Strange ONR Smell

[louielouie]

I use ONR for my car washes because it's so economical, and it's if good enough for waterless wash, it's good enough for a car that's prerinsed and foamed. Recently, I started to save the ONR mixture in my 5 gallon wash bucket instead of dumping it out because I no longer rinse and reintroduce towels. I've now use a one bucket wash method where you use the wash towel and grab another one when it's used as opposed to dunking it in a rinse bucket and reusing it. The second bucket is just for used towels now. After use, since the ONR is dirt free, I decided to save it and reuse it for the following wash. Both my buckets have Gamma Seals and they were kept closed until the next wash.

When I took out the ONR mixture the following week, I noticed it smelled really strange - kind of like Play Dough. I ended up dumping it and thought it went bad due to the heat wave we had in LA but I saved the new batch and it that had the same smell the following week.

I know many people reuse their ONR mixture or have it prepped and use it in batches. Has anyone else ran into this problem? I would assume it's still safe to use. I just found it kind of strange.

[Vivek.]

I keep a bottle of it mixed at QD strength with distilled water and have never had this issue. Gamma seal should be airtight so maybe its something to do with the water itself?

[louielouie]

Originally Posted by Vivek.

I keep a bottle of it mixed at QD strength with distilled water and have never had this issue. Gamma seal should be airtight so maybe its something to do with the water itself?

Oh, I had it mixed as QD also and never noticed a smell when spraying.

I do use hose tap water for the wash solution. You may be right.

[Vivek.]

Originally Posted by louielouie

Oh, I had it mixed as QD also and never noticed a smell when spraying.

I do use hose tap water for the wash solution. You may be right.

My first thought would be if the water was sitting in the hose it could've picked up some odd smell from the pipe itself. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try a jug of distilled for mixing the solution, especially since you'll be using all of it

[louielouie]

Originally Posted by Vivek.

My first thought would be if the water was sitting in the hose it could've picked up some odd smell from the pipe itself. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try a jug of distilled for mixing the solution, especially since you'll be using all of it

The water I use is tap hose, but it's hooked up to a wash cart setup I have that has a bypass for bucket filling. I usually drain the water to run air bubbles out of the system for the pressure washer that's not likely the issue.

My girlfriend is a Chemistry/Physics teacher and can geek out sometimes. Maybe I can try to convince her to do all the variable testing for me

[jdgamble]

Use distilled water. I don't use ONR anymore, but Wolfgang Uber, and I leave it in there for weeks and it doesn't get funky. It's your water for sure. LA tap water is basically poison.