The ilogikal1 test thread

[ilogikal1]

Is there a particular iron remover you'd recommend?

 

Current preference is Car Chem Revolt.

 

I'll be doing a comparison between a few shortly - I was hoping to do it this weekend, weather permitting, until I realised I don't have any Iron X. I may do it anyway though.

[roscopervis]

Make sure you include Korrosol in the test. The Revolt deal however was excellent and a no brainer.

[ilogikal1]

I've checked what I had earlier and it seems the Korrosol that I had, has leaked (from the bottom of the bottle too) so there's none left.

 

I may thus resort to doing the test in stages - using what I have now as round one with the best one(s) going up against others that at a later date. I could do with finding sample sizes of the most popular ones (that I don't already have) though, otherwise it's going to get horrendously expensive!

[ilogikal1]

Rain has halted play for my intended detailing relating plans for the day (booooo!). Every cloud though...

 

You might (or probably might not) remember that 1 year, 1 week ago today I posted this glass sealant test back on page 3, which itself was 4 weeks old by then - making it 57 weeks and counting. It seems, after a nostalgic trip through my own thread, that I've not updated that side of the house a great deal since then (I've posted a couple of updates on the other test that's happening though). So, a long overdue update on that first test then.

 

For reference then, over 13 months ago on a window that's washed once a month (soapy water, squeegee; the typical window cleaner routine) I started with this;

 

Applied as such;

 

 

Today, that looks like this;

 

 

Top section;

 

 

Bottom section;

 

 

So 13 washes later and PIAA is long gone (I seem to recall it lasted roughly 9 months, but to be honest I might be making that up) - there's little to distinguish those sections from the untreated sections and tape lines - however both Car Chem Ultra and GTechniq G5 are still clearly going strong.

 

Obviously this has very little to do with how each would react on a car so this (and the other one which included Nanolex Urban too - I would have an update for that one, but it's not rained on that side of the house yet ) is largely pointless, but here it is anyway.

[ilogikal1]

Fallout removers then. This marks the start of what I'm going to term as "the big arse test of fallout removers I can be bothered to test". The intention is a number of preliminary rounds (such as what follows), followed by a confirmation and elimination round for each preliminary round. Those which aren't eliminated from their previous rounds will then be put up against different removers than said previous round. If this doesn't make sense, it'll become clear as it goes on... hopefully. This test will be done over an undetermined amount of time for several reasons, such as having limited fallout to remove at any given time and my preference to spread the costs as much as possible.

 

Once the full test has been conducted, I will post the full test as a separate thread so that it isn't lost in here but whilst conducting it I'll post up in here - unless of course any of mods object to this?

 

I had a bit of a false start to this, I tested one on the paintwork before the wash to see if there was enough of a reaction for the test, which I got. I then washed & dried the car, then started the test on different panels to the one I checked and got;

 

 

So yeah, that didn't work at all. There was a bit of reaction from each of them but we're talking half a dozen or so small spots for each section really, so nowhere near enough for the test I had in mind. Subsequently I opted to sacrifice the wheel sealant test that was occurring on the Leon and took the fallout removers to the wheels.

 

Whilst I get round to writing that up, here's just something for Rebel Scum you to think about today.

 

 

[ilogikal1]

To kick this off then, the contestants are;

 

 

Auto Finesse Iron Out.

Car Chem Revolt.

Gyeon Iron.

AM Details AM Iron.

Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner.

Nanolex Wheel Cleaner and Iron Remover.

Wolf's Deironizer "Decon Gel" - I've used the full size bottle for this test, but will be using the Waxybox sample in the next round as well, I believe they're the same version but not entirely sure so I'll chuck that into the mix next time too.

 

As I said before the car was washed first, for the wheels this meant agitating the dirt on the face of the wheels with a brush during the snow foam stage and then rinsing. That was it. The barrels weren't cleaned at all (because I'm lazy today), I was also focusing more on the reaction on the face than on the barrel so the removers weren't necessarily intentionally directed onto the barrels evenly.

