G Shift Product Review: Grit Guard Bucket Filter (by Grit Guard)

[gavsadler]

Hello all,

For the next installment of product reviews, I thought it would be fitting to perform a review of another bucket filter which has been on the South African landscape for quite some time - that being the Grit Guard Bucket Filter. This is a grate-style filter, which fits into the bottom of the bucket. Some may have even seen some generic knock-offs come and go, and some have even gone further to DIY their own bucket filters.

At the outset, I'd also like to share a reminder of my review of a similar product - the Dirt Lock Bucket Filter by The Detail Guardz. If you haven't seen the review yet, you can do so by following this link: G Shift Product Review: Dirt Lock Bucket Filter by The Detail Guardz. I'm mentioning it here, more just to share that I followed the same approach as far as possible. I'm also going to keep the review objective, as it is only fair for everyone to form their own opinions. On to the review...

To start off, a dirty car is needed. It's really hard for me to get a car properly dirty, given the minimal mileage travelled, and I prefer to have the cars clean. So what's better than 1 dirty car? Well, for the purpose of this test, we'll use 2 dirty cars, and the same rinse water for the wheels, and then again the same rinse water for the paint (*not ideal, but for the purpose of 1 test, I'm making the exception to test the filtration properties). The BMW had about 2 weeks worth of dirt with a good helping of winter rainfall to really muck things up (mileage covered approx. 200kms). The Opel is a daily driver, and this was after about a week of driving / 500kms.















I'll be repeating some text as per my previous review, as the approach followed is the same, but for 1st time readers, it will clarify what was done...

I normally start off by hosing down the entire car. This allows some of the dirt on the bodywork to breakdown while I wash the wheels, and also rinses off any excess brake dust, dirt and grime on the wheels and in the wheel arches prior to cleaning.

For each wheel, in summary, I brush the insides of the wheel arches, then move on to scrubbing the tyres with a brush. Once that is done, I use a barrel brush to get deep into the wheel barrels, between the wheel and the caliper and so on. A smaller barrel brush is used for in between the spokes, and then lastly a short handle wheel brush to clean the face of the wheels and in the bolt holes. (At some point I will do a detailed review how I like to clean my cars, but that is a story for another day). Throughout the process, the brushes get rinsed in the bucket regularly. This time round though, the Grit Guard was in the bottom of the bucket. I use Cleen Green as my all-purpose cleaner for the wheels and tyres, as it is fairly gentle and biodegradable.

After cleaning all 8 wheels (including rinsing with fresh water), it was time to analyse what was waiting for me in the bucket. So now to make this as objective as possible, I again swirled and pumped the water in the bucket, to make sure that any impurities are "well-mixed" and essentially eliminates any bias that may have crept in from leaving the bucket to stand for a period of time prior to taking samples. I pumped and swirled my hand in the bucket for about 20 seconds.

Then, immediately after doing that, I dipped a glass into the bucket to scoop out a sample of the wheels rinse water from above the Grit Guard. This would be used to illustrate the quality of the rinse water in the upper half of the bucket.

Immediately after that, I siphoned off any excess water from above the Grit Guard. I held the siphon tube flat against the Grit Guard, so as not to suck up any impurities from below the filter.

Once no more water could be siphoned off, I used a microfiber towel to absorb any remaining traces of water above the Grit Guard. This should essentially only leave the dirtiest rinse water possible, which would be trapped below the filter.

Next up would be removal of the Grit Guard from the bucket. Once removed, and to eliminate bias, I again swirled the remaining contents in the bucket for 20 seconds. Immediately after swirling, I tipped the bucket sideways slightly, and scooped up another cup of the remaining "dirty / filtered" rinse water. I then poured off the remaining water from the bucket into a 2l Oros plastic bottle - to be analysed later.

Results and pics in the next post...

 

[gavsadler]

Results:

 

[gavsadler]

Results:

After removing the Grit Guard, there was some grit and grime left at the bottom of the bucket. This is to be expected, as gravity still does play a role, but also there wasn't too much significant sand and grime as the cars had not been through terribly muddy roads or anything.

More importantly though, what about the samples of rinse water scooped up from above and below the Grit Guard after swirling. Well here we go. Given that brake dust is extremely fine, I left the glasses to stand overnight, so that the particulates can settle a bit to make for easier analysis. The glass on the left is water from above the filter, and the glass on the right is water from below the filter:



At first glance, they look fairly similar. I would also expect this as brake dust is extremely fine and easily mixes in water. Only paper-type filters would really be very effective in filtering out these fine particulates, but that is not what we are testing here.

