The Ph study

[frankprozzoly]

I started reading a little bit about this... acid vs alkaline. .. It's all above my head. I never allow my car to get too dirty. The question is what Ph should be used for what situation. Since things never get too dirty should I always be looking for a neutral ph value. .

Keep it simple. My head starts to hurt when I have to read too much

[jfelbab]

If you are using car care products from a quality manufacturer, don't even think about pH. Nothing to worry about. The chemists from these major manufacturers have taken care of it for you.

[Dogfather]

I would like to know about PH neutral shampoos. Are they only neutral when diluted per the directions? Since water is neutral I would think it wouldn't affect the PH how much or how little was added. Just wondering because I tend to be heavy handed dilutionwise in the foam gun. Am I putting my LSP at risk?

[swanicyouth]

Don't even worry about it. It's pretty much gimmickry. Just use good products as directed and your good. The exception may be wheel acid - just don't use it.

[frankprozzoly]

All I needed to know

[Madkatz]

Agree that all you need a good shampoo and you're all set, no need to bother about ph neutral stuff

But to answer your question we did test some shampoo's before with a litmus paper and most did come neutral even the cheap ones

[PiPUK]

The chemists from these major manufacturers have taken care of it for you.

Therein lies a problem within detailing - some of those considererd to be 'major manufacturers' are nothing more than a detailer, with zero chemical knowledge, buying products from a genuine manufacturer. There is nothing wrong with that except when that company tells everyone that they manufacture their own stuff, lies about their chemical knowledge and basically fabricates literature which then misleads the users.


I would like to know about PH neutral shampoos. Are they only neutral when diluted per the directions? Since water is neutral I would think it wouldn't affect the PH how much or how little was added. Just wondering because I tend to be heavy handed dilutionwise in the foam gun. Am I putting my LSP at risk?

As per the other thread, pH is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions. It is a negative logarithmic function. Acid has high concentration, so low pH, neutral has middle concentration, so mid pH and bases have low concentration, so high pH. If you add water (neutral) to an acid, the concentration obviously decreases so the pH rises.


The exception may be wheel acid - just don't use it.

I would disagree strongly with this. This is something that confuses many in the manufacturing industry (the actual manufacturing industry!!). Some acids are a bit much for detailing use on any regular basis, hydrochloric/hydrofluoric for example. However, there are numerous other acids which are much safer. In the UK we have any number of strongly caustic wheel cleaners and most of those are more hazardous to vehicle and user than a mild acid cleaner. In our range, our best product from an over all view is an advanced mild acid cleaner - it give most of the cleaning power of hydrochloric acid but has less health and safety than most non-acid cleaners and is less likely to stain sensitive finishes than a caustic non-acid product. Somehow, detailers have decided that anything acid is bad. Of course things get really silly when other detailers use pretty potent acids on paint work and try to bluff that it is OK (yet that any acid is bad when it come to wheels... does not compute...).

To address the OP, this is actually a valid question. Forget about the actual pH value, this is next to useless for you. Consider the following:

less than 2 - highly acidic
2-5 - mildly acidic
7-9 - mostly neutral
9-12 - mildly alkaline
greater than 12 - strongly alkaline

Anything more than that is wasting time for a detailer. Now, there are a couple of notes. Acids - if they have hydrochloric or hydrofluoric, they deserve special care, there are the most likely to cause damage. Alkaline products - if they are based around sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, they should be treated with special care (if they are there at 0.1%, then they won't be a problem).

Now, when do you use what?

General purpose cleaning is almost always done with something mildly alkaline, since most soils react best to this. The products can sometimes start as strongly alkaline but, by the time you dilute 200:1, the ready to use product will fall back to mildly alkaline.

Heavy duty cleaning/Degreasing is basically a stronger version of an all purpose cleaner. Again, you want alkalinity as this is the best way to cut through oils and grease. Generally these will be strongly alkaline and will tend to be that way, even after dilution.

Light Duty Cleaning can often get away without much in the way of alkalinity. Some all purpose cleaners can fall into this, often leather cleaners etc. Basically, if you don't have a lot of grease and oil to remove, you might get away with one of these which will fall into the mostly neutral or pushing into mildly alkaline category.

Wheel cleaning tends to need you to address brake dust which is an iron oxide. The most effective route here is an acidic product. For detailers, you can use mildly and strongly acidic products, but I feel that anything hydrochloric or hydrofluoric based should be saved for volume vehicle cleaners who operate on the cheap (or, worst case a detailer should only use it when nothing else works). You may also use non-acid products which will mostly fall into the strongly alkaline category. These will be a variant on degreasers with a few choice additions. You need to take great care that the hydroxides do not appear in your products, if they do, be damned careful with anything sensitive. The only time that mostly neutral, or mildly alkaline products will be effective on wheels would be if they are really well sealed up.

Water spot removal, concrete removal and metallic fallout are best done with mildly acidic products. Strongly acidic products are really not suitable (although some such products are commonly used without understanding by the users) and anything hydrofluoric/hydrochloric should be avoided like the plague. Iron fallout, of course, can be removed by specific pH neutral products which will bleed. Just because a product bleeds, does not make it neutral and it has been seen that some cheaper products defeat the whole reason to be... they are acidic and bleed (at which point that bleed truly is little more than a gimmick which is costing you money, the acidity will be what is doing the work).

That should cover most things that a detailer will be doing. The overall message is to avoid strong acids and only resort to strongly alkaline products when the alternatives are insufficient.

[allenk4]

Great post PiPUK