 

The premise is simple, spray on a section, allow a couple of minutes to react, rinse, every product then moves round to a different section, repeat.

 

The theory is that if a remover is any good, the next one shouldn't react - the stronger the reaction of the secondary product, the weaker the primary was. In terms of this preliminary round, it's simply a "qualifier" if you like to identify the weaker products and determine the order of use in the next elimination round. Simple, right? Good!

 

Things to note, two wheels were in direct sunlight whilst the other two were in more ideal conditions in the shade. The two in the sun were therefore warmer than the other two and promoted drying out more than the shaded wheels. I attempted to allow enough rounds to counter this as much as possible, but again "limited fallout to remove". I will endeavour to make the elimination round much more consistent.

 

We therefore start with this;

 

Auto Finesse Iron Out on the left, Gyeon Iron on the right;

 

Gyeon;

 

Auto Finesse;

 

Car Chem Revolt;

 

 

Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner on the left, AM Details AM Iron on the right;

 

Koch Chemie;

 

AM Details;

 

Wolf's Deironizer left, Nanolex Wheel Cleaner and Fallout Remover right;

 

Nanolex;

 

 

Wolf's;

 

Notes from round one;

AM Details is the best smelling - it actually has a lemony scent to it now and doesn't have the typical fallout remover rotting corpse tone to it.

Koch Chemie and Nanolex have a peroxide sort of chemical smell to them - not pleasant by any means but not as bad as that aforementioned rotting corpse stench.

Gyeon has a battenberg-scented-rotting-corpse scent to it - it's the standard fallout remover scent that's not-really-masked-by-the-undertones-of-a-sweeter-battenberg-smell.

Wolf's has a very strong "rancid eggy" scent.

Car Chem and Auto Finesse have that typical fallout remover scent that usually indicates the need for a forensic police investigation. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about...

 

They all seem to work with all of them reacting, however Wolf's took the longest to react. Car Chem had dried out a little bit, but that was on the wheel that's been sat in the sun for the longest, Auto Finesse had also started to dry out on the other wheel in the sun however Gyeon hadn't. By the time I came to rinse, AF had dried out a lot more that even Revolt on the (slightly) warmer wheel.

 

Every product moved one place clockwise and application 2 commenced as such:

 

Gyeon right, Wolf's left;

 

Wolf's;

 

 

Gyeon;

 

 

Auto Finesse;

 

AM Details left, Car Chem right;

 

Car Chem;

 

 

AM Details;

 

 

Nanolex left, Koch Chemie right;

 

Koch Chemie;

 

 

Nanolex;

 

[ilogikal1]

Application 2 shows;

 

Auto Finesse dries out very quickly on warm panels and in the sun.

Gyeon > Auto Finesse* (*when used in the sun at least).

Gyeon > Wolf's.

Nanolex > Wolf's.

Car Chem > AM Details.

 

Whilst AF dried out quicker than any of the others on the respective wheels, it still rinsed off with no issues at all. It's only Wolf's that actively state that their product can be allowed to dry out fully, and whilst the best advice is certainly not to allow the other products to dry completely on the surface I have had no issues removing Auto Finesse or Car Chem's offerings when they've dried out - I will highlight the difference between "dried out" and "baked on" though; leave it for any considerable amount of time at your own risk!

 

AM Details and Wolf's have been identified as the weaker offerings on this occasion, so they were removed but I made the judgement that Auto Finesse may be drying out before it's had a chance to really work. Koch Chemie was also borderline for me at this point too, so I went for another application. Everything moved one place clockwise again and application 3 went as such:

 

Nanolex;

 

 

 

 

Gyeon;

 

 

 

 

Auto Finesse;

 

 

 

 

 

Koch Chemie left, Car Chem right;

 

Car Chem;

 

 

 

Koch Chemie;

 

 

 

I'm still not sure about Koch Chemie, it seems to react somewhat to those before it but those after it all seem to react too so that one's still very much borderline for me. The weakest ones, in my opinion, are these three then;

 

 

AM Details, Auto Finesse and Wolf's. These four (counting Wolf's as 2) will be application 1 for the next round (the first elimination round). Each of these will be followed by one these "seeded" removers if you like;

 

 

Koch Chemie, Car Chem, Gyeon and Nanolex.

