snow foam if you prevent it a little more but it's not by a huge factor I also have a video of that pre-rinsing versus not pre-rinsing however in this modified wash method why we're applying it on the dry painted before we rinse is to have some lubrication on the surface once again and to encapsulate kind of that dirt and grime before you spray your 1000 to 2000 psi pressure washer onto the surface right so imagine if there's no lubrication on there after talking with Ivan Lacroix my friend owner of DIY detail products he's been
in the industry for over four decades and he kind of made me understand right when you're pre-rinsing the vehicle with either no rinseless wash to encapsulate on there or no snow foam with no lubrication on there you're driving that dirt and grit at a thousand to two thousand PSI onto the paintwork so that can potentially cause scratching or marring in theory so at least when you're blanketing the vehicle with a layer of snow foam you're having kind of that buffer or lubrication on the surface before you rinse a car so again always in an effort
to minimize the chances of Swirls and scratches so there are many benefits to forming the vehicle as you guys can see so anybody who thought foaming was just for fun might maybe 10 years ago but not anymore there's reasons why those higher performance snow Foams have appeared on the market in the past a few years now and then they're very essential at least for pan the organizer you're usually always going to see it as part of my pre-wash stage now if you're not using a snow foam but you still want to do this kind of
method well at least use a pre-rinse or pre-treat with a rinseless wash still diluted 256 to 1 the traditional dilution ratio if you're using any one of the good ones right pns absolute DIY rinseless wash um uh onr so Optimum no rinse version five that's their updated formula a lot better than the previous formulation by the way McKees and 914 there are so many good rinseless washes out there but diluted 256 to one in a pump sprayer you're going to blanket the vehicle with that let it encapsulate let it dwell on there and then you
can rinse at least you're gonna have that lubrication on the surface right but in this case I like to do this if you have some bug guts or things of that nature you're going to want to spray the bug remover on the surface before you foam so spray that let it dwell a bit spray your snow foam on top so the bug remover underneath will still continue working without having the time to dry on the surface which is always a good thing so let's re-foam the vehicle now and we're going to do the wash method
so we're still using the grid card in the bucket we're only using one bucket now we have one microfiber wash mitt and we're still going to work from top to bottom so the top parts are the less dirty parts of the car and I keep the lowest parts of the vehicle for the end because that's where the majority of the dirt is so you don't want to cross contaminate and potentially scratch or Mark the top part of the paint so let's foam the vehicle and do the contact wash [Applause] so just so you guys can
see here's the bucket so I have my soapy solution in there I have Car Pro reset so just over one ounce and a half to roughly four gallons of water in there and then working from top to bottom you guys know at this point what I like to do is use the straight line motion you're not applying any pressure on the surface so let your mitt do the work be very gentle and I usually go in the way that the wind blows on the surface so on this and on the panels from left to right
as you're going to see so I separate the vehicle in three parts so the top part then the midsection and the lower portion for the end every now and then flip your towel to a clean section flip your minimene to that other side which we know is clean and once this is on camera so I'm talking at the same time but if you're very efficient this wash essentially for the paintwork you can do in 15 minutes it is super quick so then you're dunking rub of course your mitt on the surface in the bottom that's
the entire purpose get that lubrication going so again it doesn't matter if you guys use microfiber towels or a microfiber wash mitt basically use whatever wash media you feel comfortable with but you see here you're not hearing any Force being applied on the surface I'm letting the media do its thing the vehicle is already pretty clean just thanks to the pre-wash alone so that's the purpose so see here now I flip the mitt clean side ideally if you want to increase your efficiency you get a bucket on rollers like I have here so I like
to squeeze that dirt off and the dirty water dunk it in the bucket in the bottom no so I'm going to clean the half that you see on this side of the camera before I move to the other side just to speed things up there for the footage again I flipped the wash mitt and as you can tell I'm keeping still those lower parts so there's a lot of tricks tips and techniques that we're still applying here when we're doing this and we're going to talk towards the end is the two bucket wash method dead
that's going to be in the conclusions stay tuned for that obviously all right so now it's time to do the lower portions and again so in my testing you guys know how crazy I like to go and I use my own vehicle as the guinea pig that's how sure I was of everything that I've learned over the years but I used inspection lights on the paintwork to make sure not getting any scratches or swirls and again my buddy Ivan LaCroix was here recently we were filming a few videos you guys are going to see on
the channel if they're not up already and he also saw just how my paint was Flawless after two years and a half of ownership at this point so now I'm gonna do the rest of the vehicle and come back to rinse it all right guys so contact wash is done now it's time for the final rinse [Applause] so as you can tell the hydrophobics are absolutely intact two years and a half into this I remind you that my car is coated with professional grade Roar Coatings so it's a ceramic graphene and polysilazine dual layer system
