What is traffic film remover? Does it clean better?

If you are a user of a pressure washer you may have seen advertised a product called traffic film remover while browsing the internet or chatting with friends and wondered what does it does, how well does it clean and why you should think about purchasing it to clean your vehicle.

TFR or Traffic Film Remover is a strong chemical cleaner that is designed for use either through a pressure washer, applied with a foaming lance or applied directly (diluted down) to vehicle bodywork either through a pump sprayer or through a pressure washer. It is much stronger than wash and wax or vehicle shampoo, and can be caustic or non caustic based the same as other cleaners. Some of the stronger TFR’s (and generally cheaper!) will strip wax from bodywork, and if used on a regular basis can dull paintwork so choose carefully.

Our Powerforce TFR is a caustic based high active traffic film remover and is designed for heavy duty degreasing, MOT pre washing and Plant cleaning and very infrequent washing of bodywork. If you need to clean on a regular basis Trucks and liviried vehicles cars etc then our Ultrafleet NON CAUSTIC fits the bill perfectly. It can be used on daily washing if required, will not damage paintwork and contains a rinse aid to leave a perfect streak free shine every time.All of of traffic film removers are avilable in 5,10, 25, 200 and 1000 Litre bulk drums, just call us for a quote or call into our trade counter in Yeovil for a chat about your traffic film remover requirements.

Cheap traffic film remover? Is it worth it?

Traffic film remover plays an important role in any cleaning operation and the choice of TFR is, we believe, just as important as the equipment you use to apply it.

Why you may ask? As you will no doubt be aware there is a huge choice of chemicals to choose from various manufacturers and retailers and the difference in cost is quite varied too.

Using cheap TFR will do three things. 1st it will give an apparently amazing clean, 2nd it will rot your windscreen rubbers and third it will degrade and eventually flatten paintwork. Go and run you hand over some bodywork on your vehicle and take look at what you wipe off, if your hands turns the same colour as your truck you may want to think about changing your TFR. Its Caustic and its eating your vehciles paintowork! Caustic TFR will rip the muck of your vehicle, along with the wax, and even some paint if your really unlucky.

A good quality non caustic TFR such as our ‘ULTRAFLEET’ will clean without damaging paintwork and contains a rinse aid to leave a streak free shine.
Incidentally, chassis and plant TFR’s are by their nature cheaper to produce and more suited for the job at which they are labelled for cleaning off dirty chassis for pre mot inspections etc or perhaps cleaning heavy plant. Ideal for plant not so good on your new fleet of Scania’s!

So whats the deal with Snow foam? Well, There are two distinct types, those that work, and those that don’t.  Industrial foam systems are a great way of getting detergent long dwell times on surfaces, such as disinfecting detergent sticking to a wall in a dairy parlour, or food production unit. These need to be strong detergents by virtue of design, and need to be used carefully, whilst wearing the correct PPE.

Our ultrafleet TFR works great through a foamer. Does it clean any better when using it through a foamer versus applied through a pressure washer nozzle? No. Is it more fun, and are you more likely to get the lads to clean the vehicles properly, Yes you are. Our Ultrafleet dilutes at 3%, using a foamer uses considerably more product to get the same effect.

Some of the snow foam we have seen is so ‘caustic heavy’ it should be labeled as drain cleaner. And people use it on their pride and joy, not to mention the damage it causes to brass fittings inside your pressure washer.

What you wont find in our Chemicals.

Most of the TFR’s avilable on the market contain a very commonly used and cheap to manufacture chemical called Nitrilotriacetic Acid, trisodium salt or NTA as it is abbrivated to. Whilst Nitrilotriacetic Acid, trisodium salt is cheap to manufacture it is also supspected of causing cancer. Extensive lab tests have proven this and yet some TFR suppliers still manufacture with it, beacause its cheap. We use a much greener and environmentally friendly product that is much safer in use, and is much better for the environment too.

Using a refractometer to measure solids.

A common way to measure the dissolved solids in a liquid is to use a simple device called a refractomer. A couple of drops of your test liquid is placed onto the slide and the reading taken. This will indicate the percentage of dissolved solids in your liquid. All good so far. The refractomer is used to test traffic film remover, however problems can arise when unscrupulous TFR manufacturers add sodium chloride (common salt) to their formualtion to boost the dissolved soilds reading, making using a refractometer irrelevant and potentially providing a false indication. Although sodium chloride is used as a water softener it has no usefull effect when used in such volumes it is purley used as a solids booster. You will be pleased to know we dont use sodium chloride (salt) in these excessive amounts in our cleaning chemicals.

Is traffic film remover an acid or alkali?

Traffic film remover is very much an Alkali. The traffic film that builds up on your vehicles body work is dissolved and detached by de-bonding the dirt from the body. It does this by the relativley high Alkalinity of the traffic film remover in question. In our traffic film remover formualtions we use high quality Chelating agents and dewatering agents to help with cleaning and rinsing.