Auto Finesse Avalanche. LSP-safe? the test

[2shiny]

There has been a lot of bashing on the AutoFinesse Avalanche lately, because some have taken a pH test and Neat is has a pH of 12, diluted in the foaming bottle it has around pH10 and it touches the car at a pH around 9. So they have been bashing this product for not being LSP-safe.

Being a Chemist from education, I know there is a lot more to it then pH, as in which is the buffering capacity, does it involve strong or weak acids, what detergents are used in a product,...?

A quote from Dr. G from Optimum regarding this matter:

pH is actually base 10 logarithmic scale so for every 10x dilution, it changes by 1 point and 100x dilution will change it by 2 points toward neutral pH (7.0). Once pH is 7.0, additional dilution will not change it anymore.

In general pH of 6-8 is considered neutral which is the pH of Optimum Car Wash. What removes lsp is more dependent on detergency and less on pH. Higher concentration of surfactants will also increase their detergency. Basically, soaps are a combination of surfactants which include cleaners, foamers, foam stablizers, and chelating agents. Cleaners are the main component of soap and depending on the type, they can have low, medium, or high detergency. Car wash soaps in general and Optimum Car Wash in particular, have cleaners with very low detergency that are high in lubricity. Foamers are added since consumers equate foam with cleaning and lubrication and there are no real benefits. Foam stablizers are added for the same reason.x

I am not sure why you are so focused on soap since polymer based washes such as No Rinse are much better in terms of cleaning and protecting paint from marring. Furthermore, No Rinse washes do not remove lsp but add additional protection.

David,

and from a Master in Biochemistry:

Biochem major here. pH is complex, but some are interested, so I'll try to explain acid based reactions. pH is part of the equation in predicting how an acid (or base) will react, but of at least equal importance are molarity (concentration), whether it's buffered (a buffer is something you add to a solution to help it maintain it's pH when other chemicals act upon it, generally more important with weak acid or bases), and contact (you can pour a gallon of anything on your car, but most of it falls off the car, and only the micro-layer touching the clear coat can react with the clear coat. Or LSP).

Electricity analogy - pH is the "voltage," molarity/buffer/contact/volume is the "amperage." You need both to do damage. I would argue that any car shampoo has neither.

Just a quick note about all of the above. Acid (or base) is finite. Once it reacts, it's gone. So for an effective acid reaction, you either need lots of it (molarity) or you need to continually replenish it (buffer and contact/amount).

Then there is the issue of what acid works on. Acids react better on inorganics than organics. In our world, inorganics are metals. Organics are things petroleum based - clear coat, sealants, waxes. Vinegar works well on water spots because they are inorganic - the residue left over by hard water (calcium, iron, magnesium, i.e. metals). However, vinegar would take forever to do much damage to an LSP. This is a complicated discussion also, but has to do with the same forces at work whereby water will dissolve road salt (inorganic metal), but won't dissolve your LSP (organic).

I would go further than Dr. G and say that anything pH 4-10 is essentially neutral. Even then, something like vinegar has a pH of 2.4, does that scald your skin? No. pH 2.4 isn't that crazy, plus vinegar has low molarity, is unbuffered, and not enough is going to stick to your skin to bother you. If you hold your hand in a large vat of vinegar, over time, you would start to feel some irritation. But you can't mimic that situation with your car, and your clear coat or LSP is going to be more impervious to pH than your skin.

So, you wash your car. Even a non-"pH balanced" shampoo has nothing going for it to disturb your clear coat or LSP. It has essentially neutral pH (by my definition), it has low molarity, it's not buffered, very little stays on your car, and what stays on your car is not there for long. Plus, acids don't react well with organics to begin with.

Anyway, I warned you it was complex, but in the end, this is why I could not care less what the pH of my shampoo is. If it's not acidic or basic enough to burn my skin, then the pH is negligible as it concerns my LSP or clear coat. As Dr. G mentioned, the surfactants in shampoos are going to dissolve LSPs far more than any weak acids or bases.

So we can say that a pH neutral product is important for lowering the risk of injuries when it comes in contact with the human skin, but that's about it. Being pH low or high doesn't increase it being less LSP-safe.
A good example here is Dawn soap. This is pH neutral, so it is gently to the skin, but kills grease with ease...

So I decided this was up for a test


I decided to test it with real waxes, sealants and AIO.
Later I plan on adding some tests with different snow foams and shampoo with pure carnauba flakes...
For this test, following products were used:
Wolf's Chemicals Full Moon, Wolf Moon and Quickie
Poorboys World EX-P
Autoglym SRP
Meguiars Dark Wax
Turtle wax Nano Tech and Natural Extracts
Commandant Cream wax
I tried including some strong waxes and some “ weaker” ones from OTC ( borrowed from the neighbour, who told me to try them a few times )

These were all applied like this on all 4 door of the car.

The Test
The surface was sprayed with water to see the initial beading of the wax.
Then it was covered in foam and left to dwell for 10 minutes, rinsed down and beading was inspected again.
We did this 3 times and came up with the following results:



Full Moon:

Ex-P:

Dark Wax:

Turtle Wax Nano Tech:

SRP:

Wolf Moon:

 

[2shiny]

Turtle Wax Natural Extracts:

Commandant Cream wax:

Wolf's Quickie:

The results
As you can see in these results, beading is a little less after a while, but nothing major.
Sheeting continued to be good!

 

[2shiny]

Now this looks good, but to be really sure, we have to compare this to a neutral Snow Foam and even a regular Shampoo to see how it differs from these.

