Car Shampoo Quick Comparison: Poorboys vs. Sonax

**Desertnate** · 07-03-2017, 10:03 AM

This weekend I had the unique opportunity to compare two products back-to-back. I had two vehicles to wash Saturday afternoon and finished off a bottle of Poorboys Super Slick with Suds on one vehicle, and popped open a new bottle of Sonax for the other.

The weather was hot and sunny, so there was no time to lose during the wash process by taking pictures. I'm not sure pictures are of much use when simply comparing shampoo's anyway.

Products being compared.

SONAX Gloss Shampoo Concentrate

Poorboy's Super Slick & Suds Concentrated Car Wash

At the time of purchase, both bottles were running around $15~$16 for 32~34oz which lead me to give the SONAX a try. Autogeek now has the Poorboys for $14.

Both cars in this comparison were small darker colored hatchbacks wearing McKee's 37 coating. Weather conditions were humid, sunny and around 80~85F. Dilution ratios used were as directed on the bottle's lable.

Poorboys Observations:

This is the third bottle of the Poorboys I've used over the last couple of years, so I'm pretty familiar with it. At normal temperatures I find the consistency to be like honey, and just like honey, if the bottle sits out in the sun it will get much thinner.
Scent is a pleasing orange-like odor.
Once mixed up in a bucket the Poorboys creates some of the best suds I've ever encountered. They are plentiful, thick, and stick around for the whole time I'm washing the car.
Cleaning power is very good. The car being washed was my black daily driver GTI. It's been rained on a couple times and parked at an airport for a few days. From a distance it looked OK, but up close it was rather dirty. The shampoo easily cut through the grime and left a nice clean surface with no noticeable change in LSP properties.
Lubricity/slickness is very good. My wash mitt glides over the coated paint without any fear of marring.
Due to the thick suds and possibly the shampoo being thicker it takes a little more water to rinse away than most to ensure it's properly removed and you don't get spotting/streaking from left over product.

Sonax Observations:

Consistency is very thin. In fact, the thinnest shampoo I've ever used. I was a little apprehensive when I received the bottle and saw how easily it sloshed around inside the bottle, but any concerns were unfounded.
Scent is lemon-like and reminded me of Leinenkugal's Summer Shandy
Suds are average on all fronts in my experience
Cleaning power is very good. The vehicle being washed hadn't seen a bath in a couple weeks, sat outside 24/7 and been exposed to a commute on rural roads. Horizontal panels had a heavy layer of dust. The shampoo cut through the grime as if I was doing a very simple maintenance wash and there was no change in LSP properties from what I could tell.
Lubricity/slickness is excellent and very deceptive based on the consistency of the concentrate. The wash mitt would go over the surface with very little effort.
Rinsing was very easy as well as the wash solution didn't seem clingy or thick.

Conclusion:

Judging one over the other is really splitting hairs. Both are great products and anyone would be happy using them, but here is how I'd rank them.

Suds: Poorboys easily wins this one. I know this is very important to some people, but honestly I'm pretty neutral on their importance.
Cleaning power: Sonax by a hair. Both cut through dusty grime and left a nice clean surface. However on bug splatters and other random, unidentifiable marks the Sonax had a slight edge in ease of removal
Lubricity/slickness: Sonax. Using the two products back-to-back, I could immediatly tell the Sonax had more lubrication. Poorboys is no slouch at all, but the Sonax was better.
Rinsing: Sonax. I found the Poorboys takes more effort to dissolve in the bucket when preparing the solution and more effort to rinse away afterwards. As good as it is, I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind (totally unsubstantiated) I wasn't getting it all off. Despite heavy rinsing, I still found a couple of random spots while drying that looked like shampoo hadn't totally rinsed away. Sonax dissolves quickly in the bucket and rinses off easily with little effort and less water. This may be attributable to the thinner consistency of the product.

In the end, I'll call Sonax the winner by a very small margin. Both products are very good. Since I'm always looking to try something new, I'll give the Optimum Car Wash a try when this bottle of Sonax runs out to see if Sonax will keep it's position in my garage.