Neighbour says HyperWash is killing our grass on the median! I say no! Who's right?!

[Icarus]

My neighbor is saying the soap I use (Meguiars HyperWash) is killing the lawn on our shared boulevard (small 11'x7.5' patch of grass.)

I use 1oz in a 5gallon bucket (fill about 4.5.) I use 1 oz in my Foam Sprayer (and that's only sometimes, or just the bucket wash.) I wash the car once every week or two depending on weather (been only once every few weeks this year :( ) The water does trickle down the edge of this area but it's the whole patch that's going brown. I dump the extra dirty water once I'm done in the grass beside my car in front of our house, in the same spot every time and it doesn't have any such issues!

I think the issue is he cuts the grass very short and there is no shade there at all, and its rarely watered! What does he think will happen in this heat treating it that way?! He put down some seed this spring and it looked good till the heat came of course, but I don't know what kind of seed he used if it's good for full sun (doesn't look like it.) He has some nerve as we let them come into our backyard and use most of our garden to plant veggies etc as they don't have the room. We get along fine but I don't want this to be a thorn between us...

How can I tell him its not the soap, even though he says it might be the wax in it (HyperWash doesn't even have wax in it!) We are both car guys and like to keep our vehicles clean, but he has his done somewhere else...

I saw this page where Mike Stoops said it won't:
Car Wash and the Lawn (https://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?54767-Car-Wash-and-the-Lawn)

[Kamakaz1961]

Show him the VOC compliance on what you are using. Most car wash products must be VOC compliant in order to be used. VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compounds. Basically, your product does meet or exceed the standards.

[Eldorado2k]

My neighbor He has some nerve as we let them come into our backyard and use most of our garden to plant veggies etc as they don't have the room.

You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me…

Show him the label. See where it says
-Detergents Biodegradable

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210818/0d7d4a3de0d5eb5dafff42029f3e53a0.jpg



Nuff said. End of story. If it was me I’d pour the entire 5 gallon bucket onto the trunk of 1 of his plants that’s in Your backyard just to prove a point, and tell that male Karen to come back in a week and if the tree ain’t dead, then enough of it. Lol.

You should mix up a 5 gallon bucket right now and go dump it onto 1 of his plants in your backyard just to test it… I’m sure it’s completely harmless, but at least you’ll know it’s a 100% sure shot when you prove your point.[emoji6]

I clean my pads with LATA undiluted over the grass in my backyard, and even that won’t kill grass, and that stuff can nearly take paint off some surfaces. Lol.

[Bill D]

Gee, just when I was looking for a stronger grass killer! I sure wish any car wash would kill grass because then I could use it in my flower beds to combat rogue grass. I just sprayed today and the stuff hasn't killed anything yet. Grass is pretty resilient. Seems like only heat and lack of water can really kill it

[Don M]

If that were true, then my gravel driveway wouldn't look like this:

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/500/tn_grass.jpg

Does that look like a bunch of dead grass to you?

[micvog]

Have your neighbor Google "lawn shampoo". You will find a bunch of links where "lawn nerds" (myself included) spray shampoo on the lawn to help water penetrate the soil. So I would argue, especially at the 1oz:5G ratio, if anything you are helping the lawn in that area.

At the time this picture was taken, I was regularly applying shampoo to my lawn (started from seed) but have since moved onto dedicated wetting agents.

74173

[vaca22]

Have your neighbor Google "lawn shampoo". You will find a bunch of links where "lawn nerds" (myself included) spray shampoo on the lawn to help water penetrate the soil. So I would argue, especially at the 1oz:5G ratio, if anything you are helping the lawn in that area.

At the time this picture was taken, I was regularly applying shampoo to my lawn (started from seed) but have since moved onto dedicated wetting agents.

74173

That is...insane.

And I love it.

[glen e]

Why debate this back-and-forth on the forum?, everybody has their own opinions, why not write the manufacturer?

[Icarus]

Why debate this back-and-forth on the forum?, everybody has their own opinions, why not write the manufacturer?

back-and-forth debate? Where? I've asked Meguiars about it and they don't think its from the soap either. A Meguiars specialist even posted similar in that link I posted at the end of my OP.

I posted it here to see what others had encountered in washing on a driveway flanked by grass and the effects their soap may have had on it...

I forgot to add in my original post that I usually always wash in the evening or late afternoon. I've also been using a flexible pipe this year (my neighbour gave me!) to deflect most of the water down my own driveway so only some/much less of it goes along the edge of this grass median. Its not saturating it or flooding the area at all... This very diluted soap (already diluted in the wash, and diluted even vastly more by rinse water) by the time it gets there isn't hurting it I'm sure.

A guy on the other side of the street who is a pro lawn contractor I talked to says the same as I said/thought originally (I did lawn care for about 5yrs when I was younger): grass is to short for small area its in, not watered enough, possibly wrong type of grass for full sun, maybe over fertilizing and highly doubts its the soap. He even offered to tell him, but I didn't want to get this into an argument...

[Eldorado2k]

Have your neighbor Google "lawn shampoo". You will find a bunch of links where "lawn nerds" (myself included) spray shampoo on the lawn to help water penetrate the soil. So I would argue, especially at the 1oz:5G ratio, if anything you are helping the lawn in that area.

At the time this picture was taken, I was regularly applying shampoo to my lawn (started from seed) but have since moved onto dedicated wetting agents.

74173

I’ve thought about becoming a lawn nerd, because I want my grass to look like that, but from the little research I’ve done it seems to be quite the rabbit hole when it comes to becoming a Lawn Nerd?

Is there Lawn Nerd for Dummies? Lol

[PaulMys]

Here in NY, we'd go over late at night with a sprayer full of Diesel fuel, and write "I'm a HUGE D-BAG" on his front lawn.

What soap problem?? ;)

[Icarus]

Here in NY, we'd go over late at night with a sprayer full of Diesel fuel, and write "I'm a HUGE D-BAG" on his front lawn.

What soap problem?? ;)

This is the only lawn he has, a 11' boulevard across the front of his property. The rest is a tiny sliver of lawn in the back, his pool and deck which take up most of the yard. He does keep it well, but this center median had always been an issue... even when I had my Jeep and washed it 2x a year, lol... :)

[PaulMys]

This is the only lawn he has, a 11' boulevard across the front of his property. The rest is a tiny sliver of lawn in the back, his pool and deck which take up most of the yard. He does keep it well, but this center median had always been an issue... even when I had my Jeep and washed it 2x a year, lol... :)

Write small then..........:laughing::laughing:

[Icarus]

Write small then..........:laughing::laughing:

I won't let my brother see this, he might be tempted much more then me ;) lol

[micvog]

I’ve thought about becoming a lawn nerd, because I want my grass to look like that, but from the little research I’ve done it seems to be quite the rabbit hole when it comes to becoming a Lawn Nerd?

Is there Lawn Nerd for Dummies? Lol

For me, lawn care is a bigger rabbit hole than auto detailing, and I have a nice collection of detailing tools that I use regularly (Griots G9, Karcher pressure washer, Griots foam cannon, Bissel carpet cleaner, and a nice collection of chemicals, including the graphene coating I put my car and my wife's minivan this past Spring). But the 80/20 rule applies... you can get 80% of the impact with 20% of the effort with a few simple steps.

Feel free to PM me; I don't want to hijack the thread.