Or use a bucket of soapy water and a soft brush for cleaning and another with a squeegee for rinsing. Uses a lot less water and makes a lot less mess - been doing it for years. If you also use a 2litre plastic jug to carry round the car with you the clean the bucket of suds stays clean too and you just refill the jug when you need to from the bucket. And you only need one trip to the tap after the first one when you change over to rinsing water.
Also its guilt free in a water shortage.

Bucket and brush doesn't work against the honeydew that comes off sycamore - it sets like glue. Took me over an hour last week just to clean the roof and that was after two treatments with dirt buster, before the soap.

Hi Urbanite, ever thought of getting 1 of those cheap plastic car covers to prevent the honeydew, then when the cover gets too bad, just get a new 1, Derek.

That's true Urbanite. OH keps his under sycamores but never cleans it anyway I'm ashamed to say. I have done it sometimes with my method but its certainly hard work.

if you have a normal hose for want of a better word just grab the hose, bend it back on itself and the water stops long enough to change the attachment .

Sure you did Snoop but don't fret about it - great minds after all ;~))

im good thanx snoop sorry I didn't see that mate . every things going really well . im just getting ready to build my concrete settee and more concrete fence near my back door and open my garden for the open gardens and of course for the local hospice . me and the lovely lady who runs the open gardens both chipped in to get the bumble bee I drew, well a print , framed as a prize and ive had framed in a smaller a4 size the honey bee as a prize . shes going to do an article about it for the open gardens too . its been a while because of my stint being sectioned etc but I feel better than ever .

thanks sg x

I can't believe there's nothing out there for this. Think I might have to get down to the patent office and then send my spec off to certain hose manufacturers.

well urbanite if you don't or cant bend your hose in half maybe look to the tropical fish trade or plumbing trade as there are such things in these trades that you will probably be able to adapt . as for patenting it cost at least £3000 to do this just to say its your idea . on top of this Asian countries don't care about our patents . the other thing is there wont be enough need for a cut off switch as most people as sg sais use a bucket or just bend the hose or just use one of them water sprayers with a container underneath for fertilizer etc .

id get a bucket of water and some elbow grease or pay someone or invest in a pressure washer if not .

Thanks np. The bucket solution has already been tried and rejected - it needs a lot more water to wash away the crud. Elbow grease is not in short supply - it has sto be supplemented by lots of dirtbuster and shampoo (which has to be washed away)
Pressure washer - sorry but I value the paintwork on my car (which is one reason why it gets washed in the first place)

I thought last night about the valve for a pond pump, not yet ruled that out, but I will try the bend in the pipe method as the 'no cost' option - there is already a strategically placed kink in the pipe.

I think that's the easy fix really urbanite . I was thinking of power filter turn off valves from fish tank power filters . I know they work but I don't know how much they've changed over the years as I use a pond pump and filter now .

I have found an inline hose tap - made by Kingfisher - sensibly priced at about £2-3 but it then needs additional 'female' connectors and another (short) length of hose to instal it inline. Too much pfaff!
I've emailed the manufacturer and pointed out the flaw in their design.

And then I found this version - http://www.toolsdiy.co.uk/hose-connector-male-to-female-in-line-tap?gclid=Cj0KEQjwl_6oBRDHxNGz6ueJufMBEiQAvm_k_tWJweyqhNpz8JvgDkY7D140uq9FrhKFxLfNohrw37YaAjwy8P8HAQ

Which is almost ideal - but still needs to fit into another connector which is a bit pointless when it could actually be the 'first fix' connector to the hose pipe.

Of course, with all the rain, I haven't had to wash the car for a couple of weeks.