 

The intention for the next round involved those damned Slick Rims coated, brake dust attracting wheels. The Round 2, Application 1 group will be applied to a wheel/section each, allowed to react, rinsed and then followed up by a "seeded" remover using the same theory as above - the greater the reaction of the latter denotes the credibility of the former. The weakest will be removed from the test, the strongest will go through to compete against the rest as applicable. This will continue until a conclusion can be drawn and a winner chosen, at which point the world will rejoice and I will take my rightful place as the one true Emperor Everything Ever... or, you know... something else will happen. Until then, round 1 for group 1 ends here. Sound off with any opinions or comments below.

Edited May 4, 2015 by ilogikal1

[ilogikal1]

Right then, I've had a change of mind on that there fallout remover test format and I've decided to go straight to the elimination round instead. I'll try, as much as I can, to pit the Waxybox samples against one another and the full size offerings against other full size offerings - this is simply because of the spray pattern which is much more focused with the Waxybox spray heads so I want to try to eliminate this as a factor as much as possible.

 

Rear wheels were removed and they started the day looking like this;

 

Slick Rims wheel (the one that's had everything thrown at it so far, for those of you following at home);

 

 

 

 

Despite the fact that the beading has now been well and truly killed off (since the first application of three alkaline wheel cleaner application some weeks ago now), but the spotting problem is still occurring.

 

HubiRims wheel;

 

 

 

 

Both were then given a wash using FKwhatevernumberitis (#118 - the "super concentrate" stuff that's not very "super" concentrate by today's standards... but I digress). Leaving me with one still spotty wheel;

 

 

 

and one clean-but-stone-chipped-to-hell wheel;

 

 

 

Out came the fallout removers for the day. Starting with the spotty wheel and;

 

 

Applied in a shaded area (well, a cloudy day actually) I chose to give Iron Out another chance to see what it can do when it's not just drying out. The drying out issue is a big mark against it still of course. Anyway, this was given ~5 minutes to dwell which gave me this;

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly a visceral reaction, but a reaction nonetheless. Absolutely no reaction to the front of the wheel and surprisingly little reaction with the spots, in fact there was more reaction from the old weight tape than the spots! Iron Out was left to dwell for another couple of minutes before being rinsed off, in that time it didn't dry out at all so it's absolutely imperative with Iron Out that it is not used in direct sunlight. Once rinsed, the spots were removed, so it did attack them despite the apparent lack of reaction.

 

In the mean time, the HubiRims wheel was treated to;

 

 

Again, this was given ~5minutes to dwell which gave me;

 

 

 

 

Not a lot. Again, no reaction at all on the front, but this time very little reaction on the rear either. Deironizer reacted noticeably slower than Iron Out (IO started to react within a minute, whilst Deironizer took nearer 2¹/₂ minutes). Surprisingly neither really reacted with the new wheel weights either... the ones stamped Fe! Again, this was left to dwell for another couple of minutes before being rinsed off.

 

At this point, Deironizer was then applied to the first wheel, that gave me;

 

 

 

 

 

Virtually nothing, apart from the old weight tape again. There was very little else that reacted at all after another ~8minutes.

 

At which point the clouds parted, so excuse the change of location (to a shaded area) for Iron Out applied to the previously Deironizer'd wheel;

 

 

 

 

Granted the biggest reaction was from the old weight tape again but there were definitely numerous other reactions along with it, certainly much more reaction than the other way around on the other wheel. Therefore, the winner of this round (in the shade) is;

 

 

Auto Finesse Iron Out > Wolf's Deironizer*.

