Foam King Foam Gun: Amazon
To get the best foam that clings to the car’s surface when you’re doing a pre-soak, you really have to use a foam cannon. If you’re like me, a lot of times you don’t have a whole lot of time to set up the pressure washer along with disconnecting and reconnecting attachments and hoses. A much more convenient option is a foam gun, which simply connects directly to your existing garden hose without the need for any other equipment.
Of course, the foam that you get from a foam gun won’t be as good as the foam you get from a foam cannon, but it’s certainly a lot easier. This is the reason why I rarely use a foam cannon anymore and just bust out the foam gun. The foam gun I’ve been using for years now has finally given out and I’ve been looking for a new one to try out.
The most popular one on Amazon right now is the Foam King Foam Gun, which costs just under $40 at the time of this writing (and down to around $30 when it’s on sale.) I decided to give it a try. As you can see, my project Audi TT has not had a car wash in a pretty long time. Tons of dirt is sitting atop the car, so a pre-soak is just what the doctor ordered.
Typical with most foam guns, the Foam King Foam Gun comes with: the hose sprayer, bottle, cap with soap level adjustment, and foam nozzle. Of the standard size foam gun containers out on the market, this one is slightly taller. The hose sprayer threads onto a standard garden hose and has a quick attachment to the bottle lid.
The foam sprayer at the tip simply presses into the yellow lid to stay put. On other foam guns, this foam sprayer tip isn’t always very secure and will spit out onto the floor (or sometimes worse onto your car) when you pull the spray trigger. The foam sprayer on this product does seem to snap into place more securely than the other ones I’ve used.
There are some level indicators on the bottle for where you should fill soap, as well as soap and water. I find the mark on the bottle for the soap level a bit high. If you follow this, you’ll be using quite a lot of soap to fill it to this level. The type of car wash soap you use may produce different amounts of foam, but from my experience you can use half of this level with similar foam results.
You can adjust the foam level with the dial on the bottle cap. The lower the level, the less concentration of foam and the longer the foam will last. If you set it to the max at ‘5’, the foam will spit out at an extroardinarily fast rate.
With a full bottle of soapy water with the level set at ‘5’, the entire bottle went empty before I could coat this entire Audi TT, which is a very small car. If I were you, I’d set the concentration level of the sprayer at 3 to 4 to have enough time with the foam spraying out, while still ensuring an adequate amount of foam gets onto the car.
At the highest soap concentration, you’ll get plenty of foam on the vehicle. Again, it’s not as good and sticky foam from a foam cannon, but it’s not bad at all. The purpose of a pre-soak is to just get some soap on the car so that it helps loosen up larger contaminants on the car before you rinse it all off.
You can also use a foam gun to apply your car wash soap, while wiping the car down with a wash mitt to wash your car. Whether you use a foam gun or a foam cannon for a pre-soak, you will always need to use a wash mitt to fully get your car clean. If you’re looking for a quality wash mitt, here’s one that I sell that works wonderfully.
I’d like to touch a bit about the hose sprayer, which is an important part of the foam gun because you’ll use this both with and without the foam gun attachment. The attachment itself and the quick attachment portion seems well-built. Without the foam gun attachment, when you pull the pressure-sensitive trigger, you can adjust the amount and the pattern of water being sprayed by adjusting how hard you pull the trigger.
I find the spray pattern to be limiting as it doesn’t have a lot of variability in the spray pattern. Essentially you can pull it lightly for a not-so-wide spray pattern, or all the way to get more water volume out of the sprayer. It works just fine, but don’t expect a whole lot of variability in the spray pattern.
After the pre-soak, I used my Detail Armory Microfiber Car Wash Mitts and rinsed it all off with the hose sprayer alone. My car is now nice and clean, and ready for me to work on again.
If you choose to leave the hose sprayer attached to your garden hose permanently, it will be even quicker and easier for you to set up your foam gun–just fill the bottle with soap and water, attach it with the foam sprayer tip to your quick attachment and you’re ready to go! When you go to rinse it all off, just release the quick attachment and you are able to rinse it all off. Keep in mind that the downside would be that it is outdoors at all times and may be more susceptible to corrosion (of metal parts) and deterioration (of plastic parts), resulting in the hose sprayer not lasting as long as if you had kept it stored away.
Foam King Foam Gun: Amazon
