Honest Product Reviews

[anthonemorris]

Now we all have our own personal preferences as far as what products we use on, in and around our vehicles. All we want is actual user reviews of your preferred auto product from autosol to rain-x, degreaser, oil, wipers anything that you use or have used. Try to give actual examples where possible and please be as thorough as possible as you would be asked to say where to get the products if they are any good. Now we taking bad reviews as well so we as a community know what NOT to spend our hard earned dollars on. So start posting and lets see if we can't get good products to use

 

[nirtime]

Turtlewax Zip Wax Car Wash. Instructions require diluting 1oz to a bucket but does not say exactly how much to add. I use 1oz to half a gallon sized bucket. Have used this car wash twice to wash two cars: a red car and a black van. Using it to wash the van, it allowed me to take my time and wash the van without having to worry about water spots drying on the paint(place was very hot while doing this). I left some areas of water deliberately for 30 minutes before drying and there were no spots what so ever. It also left a layer of wax on the paint which feels great and causes water to bead as if the vehicle had been polished and while rain fell, the upper portion of the van still looked clean after a good soak in the rain. The layer of wax also left the black paint looking really shiny and clean.
On the red car: this car wash performed equally as good. Same results.

Meguiars Headlight Protectant*Offers UV Protection*: Purchased this for use on headlights which are just a tinge yellow. I polished both headlights and both foglights using Meguiars Plastx. I then rubbed a little bit of the protectant on all the lights and they did indeed look brand new. It has been 5 days and they still look great beating the weather recently. However, it is somewhat oil based so it will need to be reapplied every 2-3 months according to reviewers who use this in the USA.

Meguiars Plastx: Rubbish. Only good for very very very lightly oxidized lenses. Regular car polish works just as good or better than this. Its also very temporary and lights will look yellow again in no time using this. Invest in a proper headlight restoration kit such as the Dupli-colour kit which includes UV Coating if you need to restore your lenses.

Rain Clear by Glass Science: Works as advertised. Causes water to bead on the windscreen, helps wipers to glide smoothly over the glass. *This also works on the black plastic trims of some cars such as the Kia Sportage and new model Rav4 for restoring that great out of showroom look when applied with a sponge*

Glass Scrub by Glass Science: Works as advertised. Excellent for "scrubbing" windscreens with light imperfections such as water stains, "road film" or even spots of paint.

Mother's Reflections(Polymer polish): Great for polishing out very minor imperfections in clear coat and restoring a high shine. I use this after buffing with a rotary on very soft clear coats and it does an excellent job as a finishing polish. Its also a great hand polish. I have managed to remove "Buffer trails" or holograms in paint using this product.

Turltewax Rx Renew Chrome Polish: Bottle says it removes surface rust and restores chrome to its former glory. It does indeed remove a light amount of surface rust and having used this to not just polish chrome rims but also a bathroom faucet, I can say it does work quite decently and its only $22 for the bottle.

Meguiars Polishing Compound(Burgundy colour bottle): Had finishing polish remove more imperfections than this stuff. Avoid at all costs.



All products were purchased at The Price Club in Chaguanas.

 

[nirtime]

Mothers Leather tech Foaming Wash: can be used as a heavy duty leather cleaner. Works effortlessly over lightly soiled leather. In the instance where leather is heavily soiled or darkened from neglected cleaning, some scrubbing with be required however this product can and will restore the original color to your leather while removing all oils and any other surface contaiminants. 5 stars highly highly recommended.

Mothers Brazilian Carnauba Cleaner Wax. For $46 it is an excellent product. Capable of removing swirl marks and does an excellent job cleaning up surface marring, swirl marks and light scratches in the paint. Also leaves a great shine.

Meguiars Ultimate Compound: very strong cutting compound. Used this on wheels which have been sitting in weather for a few years and this product restored that new look to them. Also works decently by hand as it doesn't require too much effort to see results. This is ideal for heavily scratched paint and deep swirl marks. Used in combination with the Mothers Reflections polymer finishing polish leaves a really nice and almost perfect finish removing any scratches which can't be felt with a finger nail.

Eagleones Superior Nanowax: may not last forever but does an amazing job of masking swirls and leaving paint in need of detailing with a wet, just waxed look. Perfect for use during detail periods to maintain the paint. Can also be used on glass. Overall good product and would recommend it as it does a great job and being a spray wax means it can reach areas that paste and liquid waxes cannot.

