Tried the Big Red Sponge today...

[Calendyr]

I live in the same city as Pan. And let me tell you it's not fun. Everytime I wash my car, the next day it's just as dirty. I think we have a lot of dirt in the air and it keeps falling on the car. So my routine is to power wash the car once a week during the winter and during the summer I typically clean it twice a week, once with a simple pressure wash and once with a more traditionnal wash. But regardless, the car will only be clean of the few hours after I wash it. The next day, it will again be covered in gunk.

Pan has a garage, so maybe he pulls in his GF's car and leaves his own outside... Who knows?

[Calendyr]

Yep. I tried pre-spraying my salty car with ONR and let it dwell. Barely did anything to break down the salt and gunk. The BRS felt like sandpaper over the paint as well, even on a relatively clean panel. I just can't do it.

Ya, I know Yvan Lacroix says that ONR is just as good as a pressure wash to pre-wash the vehicle but I disagree. When I am done with the pressure rinse, the car is 90% clean. When I spray ONR on the car as a pre-rinse, it doesn't do much of anything other than provide more lubricity and maybe make the dirt a bit looser. For salt and heavy dirt, nothing replaces a pressure washer for me.

[Finick]

So after using the sponge exclusively for about two(ish) months, probably a total of 35-40 washes between 5 cars around here, I'm really not sure how I feel about it.

I thought everything was going pretty well, I wasn't noticing any marring on my paint, and it seemed like the dream. About a month ago I started noticing some marring and I stayed the course (because I'm stubborn.) After going over the car quick with HD speed, I just had to keep trying. That didn't really end well, because I'm back to a situation with more marring over the course of 2 months being accumulated than I'd gotten over the course of a year using the GDWM. So I'll list out the pros and cons of the sponge.

Pros:

-high quality/very durable. It really feels premium, for sure.
-reduces towels used
-more convenient

cons:

-mars my freaking paint
-not good at getting into small areas/conforming to panels. Just to expand on this point: Yvan states *numerous* times that the best pressure to use with the BRS is no pressure. Well sorry to tell you but even on my altima, which has pretty mild contours, it requires at least -some- pressure to just stay in contact with the paint.
-leaves behind more dirt than a mf towel does (which is none, btw)

I want to like this sponge, I really do. I want it to be my only wash media, because sometimes I just don't wanna lug a buncha towels down with me and then have to hang them up to dry before I put them in the hamper to eventually be washed. But is it worth having to have a learning curve on my wash media? Is it worth marring my paint even if I bother to presoak with ONR?

I haven't ever encountered an issue skipping presoaking for a rinseless wash if it's just dusty after 3-4 days of driving when using a mf towel., It's so quick, and only takes 2-3 towels to quickly give my car a quick wipe down when the weather is nice. The sponge? No way I trust it to do something like that.

Is it worth the hassle of feeling like I need to pre-rinse the car to potentially make it safer for the sponge? That's just trading one hassle (excessive towel use) for another (breaking out the hose.) I'm pretty set on the fact that if I need to get out my hose, I may as well just also get out car soap, or do like Eldo does and just leave some car soap mixed up and use multiple mitts. Granted, I already use my hose for my tires/wheels/wheel wells, but the reason I'm so enamored with rinseless washing is I can do it in the garage (in the shade) and without a hose. I also don’t pull the hose out to clean my wheels/tires every time I wipe the car down, either.

Could I make the argument that if I already have the hose out for my tires/wheels I could just rinse quickly and pull it into the garage? Sure, but in the winters here I can't always count on a pre-rinse. Driving to a coin-op and rinsing also isn't something I'm willing to do, because it completely negates how convenient a rinseless wash is meant to be.

I really don't know how i feel about the sponge, but i can tell you that today I polished my hood, and while i waited for my wax to haze up I used a couple towels and wiped down the rest of my car and it was the therapeutic rinseless washing experience I remembered it being. The towel just glides and picks everything up. I can get in between body panels, all up under my door handles, make sure it conforms along my weather stripping, it just feels right.

Maybe I'll keep the BRS around, but I'm starting to think I'll offer it up for trade/sell it to someone who really loves these things.

This turned into kind of a rant, so if you stuck through it, I'm sending you a virtual high five.

[PaulMys]

^^Excellent post^^