So this complete process was redone using Wolf's Chemicals Yellow Snow, a pH neutral snow foam, but with cleaners in it.

Full Moon:

Ex-P:

Dark Wax:

Turtle Wax Nano Tech:

SRP:

Wolf Moon:

Turtle Wax Natural Extracts:

 

[2shiny]

Commandant Cream wax:

Wolf's Quickie:

The results

We can see here that the beading fails a bit faster here, but still nothing that major.
But we can conclude that detergents and cleaner may be more important then pH.
So taking this a bit further, this test was redone again with a shampoo, being Poorboys World Super Slick & Suds. This shampoo rinses free, leaving nothing behind on the paint to alter the finish and test results.
It was sprayed on and given a wipe with a chenille mitt.

Full Moon:

Ex-P:

Dark Wax:

Turtle Wax Nano Tech:

SRP:

 

[2shiny]

Wolf Moon:

Turtle Wax Natural Extracts:

Commandant Cream wax:

Wolf's Quickie:

The results
We can see that the LSP is more / faster damaged by physically washing with a pH neutral Shampoo then with a stronger Snow Foam where we can almost do a touchless wash.

Conclusion:

As far as I can conclude, the pH level of this product, Autofinesse Avalanche, has nothing to do with the fact of it being pH neutral. It's is easy to make claims by just sticking some pH testing sticks or a pH tester in it.
pH can be important for your own safety, but has little to no effect on strong and weaker waxes, sealants or AIO.

Thanks for reading.

 

[EVOlved]

Very detailed review/proving. Thanks for taking the time I'm sure I will get to avalanche at some point.

 

[silverfox]

The whole ph neutral marketing machine has been exposed for what it is....BS. Physical wiping will always be more detrimental to LSP longevity than touchless washing...contrary to what most people believe...unless you purposely use a wax stripping product.

 

[Bunky]

Interesting.

I only know one poster that seems to be negative about Avalanche without having shown anything that proves any claims.

You make this claim:
We can see that the LSP is more / faster damaged by physically washing with a pH neutral Shampoo then with a stronger Snow Foam where we can almost do a touchless wash.

I am sure some may challenge this. Do you believe that touch the paint is the difference?

Do you have any idea on your concentration coming out of the foam cannon? I did some testing and when I mixed it up, I was at around 1:100 dilution which is supposedly a little strong per AF.

 

[Angus]

Awesome review. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. I've been wanting to pick up AF Avalanche Snowfoam for the winter but was concerned about stripping off my LSP. Very timely write up. Thanks again.

Hey Vega- any idea when AF Avalanche Snowfoam will be back in-stock?

 

[2shiny]

After discussing on another forum, something I would like to add here.
First off someone posted a video using Avalanche in a spray bottle at 1:10 and it killed the beading.
Avalanche is a foam, citrus is for a spray bottle.
Using it in a spray bottle will not have the right product-water-air ratio and will not be diluted enough as it is being very highly diluted going from foam bottle to the paint.

I think it was @Lowiepete that said it before, but any product containing chemicals needs to be used as it is described by the manufacterer. Not only won't it work correctly and lead to bashing, it can also be dangerous!!!

Next up someone said a product with a higher pH has some degreasing abilities from nature.
That is correct. A pH neutral product has to relay on a great amount of detergents to clean. These detergents become activated and agressive when they come in contact with water. Thats why they are hard to rinse. Giving a bigger chance that something is left on the paint and becomes active again with morningdew, rain,... Causing more damage.
A product with higher pH doesn't need so many detergents, making it easier to rinse free, thus making it a LESS agressive way of cleaning


I am going to try an measure what the dilution is going through the nozzle, but I think around 1:100. Taken that it already was diluted 1:10...
I am going to test neat avalanche and in different dilutions on pure carnauba flakes and see from which dilution it will not harm them anymore

 

[Swanicyouth]

Well, I was the one who stuck pH strips in Avalanche. But, I didn't comment if the result was good, bad, or indifferent.

Avalanche is good if your car is filthy. But for regular washing its probably overkill.

One thing to keep in mind - while it may not "kill beading", the harsher formula may strip away some of the oil component of the wax that just makes it look "good".

This may not affect beading per se, but may make the wax not look as "wet" as before using it. Just a theory...

 

[2shiny]

This wasn't aimed at you at all @swanicyouth... It was mainly at a dutch forum that the product was bashed, primarely without any prove or reason just to promote their own snow foam.
I decided to test it.
Then it showed they tried it in a spray bottle instead of a foam gun at a dilution 100 times greater then it should be...

I don't think it's overkill for every wash, when used in the lowest dose. As I said, it's safer then some detergents.

It might take away some wetlook, but so is physically washing your car. It will always " damage" the LSP...

I know beading isn't the best indication, but it is what people are looking at, AND the sheeting didn't change at all!
No videos of it, but I think you can all agree that I tried to take as much pictures as possible and invested a lot of time in this.

 

[XxBoostinxX]

Thanks for the info. I honestly think there is some confusion in ph level across some of the forums. High is a base and low is acidic. I would be more worried in using something low in ph then high. Look at acid rain it is around a ph 4 and I'm sure we all have experience with what it can do to paint.

 

[Bunky]

I would also suggest products like poorboy's bug squash may be better as a more aggressive product similar to Avalanche.

In concentration, it supposedly strips but diluted to 1:3 it is considered LSP.

Later this year, I want to do some experiments when I get that bonded film on the paint ike in the demo on AF in action at another detailing product seller's site.