Hi guys,
Recently I tried to go a notch above the 2 bucket method + Tesco shampoo and get some proper gear. I thought i'd review the products here and see if anyone had any feedback:
What's reviewed:
Before
Heavy swirling, chips and quite a few scratches especially around the door handles, door edges and boot shut area. The car has had a (poor) respray by previous owner. While it matches, there are masking marks around the rear lights and rear window where the clearcoat is peeling. The bonnet has horrible towel drag marks in stripes and rear there is bbaaaaddd holograms throughout.
Wash
K2: The K2 was great. It is small, light and does the job with decent pressure. The hose connecting the lance to the main unit is a pain in the balls though as it likes to twist itself up.
ValetPro Snow Foam + Lance: Amazing, it instantly came out like shaving foam and stuck all over the car. Where it was running off you could see all the filth in the foam. The car looked cleaner after the pre-wash than it usually does with a full wash!
CG Citrus Clean + Gloss: This stuff is impressive. A tiny amount in the bucket is all that's required. It goes on and slicks off any remaining dirt. My mit was pretty much clean from the pre-wash but you could tell this shampoo was really pulling everything off the surface.
ValetPro Bilberry: Left this to soak on the wheels while the foam was sat then went over them with a sponge. The wheels only had a light amount of grime. Was not impressed with this, but can only presume I used it incorrectly. It seemed to do nothing but smell of berry.
Wooly Mammoth: Amazing towel and dried the car no problems. It did leave fibres on the car on first use but these blew off quite easily. It didn't feel as premium, deep or big as it seemed on the website. "Mammoth" is a slight overstatement. I'd recommend it though ... can't think how it would perform better.
Megs lambswool mit: OK, allows you to feel the surface through the mit. Could hold more suds,. The hairs parted in a weird way when I was washing too which caused the "skin" under the hairs to rub on the car which was a bit annoying.
Interior
Just used the Poor Boy's Natural interor cleaner. This stuff SMELLS AMAZING! ... even if it performed the same as every other interior cleaner it would be worth using just for the smell. It performed well though, especially on matt plastics like indicator stalks. It was really good on the leather seats ... mine are in v good condition, but you can see a considerable difference. I also tried it on my weather seals on the exterior ... not so good. These have had some kind of shoe polish like blackening agent applied at some point which reacted with the cleaner and made "tiger stripe" marks on the exterior rubber.
Wax (Dodo Juice Purple Haze)
First coat:
The picture doesn't show it that well but the first coat didn't really help the swirling/cobwebs/holograms. What it did do in a really major way was bring out the metallic flakes in the paint. No kidding, I stood there for about 20 mins just staring at it in the sun. If anything the first coat "brought out" the scratches and swirls because the light had more gloss which refracted light at the scratch.
Second coat:
Now we're talking. Here you can see the wax curing and also buffed off. I have never seen the paint look so good. It is vibrant and the gloss was deep. It "felt" like some areas would benefit from a third coat, so I did:
Third coat:
I was right. The third coat really helped the swirling and other marks. Still, it's a wax not a polish so I didn't expect miracles but after the third coat it looked miles better than I thought. Still needs a major corrective polishing but the wax was amazing. It actually looks like Phantom Black now ... beautiful!
Nice and clean!
Recently I tried to go a notch above the 2 bucket method + Tesco shampoo and get some proper gear. I thought i'd review the products here and see if anyone had any feedback:
What's reviewed:
- Karcher K2 premium
- CG Wooly Mammoth towel
- Meguires wool mit
- Snow foam lance
- ValetPro snow foam
- ValetPro Bilberry wheel cleaner
- Dodo Juice Purple Haze wax
- Chemical Guys Citrux Clean and Gloss
- Poor Boy's Natural Look cleaner/dressing
Before
Heavy swirling, chips and quite a few scratches especially around the door handles, door edges and boot shut area. The car has had a (poor) respray by previous owner. While it matches, there are masking marks around the rear lights and rear window where the clearcoat is peeling. The bonnet has horrible towel drag marks in stripes and rear there is bbaaaaddd holograms throughout.
Wash
K2: The K2 was great. It is small, light and does the job with decent pressure. The hose connecting the lance to the main unit is a pain in the balls though as it likes to twist itself up.
ValetPro Snow Foam + Lance: Amazing, it instantly came out like shaving foam and stuck all over the car. Where it was running off you could see all the filth in the foam. The car looked cleaner after the pre-wash than it usually does with a full wash!
CG Citrus Clean + Gloss: This stuff is impressive. A tiny amount in the bucket is all that's required. It goes on and slicks off any remaining dirt. My mit was pretty much clean from the pre-wash but you could tell this shampoo was really pulling everything off the surface.
ValetPro Bilberry: Left this to soak on the wheels while the foam was sat then went over them with a sponge. The wheels only had a light amount of grime. Was not impressed with this, but can only presume I used it incorrectly. It seemed to do nothing but smell of berry.
Wooly Mammoth: Amazing towel and dried the car no problems. It did leave fibres on the car on first use but these blew off quite easily. It didn't feel as premium, deep or big as it seemed on the website. "Mammoth" is a slight overstatement. I'd recommend it though ... can't think how it would perform better.
Megs lambswool mit: OK, allows you to feel the surface through the mit. Could hold more suds,. The hairs parted in a weird way when I was washing too which caused the "skin" under the hairs to rub on the car which was a bit annoying.
Interior
Just used the Poor Boy's Natural interor cleaner. This stuff SMELLS AMAZING! ... even if it performed the same as every other interior cleaner it would be worth using just for the smell. It performed well though, especially on matt plastics like indicator stalks. It was really good on the leather seats ... mine are in v good condition, but you can see a considerable difference. I also tried it on my weather seals on the exterior ... not so good. These have had some kind of shoe polish like blackening agent applied at some point which reacted with the cleaner and made "tiger stripe" marks on the exterior rubber.
Wax (Dodo Juice Purple Haze)
First coat:
The picture doesn't show it that well but the first coat didn't really help the swirling/cobwebs/holograms. What it did do in a really major way was bring out the metallic flakes in the paint. No kidding, I stood there for about 20 mins just staring at it in the sun. If anything the first coat "brought out" the scratches and swirls because the light had more gloss which refracted light at the scratch.
Second coat:
Now we're talking. Here you can see the wax curing and also buffed off. I have never seen the paint look so good. It is vibrant and the gloss was deep. It "felt" like some areas would benefit from a third coat, so I did:
Third coat:
I was right. The third coat really helped the swirling and other marks. Still, it's a wax not a polish so I didn't expect miracles but after the third coat it looked miles better than I thought. Still needs a major corrective polishing but the wax was amazing. It actually looks like Phantom Black now ... beautiful!
Nice and clean!