but uh yeah still beading and sheeting very quickly check this out there we go water is quick to sheet the beads are super tight super round so the fact that we're increasing the alkalinity a bit on the pH scale with those snow Foams absolutely no worries on coated vehicles and so you can see the hydrophobics on a vertical panel and there we go super quick sheeting again tight round water beads just like we like there's minimal water left it's going to be very easy to dry okay guys so what did we learn basically a revolution
I think or an evolution perhaps in the car wash method so one bucket one wash media so one microfiber wash mitt in my case a grit guard at the bottom of the bucket to separate the dirt at the bottom from the rest of your clean wash solution on top and then pre-wash is very important regardless if you're using a foam gun with your garden hose or a pressure washer and a foam Cannon you're blanketing the vehicle with that layer of snow foam you can use snow Foams obviously that have a bit more bite for that
pre-wash stage to clean a bit more of that dirt grime and we're knocking off basically all that grit that surface dirt the gritty material and then we're rinsing that off after the dwell time and so you're getting less chances of scratching and marking because 80 to 85 percent of the surface at this point is clean we're re-foaming the vehicle at this stage and then we're going to do the contact wash with your traditional car shampoo and then we're gonna have tons of lubrication on the surface because we re-foamed the vehicle at that point and the
wash media is going to glide on the surface we rinse all of that off and we get to a point now where it's ready to dry either you're going to use a quick detail spray and a microfiber drying towel as usual or in my case I'm going to use a cordless leaf blower because it's very fast and efficient and at the end I'm going to do a once over quickly with a microfiber towel and a quick detailer to have Boost gloss and slickness and pick up any residual water and that's it you're done so it
is very efficient there is no more marring nothing to be worried about I don't have tons of wash media to manage like the traditional one bucket method and I don't have to worry about managing two buckets and having that rinse solution and all that good stuff I know a lot of guys are probably smiling out there because they say finally Pan's talking about it and yeah so after this year of testing it's very conclusive as far as I'm concerned pre-washes have evolved to a point now where I think if someone says that snow Foams are
ridiculous and they're useless I don't think they have tried the proper snow foam homes and forming techniques go check out my buddy John deleer from the forensic detailing Channel as well he's covered this extensively this process also the same with Ivan Lacroix and Nick mcgurk over at DIY detail a bunch of other detailers and detailing channels out there as well our big proponents of this method now you're probably going to see this more and more does this mean that the two bucket wash method is dead absolutely not I mean if you still want to use
it so use this method right pre-wash rinse foam again and then use the two bucket method that's even better so your again minimizes any perhaps chances of potential marring but it's not necessary at this point so if you're satisfied with that one bucket wash method it works well let me know your thoughts by the way have you been using this method or what's your alternative method there are many ways guys by the way to wash a vehicle there's not just one correct way out there I just share the way I do things I share my
findings and my research as well I like to thoroughly test as you guys know me at this point I have a background in molecular biology and biochemistry so I can have discussions with these chemist and kind of figure out what the chemistry is behind their products how they work and I kind of think after that how can I apply that to my regular wash routine because I like to wash my car twice weekly so it's been through the ringer this past year and I came to this conclusion that this one bucket wash method works just
fine as long as you use common sense of course again if your vehicle is covered in a thick layer of mud you'd pre-rinse that off and then do the snow foam the rinse the foam again and the contact wash but if it's anywhere light dirt to moderate amounts of dirt and you do this method absolutely no problem foam on dry let that dwell rinse foam again contact wash rinse and then do your drying process and you're good to go and yeah you're just going to love the efficiency of it and again share your thoughts your
comments again I'm going to leave the links to all the stuff the products the tools the equipment in the description under the video for you guys to check them out share this video with people that you might know if you're convinced also about the one bucket method and it's time for them to finally switch or at least try something else right don't stay in your your old ways and don't evolve things have changed so much I've been detailing for 26 years at this point and things have evolved quite a bit in the past decades so
if you're stuck in the Dinosaur Days of decades ago I mean you're missing out on a lot of the fun the whole point is to enjoy what you're doing enjoy the process for me it's soothing it's relaxing and evolved yeah change your ways change your methods so share this video with anyone that you think might benefit from listening to it again share your thoughts in the comment section and in the meantime don't forget keep it tight keep it clean and I'll see all of you on the next one