 

[anthonemorris]

OK so a review of this coolant is necessary as most people have at some point used this in their car. If not then I hope you are using coolant of some kind. Water alone just won't work.
Anyway back to the review.
Automax Coolant is one of the cheapest options in terms of auto coolant on the market in Trinidad. And I personally have heard only bad and mixed reviews about it but decided to try it myself just to be sure.
Turns out that what I've heard seems to be true..... to a point. Average use tends to be empty the bottle and go. No mixing of any sort. Even I did that when I flushed my civic this weekend. Lo and behold my car starts to give high temp readings and almost overheated on me. OK then. But it had just dawned on me that I didn't read the label when I filled up. Turns out that this is a concentrated coolant as evidenced by the "directions for use" part of the label. Now the bottle has 3.7 litres capacity and usage instructions say to add a full bottle (3.7l) to the car and add water. My cooling system isn't that big so I didn't even use the entire bottle. Turns out that the boiling point of concentrated coolant is very high and can cause us to not get any performance deterioration as the temp skyrockets. Needless to say I almost blew my engine today.
So adding the water really did help keep the temperature down where it should be even under very heavy load and hard driving.
All in all the labelling can be better to include that it is a concentrate. As a cheap coolant it's not the worst thing you can put in your car.

 

[The Dude]

I currently use this to wash my car. I normally use this by itself to do a quick wash. Honestly, it does exactly what it is meant to so I have no complaints. It takes dirt off easily and doesn't damage my paint job. The price isn't too bad as this lasts me about 6 months to a year depending on how often I wash my car.

This stuff right here is the way, the truth and the light. Seriously, if applied properly you would not need to use your wipers for a couple months. The secret is to make sure you apply this when the sun is out and the wind shield is nice and hot. If you don't then it will take forever to set and even longer to polish off. You will also be left with some hazing and the product will not perform as it should. Don't forget to apply it to your wing mirrors as well.

 

[nirtime]

Dude you said it exactly as I say it. The original CG Car Wash lasts me 8 months washing half a year twice a week on 1 vehicle and once a week on 2 others as well. That's using the two bucket wash method as well.

Honestly speaking I have used some very good products since my last posting so here goes:

Mother's California Gold Showtime- quick detailer. This is used to clean off extremely light dirt from the surface. I use it as a drying aid so there are no swirls inflicted in my really soft paint. 5 star product. At a cost of $50 i have used this product to clay and dry 2 cars over a one month period washing both weekly and I still have quite a bit left in the bottle. It really does add that safe feeling of lubricity to drying when the car is properly sealed/waxed.

Rejex - There is a thread on this. It is a very very good product and I have no doubts about it in my mind. See the thread for much more info. By far the easiest wipe on, haze up and wipe off product ever. This become my go to product as it lasts 4-6 months, sheets water like no other I've tried and has higher gloss and reflections than the Mother's Pure Carnauba. 5 star product. Cost me $96 at Interchem in Barataria.

SImple Green Car Wash - For washing cars it is alright at best. It's a cheap car wash by product. Takes quite a bit of product to provide decent lubricity and isn't so good for washing. However, when used to make AnthoneMorris' special degreaser, it works the part.

Meguiar's Deep Crystal Car Wash - My supply of California Gold car wash had finished after 9 months and over 25 car washes. I decided to try the Deep Crystal because it was $52 for the 64fl oz bottle vs $45 for 32 oz of the Mother's. It's not a bad product by any means. 2 cap fulls is enough to wash an entire car with very decent lubricity and scent. It does a fair job cleaning wise but is a bit weak when it comes to the more bonded contaminants such as 2 day old tree sap. Overall if you're someone who just washes to keep your car clean, by all means its a good product. If you're someone whose into detailing and really demand a good cleaner thats safe on the wax but will provide the lubricity and sudsing action of equal to or better than the California Gold car wash, Meguiar's Gold Class and NXT will get the job done.

I will be using this for a few months before I put it in the reserve and get something else for daily use.

Meguiar's Ultimate Black Trim Sponges - Pack of 2 sponges cost me $35 and though I have already used them both, they do wonders for new cars with half an unpainted car. All the lower black trims found on the majority of CUVs look very professionally dressed when rubbed with this sponge. It lasted 2 weeks in which every single day there had been huge thunder showers and approximately 4 or 5 car washes in which the treated areas were properly cleaned by hand.
Now that this has finished I am going to keep my sponges and buy the Ultimate protectant which is the same product and I will be using the sponges to apply it. 5 stars from me since I have previously used GableX tire dressing on these trims and while it did look alright, the meguiar's looks far better, it dries and feels just like a painted surface. Water even beads a bit on it unlike the tire dressing which would blacken any cloth I used to wash the car in question.

