Review & How-To: Ultima Waterless Wash Plus

[Marc08EX]

Product Review & How-To: Ultima Waterless Wash Plus
Ultima Waterless Wash Plus+, Ultima waterless car wash, waterless auto wash, spray wash



Description: (Taken from AG's website)

Clean and protect in one step!

Ultima Waterless Wash Plus+ EASILY and SAFELY cleans painted surfaces, chrome, plastic, glass and wheels without the use of water. No hoses! No rinsing! No drying! This "Boosted by Polycharger™" formula not only cleans your vehicle’s surfaces, it protects them from the harsh elements and harmful UV rays.

Ultima Waterless Wash Plus+ is packaged in a ready-to-use trigger spray bottle. Starting with the upper panels, spray your vehicle and use a soft, folded microfiber towel to wipe in a back and forth motion. Refold and replace the towel as needed. Ultima Waterless Wash Plus+ Concentrate can also be used as a quality quick detailer and clay lubricant! Slick lubricants in the formula prevent scratching.

Ultima Waterless Wash Plus+ maintains the shine of your vehicle by removing light road grime, bugs, water spots, fingerprints, and bird droppings. Meanwhile, it deposits a layer of clear protection to boost your existing paint protection. It's quick, it's easy, and your vehicle will look freshly detailed.

Price:

$9.99 for 22oz (RTU)
$20.99 for 16oz (Concentrate)
$119.99 for 128oz (Concentrate)

Introduction:

If you have recently read my review on ONR Wash & Wax (Review & How-To: Optimum No Rinse Wash & Wax), you know how I was afraid to try doing a rinseless wash. It took me a long time to get over it and finally take the plunge to try it. Actually, living conditions forced me to try it. With that said, waterless washing was even scarier!!! I mean how would you have enough lubrication and not scratch your paint by spraying product on the surface right?

I never really paid any attention to waterless washes until Meguiar's came out with their Ultimate Wash and Wax Anywhere. I'm a big Meguiar's nut and I love everything about them. I've been driving all the way to Irvine, CA to hangout in their Thursday Night Open Garages. I was fortunate enough to get a demo from MOL administrator himself, Michael Stoops. After that and his assurance, I was hooked.

Now let me show you how I do a waterless wash.

How-To Do A Waterless Car Wash:

I'm not going to type the product's directions but instead show you:



I first start off by misting the waterless wash solution on the panel I'm working on. It is important to point out that you should work on small sections at a time. You can even break down an entire panel if you want to. No one's rushing you. Take your time because technique is EXTREMELY important here.



The directions say to lightly mist the surface. I think I tend to spray more than I have to but I'd rather to do that for peace of mind and to reduce the potential of scratching. Here's a shot on how much product is on the surface:



As I mentioned above, technique is very important here. You will need lots of microfiber towels. Don't feel bad if you have to use more than you have to. It's easier to wash your dirty microfiber towels than to polish out swirls and scratches created by a dirty towel.

I learned the technique I'm going to show you from the MOL administrator himself, Michael Stoops. Since everybody is now calling a way of doing things with "their name" method, I'm going to dub this technique the

"Michael Stoops Waterless Wash Method" or MSWWM for short.

For reference, here is the thread that he started in MOL: Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere - Tips & Tricks

So what you do is you fold your microfiber towel into a manageable size. I folded my Meguiar's Supreme Shine microfiber towel 3x. What you do is you keep the microfiber towel flat on the surface and perform a swipe as shown below:



How long you swipe will highly depend on how soiled the surface is. It's really a judgement call and totally up to you. If you want to be safer then you can stop halfway.

After your first swipe, you will see a line of dirt in your microfiber towel as shown below:



What you do next is tilt the microfiber towel to expose a clean part of that same fold. That way, you're not rubbing around the dirt taken from the first swipe on the paint surface. This is what I mean. This is a shot of me doing the second swipe of that same panel with the microfiber towel titled:



Here's a picture showing the 2nd line of dirt from the 2nd swipe. As you can see, the dirt was embedded on a different section than the first swipe. The dirt from the first swipe never had contact in the paint.