 

 

*This win comes (literally) with an asterisk, because Iron Out is actually useless in direct sunlight or on warm surfaces. However, it does win this round, in these conditions.

 

 

 

Also, for those interested, the old weight tape was then removed with AutoSmart Tardis, the wheel fitting soap was removed from the back of the tyres and the tyres were also cleaned front & back. A new sealant will be applied to both wheels (anything except Slick Rims!) and the tyres will be dressed front & back before refitting too.

[Stutopia]

I like the format of this one there's going to be a proper winner. As I also hate these stinking products (rotting corpse is spot on ), wheel cleaning and sealing is the biggest detailing PITA ever. oOnce you declare one product to rule them all, I can buy that forever and be done with it

 

A pint of mild says Gyeon win, due to their ongoing unpronouncability, and also all their products seem to be extremely good.

 

PS - as a contractor or employee working on the Death Star, they knew exaclty what they were getting themselves into. I have no symptahy.

Edited May 21, 2015 by SuperStu

[ilogikal1]

A pint of mild says Gyeon win, due to their ongoing unpronouncability, and also all their products seem to be extremely good.

 

Can I wager on my own test? Considering I have the opportunity to "adjust" the results and all.

 

 

I just don't want Iron X to win it! There, I've said it, now when (if) it doesn't win, the fanboys can assume it's fixed.

 

 

PS - as a contractor or employee working on the Death Star, they knew exaclty what they were getting themselves into. I have no symptahy.

 

Running a fully operational, moon sized Death Star would take more than just soldiers; they'd need everything from medics to mechanics, chefs to cleaners, accountants to admin staff, etc. Now, picture this, you're a chef, and some juicy government job comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

 

Those rebel scum were nothing but Terrorists!

[Stutopia]

I wasn't even supposed to be here today!

[ilogikal1]

Not enough people know that film. It makes me unbelievably happy when others join in my geekery.

[ilogikal1]

Fallout Remover test; round 1, match 2.

 

Today's contestants are Waxybox samples, again the wheels were given a simple shampoo wash before conducting the test. First up is;

 

 

Allowed to dwell for 5 minutes, which did this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was again allowed a couple more minutes to dwell before being rinsed off.

 

Meanwhile, wheel number two was treated to contestant number 2, this;

 

 

Which after 5 minutes looked like this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then allowed a couple more minutes dwell time before being rinsed off. First thing to note is that Koch Chemie was slower to react, it took the best part of 3 minutes to show any reaction whilst AM Details was somewhat quicker at under 1 minute.

 

Contestant number 2 then met wheel number 1, a 5 minute dwell resulted in this;

 

 

 

 

 

The only reaction there was came from here;

 

 

Then wheel number two was treated to contestant number one, a 5 minute dwell rested in this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, er... yeah, a clear winner there, AM Details AM Iron > Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner.

 

There comes another caveat though, for it seems there is a fair bit of discussion about whether Koch Chemie's offering; some people, including Koch Chemie, claim that it is a fallout remover whilst others, including Koch Chemie, state that it is not a fallout remover at all. No, that's not a typo.

 

Having completed the test, I realised this had happened;

 

 

This left me with a choice; either buy some more to continue the test, or do what I actually did....

 

Apply one previous loser to wheel number 2, allow 5 minutes to dwell and;

 

 

 

There was an almost instant reaction across the full face of the barrel but by the time I had retrieved the camera it has all dripped down to form this puddle.

 

In the mean time, I also applied this to wheel number 1 too;

 

 

Which also did this;

 

 

Therefore, by extrapolation;

 

Auto Finesse Iron Out > Wolfs Deironizer > AM Details AM Iron > Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner.

 

Or to put it another way, AM Details and Koch Chemie are both eliminated along with Wolf's.

 

There now follows anything between a long interlude in order to generate more fallout to remove and a longer interlude whilst life changes are born out. More will follow just don't expect that any time soon.

[Stutopia]

When you say a simple shampoo, presumably you also agitate with a wooly prior to rinse?