EagleOne's Nano Wax - I did an earlier honest review on this but I have to say, it was junk for any waxed car. it contains abrasives and will easily strip wax leaving a surface bare after 2 days or so as it is a spray on wax and does not last long at all.

Mother's Pure Carnauba - This is a really wonderful product to apply and remove. It smells alright, it goes on easy, spreads out easily, hazes up in about 15 minutes and wipes off easily as well. I used this in combination with the FX Synwax to create multi-layer protection when I did not have any sealant on hand. With this combination, red, black and extremely dark brown paint all gleamed, had higher definition reflections due to the carnauba and any time rain would fall, the cars would dry cleanly for the most part reducing washing periods.
I was able to go 2 weeks without washing the red car since its body panels are very curved, water would sheet itself off and leave the surface dry.

 

[The Dude]

I never tried Meguiar's but from what you said I'll try the gold class next time I get a chance. The rejex also sounds really good. My car is a basic grocery getter so I'm not that much into detailing but I'm always looking for more easy ways to keep my car looking great nonetheless.

 

[nirtime]

I never tried Meguiar's but from what you said I'll try the gold class next time I get a chance. The rejex also sounds really good. My car is a basic grocery getter so I'm not that much into detailing but I'm always looking for more easy ways to keep my car looking great nonetheless.

My truck is a daily driver too but it stands up to new cars like nothing.

Rejex takes a lot of prep work though. Paint ideally should be clay barred, compounded and then perfected before applying rejex so it will look its best but you could very well put it on if you wanted to. It's not a wax, its not a polish. It's a sealant and its whats in with the detailing world right now.

Gold Class a bit expensive i find its like $80 or something so. It is however a favourite among detailing enthusiasts.

Meguiar's consumer products are not bad, the ultimate series is very good, gold class is alright, nxt is a great series and deep crystal isn't so good. Meguiar's in my eyes are really recognized for the ultimate series and their pro grade M series stuff.

 

[The Dude]

Hmmmm, good info there. Car detailing is an area that I am completely ignorant in. I just know the big 4; wash, wax, vacuum and amour some (sometimes I'm just to lazy to amour all).

 

[nirtime]

Hmmmm, good info there. Car detailing is an area that I am completely ignorant in. I just know the big 4; wash, wax, vacuum and amour some (sometimes I'm just to lazy to amour all).

Doh worry, I coming out with some new threads very shortly. As soon as things ease up with me.

I don't even use amour all, I find that is just a waste of time but I am very particular being a hobbyist detailer.

 

[The Dude]

I'll keep an eye open for it. I switched to mothers interior protectant but I find that whatever I use attracts a lot of dust.

 

[nirtime]

I'll keep an eye open for it. I switched to mothers interior protectant but I find that whatever I use attracts a lot of dust.

Ill be buying a bottle of the Meguiars Ultimate Protectant for use on 2 crossovers with the unpainted black plastic trims to the bottom of the body. i will make a thread about it now that you mention interior and see how it performs interior wise because its the same product as their black trim products just marketed toward the average consumers who perceive the protectant for interior use more so.

 

[The Dude]

Hmm, gotta love marketing yes.

 

[nirtime]

Hmm, gotta love marketing yes.

Lol the funny part was they admitted to it.

 

[The Dude]

Lol. And I'm sure some people still went and bought the targeted products despite knowing the only difference was the label.

 

[nirtime]

Lmao of course, they must try them both to see if there is any difference.

 

[nirtime]

Some new product results are in:

Meguiar's Foaming Interior Cleaner. It is supposedly a great product but it does not remove the more embedded greasy stains from light colored door cards. It did however leave a sort of satin sheen which was not too bad but still was not my preference. To me it seemed to be a weak product but as reported by a friend it was able to restore perfect brown to once black and dirty door cards so it may work for you. Overall not a bad product but not my choice.

RainX Glass Cleaner + Repellent: I like using this product. It has made cleaning the interior of the windshield easy and the added repellent means I can spray it on the exterior glass as well and buff it in to reveal a streak free layer of rain repellent. It seems to clean fairly well as when used on a shower enclosure, 5 year old hard water spots came right off with a bit of buffing actions. I would buy this again and I definitely do enjoy using it a lot. For about $42TTD it's worth it.

 

[Mad racer]

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