ONR is made to shield clearcoat/paint from direct contact. A protective coating is left behind, which is maintained over time with repeated use. It is far from the last resort. It helps prevent swirling/spiderwebbing of the clearcoat. You can't hurt the clearcoat if it doesn't get filthy and sit in the first place.
Foam cannons are a WANK , I have one from my BMW days , come and get it for Free !!
Foam cannons are just a delivery method, and use quite a lot more soap than is strictly necessary. But I still use one
For general cleaning, here's what I do, there are lots of other specific things you can do to your car that aren't required on a regular basis.
Put your wipers in service position.
Grab your pressure washer and blast the entire car to remove any road grit, pay close attention to those brake vents because they'll transfer grit to your mitts/cloths later.
Once all loose debris has been removed, grab your foam cannon (my pressure washer came with one, works fine), load the whole car, I use a cheaper Meguires soap for the presoak. Wank or not, I like this step. You can just spray water on the car, but then it evaporates, leaving the dirt where it was. The bubbles prevent evaporation allowing the water more time to loosen that surface dirt while you're doing other things.
Fill 2 buckets with warm water, add soap (follow instructions, I like CarPro Reset ) to one, other will be for rinsing. Do this while the car is soaking.
Use a wheel brush (totally depends on your wheels, one that can get between your spokes and into the barrel, I use something like this ) to clean the barrel of your wheels, between all spokes and the face of the wheel).
When the wheels are done, pressure wash or hose the whole car again.
Practice safe washing, mitt goes in the soapy bucket, onto the car, into the rinse bucket and scrub the mitt with your fingers, mitt goes in the soapy bucket, back onto the car.
Wash the car from top to bottom. I start with the roof and and windows, rinse, soap, doors above the shadow line, hood, trunk, rinse, soap, front bumper, rinse, soap, doors from the shadow line down, rinse, soap, back of the car, rinse.
Pressure wash or hose, paying particular attention to all seams.
Microfiber drying towel.
Detailing spray like Renny Doyle Bead Maker (or whatever you want), wipe on, wipe off, get those last drips. I do my windows with this too.
Do what you want, there are a lot of opinions here, there are many like it, but this one is mine. I must master it as I must master my life.
Because the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, every product will look different from people to people. Some like the traditional warmer gloss wax look, while some prefer the synthetic gloss. X branded product that someone swears by may not be something you'd like.
My best advice would be to try some of the popular products out there starting from low to mid price range. If you find the look you are happy with, stick with it, otherwise try something else. Most of us Joe's of the world will be happy with outcome of off the shelf product. Difference between uber-expensive versus lower cost product has almost negligible outcome. If you don't know what low cost product looks like to begin with, how would you tell if $100 product made a difference or not? Idea here is to get a baseline and get your eye trained, then you can move on to something better.
Don't get caught up in marketing hype either. I know there are millions of types of products out there. I stick to simple formula.
PPF > Ceramic coating(actual coating. pro or diy, not the spray stuff) >>>>>> Sealant > Wax. Just remember lower tier products like wax will require more frequent maintenance. Don't skim on your first layer of protection, do the best your budget allows.
If you just want a nice shiny car without spending hours of your free time, I would spend the money and pay a professional for paint correction and ceramic coating(ppf if money is no object). Wash your car with two bucket method every two weeks or so and be done with it. Trust me, you don't want to jump into detailing rabbit hole. Once you start seeing the defects, you will never un-see it and this will become your weekend obsession.