Now you keep on repeating this until you've soiled that side of the microfiber towel. Here's a shot showing the third swipe:



Consequently, here's a shot showing the 3rd line of dirt:



As you can see, majority of this specific side of the towel is already soiled. What you do next is flip the towel and expose a clean side and keep on repeating.

After you're done with washing the panel you're working on, you'll use a 2nd dry microfiber towel to buff off the excess product away.

Here's another set of pictures of me showing the Michael Stoops Waterless Wash Method:

Spray the section you're working on. In this case, I'm working on the driver side half of the hood:



Again, here's the amount of product that I sprayed on the surface:



First swipe:


Dirt from the first swipe:


Second swipe:


Third swipe:


Dirt from multiple swipes:


Now as you use up all the clean sides of the microfiber towel, that whole towel will be soiled and your towel should look something like this:



What you do next is you use your drying towel as your cleaning towel and get a new towel as your drying towel. As your towels become soiled, you will repeat this rotating process between the drying towel and the cleaning towel.

For this 2011 Subaru WRX STi that I cleaned for this review, I used up 5 towels. I also used up 80% of the UWW+ bottle because the vehicle was extremely dirty. The number of towels and how much product you'll use will vary depending on how dirty the vehicle is and your judgement.

[Marc08EX]

Vehicle Pictures:

Here are some 50/50 shots of the product working. I'm sorry if the difference isn't as noticeable but I was having a hard time capturing the dirt on the paint. The blue was bright and was flushing out the dirt I'm trying to capture.

Left - clean. Right - dirty: (pic below)


Left - dirty. Right - clean: (pic below)


Left - clean. Right - dirty: (pic below)


Left - clean. Right - dirty: (pic below)


Left - clean. Right - dirty: (pic below)


It also works great on glass!!! Left - clean. Right - dirty: (pic below)


Now here are some before/afters:

Before 1:


After 1:


Before 2:


After 2:


Before 3:


After 3:


Before 4:


After 4:


Before 5:


After 5:


Before 6: rear bumper


After 6:


Photoshoot and Gloss Pictures:















Opinions and Observations:
This waterless wash cleans the surface safe and effectively. Of course, proper lubrication, good technique and common sense are all needed. The product also provides good slickness. The owner of the vehicle judged this after the wash and he definitely said that it added some slickness to the surface. The vehicle hasn't been washed for a couple of months and has driven through mild rain. Despite this, UWW+ worked really well.

I would like to take this opportunity and compare this to my favorite waterless wash, the Meguiar's Ultimate Wash and Wax Anywhere. The Meguiar's UWWA still feels like it has slightly better cleaning ability but a lot more slickness than UWW+. I think the slightly better cleaning ability is coming from the higher slickness the UWWA provides. It just feels like the towel is gliding smoother. I'm not saying that UWW+ is bad because it is no slouch by any means. UWW+ is GREAT and works very well but I still prefer Meg's UWWA more. The best analogy for this is that UWW+ is a BMW 550i and the Meg's UWWA is a BMW M5. Do you think that the 550i is a bad car? Heck no! It's an awesome car! But the M5 is better right?

The smell of this product is pleasant. I think it has some sort of citrus smell but I'm not exactly sure. It's not bad so the makes the user experience more pleasant.

It's time to talk about price. This is Meguiar's UWWA's disadvantage. I find this product very expensive and this is what led me to the UWW+. The RTU UWW+ is not bad at $9.99 but I got mine on BOGO so it was only $5 a bottle. I think it's a good deal at $5 a bottle. But if you're going to convert to waterless washing and use it more often from now on, you need to look at the concentrate. This is where UWW+ shines!!! The concentrate only costs $20.99 for a 16oz bottle. It only uses 0.5oz of concentrate for every 22oz of water that will give you one RTU bottle!!! So that gives you 32 RTU bottles which makes each RTU bottle cost only a whopping $0.66!!! How can you beat that!!!! Even if I use one whole bottle per car, I wouldn't feel bad at all!!! The price point is AMAZING and of course the product works well too! You can't beat that.

