"images of Molly Weir mopping the car roof..."
:-)
It certainly seems to be a crowded market. There are rows and rows of polish in our Halfords (with prices ranging from about £4 to about £20) which suggests that it's a nice little earner for the suppliers. I wonder what the production cost is?
As with alcoholic beverages, all of which are made from the 'finest' ingredients (which makes one wonder what happens to the rest) there's no way of separating the hype from reality, so you come back to price and/or recommendation. I wonder if the marketing gurus realise that (like T.Blair) they've spun themselves out of all credibility...
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I tend to keep an eye on the product reviews on Auto Express for such answers. I'm currently trying the Comma Pro Vision range.
Steve.
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Xantia HDi. - Float on!
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Making a car look really good and stay that way takes more than buying a bottle of stuff at Halford's. Google 'car detailing' or similar.
Of course, a lot of the specialist stuff is very good...
i145.photobucket.com/albums/r232/std70040/Liquidgl...g
... but is probably overpriced. It also takes time - washing, removal of contaminants, removal of fine scratches/swirls, applying polish, applying wax (and preferably more than one coat).
To avoid the time and effort, most of the gear down at Halford's will give a pretty good result, but the real test IMO is whether the lovely gloss that beads rainwater actually lasts. Too many of them don't. So you have to experiment. As for 'it won't get dirty' or 'it just lasts and lasts', don't believe a word.
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"Too many of them don't.."
So which ones do? I don't mind putting in the effort, but my original point was that it's impossible to tell which products are any good from reading the label. The last one I bought was allegedly 'voted best car polish by What Car?' or words to that effect, but it doesn't perform any differently from the other two or three polishes I'd used previously. They're all OK, in that the water beads nicely for a week or two, but I'm just curious to know what, if anything, is any better.
All suggestions gratefully received!
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Ask 10 people, and you'll probably get 10 replies.
I must admit I used to buy new types of wax/polish when they came out and all too often I ended up with half a bottle left to decay in a cupboard.
I haven't been impressed with the AutoGlm Ultra Deep Shine, and only used this once or twice, it left smeary dark marks.
I don't think Mer seems as good as it did 15 years ago, it doesn't seem to last very long in terms of shine and beading.
I liked Comma Top Gloss, they used to sell it in Wilkos, but haven't seen it for a couple of years, it is very glossy, lasts ages, and is cheap and easy to apply and buff off.
At the moment I like Turtle Wax Extreme Nano tech, it is similar to the Comma above, I only bought it as it was on a BOGOF offer at Halfords.
Now as for leather conditioner cleaner, I have even more part-used bottles. Too many either smell awful or make the leather look shiny and tacky.
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"Too many either smell awful or make the leather look shiny and tacky."
I'm sure they do. I've used saddle soap (from tack shops) for years and it cleans well, smells right and leaves a matt finish. Cheap, too.
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OK. There are 00s of options, and you can spend an absolute fortune - literally - on waxes.
Good brands are:
Zymol
Swissol
P21S
Car-Lack
Zaino's
Mother's
In my experience Zymol and Car-Lack are durable, lasting may weeks on a car kept outside (and therefore under attack from rain, sun, etc). I have heard good reports of Zaino's too. I've been unimpressed by Autoglym, and wouldn't go near Mer. There's a difference between polish and wax. Polishing is cleaninga nd creating the shine. Wax is the final coat that protects and maintains the shine.
My preferred method is:
1. Wash car using a wash mitt (not a sponge) with a neutral shampoo (I use baby shampoo). Dry with an artificial chammy.
2. Use a clay bar to remove contaminants (I use Meguiar's one - but I'm not convinced about Meguiar's waxes, though others think they're good). Clay the alloy wheels too.
3. Apply ScratchX to remove fine scratches/swirls
4. Polish with Zymol HD-Cleanse or P21S Paintwork Cleanser (just as good and cheaper)
5. Wax with Zymol Titanium wax or Car-Lack 68 'Premium pflege & schutz', preferably at least two coats. Decent Zymol waxes cost an arm and a leg but a little goes a VERY LONG way indeed. The Car-Lack is v good value IMO. Both are easy to apply and take off - Zymol especially - but don't use either in hot sunlight. Wax alloys too; I sometimes use a BMW spray-on wax (not actually intended for wheels).
Stand back and admire.
Invest in some microfibre cloths for wax removal/final shining, and Tesco Value hand towels are great for removing polish/other rub-off jobs.
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i145.photobucket.com/albums/r232/std70040/Groombri...g
i145.photobucket.com/albums/r232/std70040/Groombri...g
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For a while I used own brand furniture polish - just as good it seemed to me and about £1 a tin.
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Love the self-portrait, Maxy!
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Wooh! Point made, I think. I probably won't go quite that far, but thanks for the info. Nice to know about Zymol, as the one I looked at had a believable list of ingredients.
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For NEW paintwork www.meguiars.co.uk or older vehicles www.merproducts.co.uk
Easy really!!
VB
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Wooh! Point made, I think. I probably won't go quite that far, but thanks for the info. Nice to know about Zymol, as the one I looked at had a believable list of ingredients.
There's a Zymol 'cleaner wax' that you can get get in Halford's etc that is pretty cheap. It cleans paint via very fine abrasive properties as well as waxing - as do the great majority of 'ordinary waxes, which is why they leave a chalky residue. I haven't used it, though. I prefer to do the ceaning/polixhing as one stage, and apply the protective wax as another. A further minor but worthwhile advantage IMO of decent wax is that if you get it on plastic trim it doesn't leave an awful white mark that's difficult to get off; that's because it's just wax (well mostly) and not a load of chemicals and abrasives plus a bit of wax.
As another poster has suggested, the ace ingredient in good wax is usually carnauba wax (not in the Car-Lack stuff I referred to, which is synthetic). As a rule, the more carnauba the better.
A lot of car cleaning/waxing/detailing products are simply overpriced, and the marketing blurb a load of hype. The stuff doesn't actually have magical properties. But some folk swear by them and, to be fair, the car detailing professionals do achieve some fantastic results. However, it is possible to get a pretty good result for less money and effort. And it's amazing how much better a freshly washed and waxed car looks with the tyres improved with dressing (eg Turtlewax Extreme tyre gel).
But what's important for me is how long a good waxing lasts, ie for how long it will bead rainwater in that lovely way. If it's still beading, it don't need re-waxing. You gotta choose carefully.
(BTW, I do like my motor looking good, but I'm not obsessional about it. I've many better things to do with my time...)
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Mad Maxy - I love the picture of the woman with hands on hips looking the other way - my wife does that with anything car related too!
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Mad Maxy - I love the picture of the woman with hands on hips looking the other way - my wife does that with anything car related too!
LOL!
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What's a clay bar?
V
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??What's a clay bar?>>
See about a third of the way down this link:
meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2409
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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