What's new
By:
Car Wash Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

citrus acid in self serve?

C

Creole

Member
Just curious if anyone runs citrus acid as a pre-soak in self serve bays? We have a customer requesting it and his fleet is sizable enough that we are considering it, but aren't familiar with it on a large / general public use scale. Is it something we don't want everyone having access to (like simply replacing our current tire cleaner with it in all the bays) or just set it up in the one large bay they use for their truck fleet. Any opinions or experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
 
This product is an acid, or low pH product. It will be better than most of the presoaks, but why not try a high pH alkaline? It will outclean the others if set up correctly. I am in the process of doing that. Have tested it with sprayers and portable pressure washers.
 
Mac,
Thanks for the input. Our tire and wheel cleaner is already a high PH alkaline. We think it does pretty well, but this customer is asking for citrus for big trucks, thinking it will do better than what we already offer. I know that a lot of truck washes use citrus and people generally like it. My only experience with it is in very small spray bottles for my motorcycle rims. It does a great job on those, but hate to make an across the board change without asking if anyone has already had experience with it on a large scale. Especially since there’s a hazard shipping charge for it and not on our current product. It makes me wonder if it’s something that would damage finishes if used improperly. Although I see it’s listed for self serves and automatic washes?

Thanks again
 
Creole said:
Just curious if anyone runs citrus acid as a pre-soak in self serve bays? We have a customer requesting it and his fleet is sizable enough that we are considering it, but aren't familiar with it on a large / general public use scale. Is it something we don't want everyone having access to (like simply replacing our current tire cleaner with it in all the bays) or just set it up in the one large bay they use for their truck fleet. Any opinions or experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Click to expand...

“Citrus Acid” is a little vague. Any acid will be 0-6 on the pH scale. You can get that with products like d-Limonine, citric acid, etc. the question would be how low is the pH, what are the other ingredients and will it be potentially harmful at the concentration it is at when it reaches the bay. You’d have to know exactly what product you are using to assess if it is right for you.

The converse is true as well. There are high pH products (8-14 on the scale) that you could get on your hands and others that are highly caustic and would be hazardous to handle. Knowing the totality of the ingredients will help.

Do you have a specific product in mind?
 
My experience has been low ph brightens glass and metals. It is also effective at mineral deposits. We have lime plants in our area and a lot of their employees use vinegar (acetic acid) to clean their cars. High PH cleans road film off of painted surfaces. I think you're likely going to be sacrificing cleaning for the general public on their cars if you switch to a low ph presoak. Do you have room on your dial for an extra function?
 
My guess is the more you look into this, the more you will realize that many chem sales really don’t know what they are doing. Concentration and metal safe qualities make a big difference. You can burn many polished aluminum and chrome pieces with acids. I would start by asking your customer what product they are asking about and talk to that supplier.
 
Washnshine,
we were generally looking at Simoniz liquid acid cleaner which runs at a 1.5 ph as listed in the sds, assuming it’s somewhat higher than that with some mix ratio with water. Our current wheel cleaner is clean white advertised as 10.5 ph before the dilution and delivery to the bay.

Greg Pack,
I feel that i’ve Confused things by saying pre-soak in my original post. I should have stated wheel cleaner. I wouldn’t want to change my pre-soak for every bay with citrus acid, but i’d entertain changing the wheel cleaner to citrus acid in all the bays for simplicity. And yes I have one open switch position in all the bays. There is an “off” function at both the 12:00 and 6:00 position on the dial. I could leave all the bays as they are except the truck bay and replace one off position with the citrus acid by adding a pump and tank in the pump room.

Mac,
The customer came to us from one of the truck washes in town. They probably have no idea what was being used other than it was citrus acid because it was a wash out and the employees at that location washed for the drivers. That particular truck wash decided to get into competition with this company, obviously, my customer will not wash there any more and came to us with a decent sized account. Since we have no experience with any citrus acid I told them we would do some research and get back to them. Not sure how much value is actually added by offering it, especially with the haz handling up charge.

Thanks to all for your advice
 
Well, I guess you could add this product and call it "wheel bright" to all the the rotary switches to complement your tire cleaner, That is assuming it is a non-HF formula.
 
Really need to find out if he has polished aluminum or chrome wheels. You can screw those up easily with the wrong product.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top