Ionic Clean: Your Porsche’s New Best Friend

Ask a room full of car enthusiasts, much less Porsche enthusiasts, to raise a hand if they like washing the car and you’re likely to get a ho hum response. Follow it up with asking how many people love driving around in a clean car and not only would you have the makings of a bad infomercial, but you’d think The Boss himself was taking the stage to play some good old 80’s pop rock.

I’m no different. I love a clean car, but I hate washing my cars. Unfortunately for me, I also hate taking my cars through a car wash, not only because it just seems wrong taking a high end sports car like a Porsche through a car wash, but also because it just seems like a waste of money.

Enter Ionic Clean. About a month ago, they sent me one of their new Ionic Clean Washing Systems to test out and post a review of. When the thing showed up, I was a bit skeptical thinking maybe this was just my wife’s elaborate plan to get me to wash not only the cars but the windows. She claims she had nothing to do with it, so I ripped into the box with no real clue what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised to find what appeared to be a pretty solid and well-thought out system. Included was the Ionic Clean base unit containing the filter, a 20-foot hose, telescoping pole, auto/window brush with nozzle, filter-life tester and a couple of other attachment pieces. But what in the heck does the thing do that my good old fashion garden hose and spray nozzle can’t?

The Ionic Clean uses a de-ionizing technology to create purified water. The process facilitates an ionic exchange that removes minerals and impurities from the water. This creates unique cleaning qualities in the water that causes it to grab dirt particles from the surface they come in contact with and rinse them away. The result is a very clean surface free from spots. Here’s a little diagram from the Ionic Clean site:

None of this means anything though, if the thing doesn’t actually produce results. The true test of this bad boy would have been on the Giveaway Porsche. That black color was brutal, showing every water spot after washing. Never in my life have a wanted a ShamWow so badly. In the absence of a black car, I decided to try the Ionic Clean on a safer test vehicle: my white Dodge Durango. I wasn’t quite ready to risk the finish on a Porsche yet.

Hookup was drop dead simple. Connect the hose to the Ionic Clean using the included quick release adapter, turn the water on, flip the switch to Bypass on the base unit and you’re set to start washing. Everything worked exactly as expected and the setup with the brush, telescoping pole and water coming out through the brush head made for quick work of washing the Durango. The only thing I wish I’d had was the soap injector. That would have made for an IDEAL setup for washing cars.

Here’s a quick before and after shot using just the brush and water. No soap or other cleaners used.

It does a great job, but that’s to be expected from a decent brush and a bucket of water, even more so with water running through the brush. Here’s the really cool part, though, and where this thing really shines. When you flip the switch on the base unit over to the DI setting, the filter kicks in and the ionic process does it’s thing. You simply go back over the places you just scrubbed holding the brush a few inches off the surface. The water coming out of the Ionic Clean System does the rest. Check out the water line on the window and what it looks like above the line as it dries:

It was a cold day, so it was drying really slowly, but absolutely streak free. Looked really really good. The result was the same for every window as well as the rest of the car. White is very forgiving, but I have no doubt the result would be amazing on a dark colored car. Might even be able to get away without hand drying.

Overall, my impressions of the Ionic Clean were very good. I love the thing and will continue to use it to wash my cars. I’m going to look at ordering the soap attachment as that seems like a worthwhile accessory that will make washing even easier. The system delivers on it’s promise of streak and spot free windows. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

One thing to note for those of you who are EXTRA sensitive about anything touching your precious paint job. You could easily hand wash your ride, then use the Ionic Clean System to go back over the car for the rinse job. The brush would never have to touch the car and you’d have the best of both worlds. I’m too lazy for that and will happily continue just using the system for the whole washing cycle.

My only complaint is that it does such a great job on windows, I’m betting there is a good amount of house window washing in my future after all. My big mistake was calling my wife down to look at how nice the windows looked on her Durango. Her eyes lit up like the Griswald family house at Christmas time.

To find out more about the Ionic Clean, check out their site here: HomeRight.com.