[ilogikal1]

When you say a simple shampoo, presumably you also agitate with a wooly prior to rinse?

 

Yes, agitated with a couple of Wheel Woolies for the barrels and a Valet Pro detailing brush for the face and then rinsed off with the hose.

[ilogikal1]

Time for an overdue sealant update. This is likely to be the last update for a while due to large life changes (new job, starting on Monday, and relocating to London... ish.) so I'm not sure if/when I'll get the chance for much detailing sadly.

 

The Z has been washed twice since the last update, but I've been busy... and by busy I mean lazy. Anyway, this is the third wash since that update, which consisted of a snow foam and then shampoo wash. Midway through said wash it decided to rain briefly but heavily, so I took advantage of real beads for a change. This is after the bonnet had been properly washed and rinsed.

 

 

Ammo Skin;

 

 

 

FK UPS;

 

 

And Poorboys EX-P;

 

 

The beading is now pretty even and showing signs of a fair amount of wear to the protection. The sheeting was a different matter though, yet again Ammo pi**ed all over the other two and is still looking good there, FK was still languishing behind EX-P but not by such a great margin this time but both are looking quite questionable at this point.

The interesting thing about Ammo is that it seems to get better the more it's rinsed whilst FK remains the same throughout and EX-P seems to slow down (albeit marginally).

 

Due to the change in my circumstances I'll be applying a layer or two of Waxaddict's new wax, Quartz, to the rest of the car - for those of you who don't get the Waxyboxes, this is a new blend that incorporates SiO₂ - or to put it another way, essentially, HydrO2/Wet Coat in wax form (if I have time a review might follow). I'll probably leave the bonnet as is for now. Anyway, the point was that this is likely to mark the end of this particular test so I'm going to add my conclusions here, however I may resurrect this when I'm settled in my new surroundings.

Basically, Ammo Skin has led the pack the whole way for me, it's always just (or easily at times) outperformed both EX-P and UPS in just about every way. The only direct parallel between the three is the level of self cleaning on offer, none were noticeably cleaner than the others at any given time. As time has gone on, the looks of each, which were slightly different upon application, have become closer to the point of being indistinguishable from one another now however when freshly applied I found the looks of Skin to my preference of the three - as a wax lover, it's likely to be due to the slightly more oily nature of Skin. In terms of water behaviour, Skin has consistently sheeted noticeably faster and better than both the others and the beading has, until more recently, been better throughout too.

 

It's hard to come to any other conclusion that Ammo Skin wins this hands down, for me. Unless you factor in the cost, which muddies the water somewhat as Ammo is by far the most expensive due to the (current) lack of UK distributors. If cost is the deciding factor, both EX-P and UPS are adequate (I prefer EX-P though personally, I found it to be marginally better than the FK throughout) but if you want the better polymer sealant then you're going to have to pay for it, frankly. That is until I convince SuperStu to become a UK distributor anyway...

[Stutopia]

Woohoo AMMO wins, I can almost justify the price now! Thanks for taking the considerable time to put it through it's paces

 

Good luck with the new job, don't want to be a scaremonger but I heard down south they don't have Greggs for sausage rolls. Instead they all eat some sort of raw fish muck, called sushi - sounds suspicious to me...

[ilogikal1]

You're quite welcome, thanks for supplying the expensive product.

 

Cheers mate. I'll be okay with avoiding raw fish (and I don't care what weeds you wrap that in, it's not food!), have you seen the property prices down there? It'll be a while before I can afford to eat anyway.

[ilogikal1]

I'm just going to leave this here.

 

[ilogikal1]

So this here Quartz wax then...

 

It's a very easy wax to apply, it just spreads and spreads so it's very easy to get a thin, even layer but it also goes a long way so the proposed price tag (£95/pot) isn't quite as bad as it first seems.