Conclusion:

If you're afraid to use waterless washes, it's ok. You have the right to be afraid. But I'm here to guarantee you that this type of technology advancement works. Again, you need to use good technique such as the Michael Stoops Waterless Wash Method, good product such as UWW+ and of course common sense. I'm a living testament on how well these products work. I've been doing waterless wash on/off for the past 6 months and our vehicles didn't add a lot of scratches. If a guy like me can do it properly, I'm sure you can to. UWW+ is indeed a great product and at a cost of $0.66 per RTU bottle with the concentrate, it's a no brainer.

[ihaveacamaro]

Great review!! Lots of great pictures!

The only thing I would say is that car didn't seem all that dirty, but you said it hadn't been washed in months? I don't know if I would have done a waterless wash on that, seems a bit too scary if you ask me.

Funny, I thought of that method (michael stoops) on my own independently but never named it lol... maybe I should just start naming everything I do hahah

UWW+ is one of my favorite waterless washes. I've considered getting the gallon of concentrate a few times actually.

[Lim3]

Awesome review again !

[Michael Stoops]

Funny, I thought of that method (michael stoops) on my own independently but never named it lol... maybe I should just start naming everything I do hahah

Um. Yeah. Marc told me he was thinking about doing this and I asked to please NOT name this process after me. But, Marc being the funny guy he is, couldn't resist. Please, by all means, feel free to name this wash method anything you want and keep my name out of it!!! Heck, if anything, I'd rather call it the "Zebra Stripe Your Towel" method (Z-SYT for short maybe?) if anyone thinks it really needs to have a name associated with it.

Marc, I owe you, and you will collect.

[ihaveacamaro]

Um. Yeah. Marc told me he was thinking about doing this and I asked to please NOT name this process after me. But, Marc being the funny guy he is, couldn't resist. Please, by all means, feel free to name this wash method anything you want and keep my name out of it!!! Heck, if anything, I'd rather call it the "Zebra Stripe Your Towel" method (Z-SYT for short maybe?) if anyone thinks it really needs to have a name associated with it.

Marc, I owe you, and you will collect.

No way! It was sarcasm since I'm the same way, I'd rather have my name off of it! I'm not trying to brand my name in the detailing world, I want to be a dentist haha

[WRAPT C5Z06]

I would like to take this opportunity and compare this to my favorite waterless wash, the Meguiar's Ultimate Wash and Wax Anywhere. The Meguiar's UWWA still feels like it has slightly better cleaning ability but a lot more slickness than UWW+. I think the slightly better cleaning ability is coming from the higher slickness the UWWA provides. It just feels like the towel is gliding smoother. I'm not saying that UWW+ is bad because it is no slouch by any means. UWW+ is GREAT and works very well but I still prefer Meg's UWWA more.

Finally, someone who doesn't think Ultima WW+(concentrate as well) is the end all detailing product! Now, knowing that Marc is a Meguiar's NUT, I still think he's a very honest guy and wouldn't be biased.

[ihaveacamaro]

Finally, someone who doesn't think Ultima WW+(concentrate as well) is the end all detailing product! Now, knowing that Marc is a Meguiar's NUT, I still think he's a very honest guy and wouldn't be biased.

You're saying that if I get a gallon of UWW+, I would have to get other supplies as well to finish a detail. LIES, I TELL YOU, LIES!

[jhodges]

Thanks for the review. Very well done.

I've been thinking about trying out waterless washes. Gives me a way to go.

Thanks.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Great review!! Lots of great pictures!

The only thing I would say is that car didn't seem all that dirty, but you said it hadn't been washed in months? I don't know if I would have done a waterless wash on that, seems a bit too scary if you ask me.

Funny, I thought of that method (michael stoops) on my own independently but never named it lol... maybe I should just start naming everything I do hahah

UWW+ is one of my favorite waterless washes. I've considered getting the gallon of concentrate a few times actually.

You will be SET!!!!

However, I'm not saying it's a bad product by any means.