Looking more closely at each glass, firstly the rinse water from above the filter, and then the rinse water from below the filter:





And again, a closer pic: rinse water from above the filter on the left, and below the filter on the right:







In my opinion, I cannot clearly determine whether there is a noticeable difference in the clarity of the water, or the amount of sediment sitting at the bottom of each glass, although with the glasses emptied, there is slightly larger groupings of the small particles. Don't forget that before taking each sample, that the water was swirled and mixed thoroughly before scooping up the sample, so this would have given the dirt ample opportunity to mix around, specifically up into the top half of the bucket - above the filter.

Earlier I mentioned that the remaining dirty rinse water was poured into a 2l Oros plastic bottle. I also left that to stand overnight, and here are the results:





Some notable sediment, although it seems to be less that that which was observed as sediment in the glasses (from stirring up / mixing the water prior to collecting the samples. This would lead me to believe that it's possible that more of the brake dust and dirt particles were suspended in the rinse water solution, than what was separated below the filter. (The excess rinse water was siphoned off and discarded which then directly relates to more dirt being discarded at the same time).

In conclusion: IMO, I did not see a noticeable difference in the (wheels) rinse water above and below the Grit Guard filter. There was also minimal sediment left below the filter. I believe that the filter would still be beneficial for larger particles and to ultimately protect your wash mitt from picking up these large particles, however for the smaller particles, there appears to be no significant difference.

In my next post, I'll detail my findings and results from washing the rest of the car.

 

[gavsadler]

Moving on to the washing of the rest of the car...

I use the 2 bucket method, with 1 bucket holding the soapy wash solution, and the 2nd bucket used for clean water for rinsing of the wash mitt. The process is as follows: dip mitt in soapy wash solution. Wash 1 panel of the car (top to bottom), rinse mitt in clean rinse water. dip mitt in soapy solution, wash next panel and so on. I leave the bumpers and side skirts for last, as those are generally the dirtiest parts of the car.

I followed the same process as outlined in my previous post (for the wheels wash). Once the car was clean, it was time to analyse what was waiting for me in the bucket. So now to make this as objective as possible, I again swirled and pumped the water in the bucket, to make sure that any impurities are "well-mixed" and essentially eliminates any bias that may have crept in from leaving the bucket to stand for a period of time prior to taking samples. I pumped and swirled my hand in the bucket for about 20 seconds.

Then, immediately after doing that, I dipped a glass into the bucket to scoop out a sample of the bodywork rinse water from above the Grit Guard. This would be used to illustrate the quality of the rinse water in the upper half of the bucket.

Immediately after that, I siphoned off any excess water from above the Grit Guard. I held the siphon tube flat against the Grit Guard, so as not to suck up any impurities from below the filter.

Once no more water could be siphoned off, I used a microfiber towel to absorb any remaining traces of water above the Grit Guard. This should essentially only leave the dirtiest rinse water possible, which would be trapped below the filter.

Next up would be removal of the Grit Guard from the bucket, and then to eliminate bias, I again swirled the remaining contents in the bucket for 20 seconds.

Immediately after swirling, I tipped the bucket sideways slightly, and scooped up another cup of the remaining "dirty / filtered" rinse water. I then poured off the remaining water from the bucket into a white bucket - to be analysed later.

Results:

I left the samples to stand overnight. The glass on the left is the sample of bodywork rinse water taken from above the filter, and the glass on the right is a sample of rinse water taken from below the filter:





Above filter:


Below filter:


Above Filter:


Below filter:


Based on the above results, there does not appear to be a noticeable difference in the water samples from above and below the filter, apart from a couple of larger particles in the glass from below the filter, after pouring out the rinse water.

The remaining water from below the Grit Guard was poured into a 2l Oros bottle and also left to stand overnight:



Here it was clear that there was very little particulates left in the rinse water from below the Grit Guard. This leads be to believe that most particulates were well mixed into the rinse water (above the Grit Guard), and siphoned off and discarded.

In conclusion: as noted with the wheels test, there was no significant or noticeable difference in the rinse water from above and below the Grit Guard. As stated earlier, this is likely due to the smaller particulates being able to move around freely in the rinse water (as a result of the open design of this Grit Guard). I do still see some benefit in that it will protect your mitt from coming into direct contact with large particles which are found at the bottom of the bucket.

To end off this review, do note: The Grit Guard Bucket Filter fits perfectly into the G Shift 20l buckets (Wash, Rinse, Wheels).

Having completed reviews on both bucket filters (Dirt Lock and the Grit Guard), I know what my personal preference is, but the point of these reviews is to provide information as objectively as possible, and to leave the reader to formulate their own conclusions. I hope this is the case, and looking forward to feedback from others. Comments are always welcome.

If you yourself are looking to take your car wash routine to the next level, get in touch with us and let's chat about your specific requirements.

Thanks for reading...

 

[jayaynikkal]

Gav, you're really doing the most mate.

I'm glad we got someone on the forums offering quality products and feedback.