 

Buffing was a matter of trial and error as there was no usage guidelines included. At first I allowed it to cure fully until it passed the swipe test, about 8-10 minutes which gave me time to apply to three panels, and found it a touch grabby when breaking the cured surface but otherwise fine. After that I applied it to the next panel, allowed roughly 2 minutes to partially cure before buffing off "wet" and found it much easier to remove so I continued round the rest of the car like that - effectively applying to a single panel, dithering for another 30 seconds then buffing immediately.

 

The finish it gives is a nice combination of the gloss from a coating and the depth from a wax, although it does lack the warmth of an outright wax.

 

 

Excuse the Instagram picture, that was a quick snap on the phone but I did get the camera out after it rained some more;

 

 

Because rain happened, beading happened too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then beading porn happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I just really like these shots.

 

 

 

It'll be interesting to see how this stands up in the coming months.

[Stutopia]

What's going on? I've not seen a wet bead since the water tank burst and soaked my sex toys.

[ilogikal1]

It's all dried up ( ) a bit of late.

 

I've currently got no means of washing the car where I'm staying which means it's distustingly filthy at present, as such the beading is heavily compromised hence no pictures for a while. I can't even suggest when the next update is even likely at the moment.

 

It's barely getting driven either at the moment, the roads around London are **** compared to up north.

[ilogikal1]

 

 

So some stuff happened today and I'm just going to gloss over the 3 month gap since the last time stuff happened. Today's stuff was...

 

 

Gyeon Iron vs. Car Chem Revolt.

 

The wheels (or any other part of the car) hasn't been washed by anything more than rainfall for three whole months (I'll come back to that later on), so I started simply with a snowfoam and a rinse followed by a suitable application of fallout remover. This happened on a front wheel;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then this happened on a rear wheel;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quite a reaction from both, but that was to be expected. First thing to note is that Gyeon Iron is a very deep, strong purple when it reacts whilst Car Chem Revolt is much lighter and not as strong a colour. Also Revolt is a typical fallout remover smell whilst Iron has a sweeter hint to it - make no mistake though, it's by no means pleasant still, the difference is akin to a rotting corpse vs a rotting corpse with a Battenberg cake in it's pocket (specifically a Batternberg cake, because that's the undertone scent of Iron, btw).

 

Both started to react initially at about the minute mark and there's very little to chose between them in terms of speed of reaction. Each was given about 6/7 minutes to react before being washed off with the pressure washer. Also;

 

 

Bleeding tarmac.

 

Anyway, rinsing left me with considerably cleaner wheels. The Gyeon'd wheel was left like this;

 

 

The Car Chem'd wheel was left like this;

 

 

You'll notice that I'm still getting f**king spotting from the f**king Slick Rims coating. Which is in no way annoying me at all, obviously. Anyway, Revolt and Iron swapped wheels and this is what happened;

 

Revolt did this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iron did this;

 

 

 

 

So... er... a judgement call based on what was in front of me in person gives a marginal win to Revolt.

[ilogikal1]

But I wasn't happy with that, so I did a rematch on the other two wheels. The 2nd pair of wheels had also been treated to a snow faom already but I opted to actually wash these two properly first, so out came the wheel woolies and a 10ml shot of Swissvax shampoo into a 12litre bucket of hot water and I set to work. Wheels suiably washed, Revolt took the front wheel, thusly;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iron took the rear wheel, thusly;

 

 

 

 

 

6 or 7 minutes later, the pressure washer was used to rinse both wheels. Iron was then applied to the front wheel, as such;

 

 

All I found was this;

 

 

And this;

 

 

The latter was actually just dripping off the disc;

 

 

 

And that was literally it after 6-7 minutes.

 

Meanwhile Revolt was applied to the rear wheel, as such;

 

 

And... well, this;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granted, most of that in the last picture has dripped off the disc again, but you can still see very specific spots that have reacted directly on the wheel.

 

 

So a somewhat more conclusive result! The winner; Car Chem Revolt.

[ilogikal1]

I forgot to mention something that has been stated by many a manufacturer and informed user alike for... forever; the above goes to show that just because there's a strong colour-change reaction it does not automatically translate to the best product/performance.