The ilogikal1 test thread

[GIXXERUK]

I like the beading on the purple haze, I find with some waxes they don't leave enough behind to towel dry easily

It will sound odd but as you know drying is much easier when the towel gets damp

[roscopervis]

I could not carry on with those on my car! I'd be doing a full decontamination, clay, polish and winter prep. Good on you for being the guinea pig, but I think its clear to see that a new test should begin.

[ilogikal1]

I could not carry on with those on my car! I'd be doing a full decontamination, clay, polish and winter prep. Good on you for being the guinea pig, but I think its clear to see that a new test should begin.

 

I'll be wrapping this up when I start the winter prep (probably in two weeks), I just need to find the time to do a full job on it. That and decide what this year's winter protection will be which could take longer.

 

 

I like the beading on the purple haze, I find with some waxes they don't leave enough behind to towel dry easily

It will sound odd but as you know drying is much easier when the towel gets damp

 

I'm far too lazy to physically dry the car myself these days.

I have a DI filter so I tend to leave it to drip dry, the only time I towel dry these days is if I don't have time to wait for it to dry itself but I know what you mean though, damp microfibres definitely do absorb more water than a bone dry one.

[roscopervis]

Is it going to be a single product or a mixture test again?

[ilogikal1]

Not sure yet, it depends what (and how much) I have to play with when I get to that point to be honest. I'm certainly going to be looking at sealants or coatings rather than wax though, so another test may be on the cards.

[ilogikal1]

Just to officially bring this here wax test to a close, I gave the Z a final wash before stripping all of the LSP's of ready for a full winter prep.

 

The usual routine was followed; Snow foamed with Car Chem foam followed by a wash with Glacier Wax Pure - on a side note, I used the last of 100ml sample of this today which has been used exclusively for this test, so that's lasted... however many washes I've documented here. In my opinion it's an horrendously expensive, very good pure shampoo with reasonable dilution rates. I'd be happy to use it any time but the cost means there's no risk of it replacing my current preferred pure shampoo (Car Chem, for those who want to know).

 

So anyway, the waxes. In my opinion (pictures follow, so you can make up your own mind later), FK is completely gone now. Blue Velvet is patchy at best, but there's less protected patches than there are unprotected at this point. Poorboys and Purple Haze are similar, only slightly bigger patches. Desire are slightly better still and appear to have failed around the edges of the section whilst barely holding on in the centre. That said, it's marginal between Poorboys, Purple Haze and Desire. I'd say there's still something there, just, but they're clearly on their last legs.

I would normally have topped them up at least a month ago if not before at the point that they started to show significant signs of dying off, at which point it's pretty much a toss up between the 5 of them really. If I had to choose I think I'd go for Poorboys purely because it's cheap, it gives a slightly deeper, warmer look (rather than the more sterile, glossy sealant look) and it's easy to use - the fact that out of these 5, the Dodo Juice waxes and Desire were the "difficult" ones says a lot though!

 

The sheeting pictures are after 2-3 minutes. In the sun. So it may not be entirely the sheeting action drying the paint, but meh.

The panel was then re-wet for the beading pictures.

And then it was clayed, thus forcing the end of the test.

 

Purple Haze;

 

 

Blue Velvet;

 

 

 

Poorboys;

 

 

 

Incidentally, this is the much-fresher-but-applied-to-completely-unprepared-paint Waxaddict #18;

 

Er... yeah. Moving on.

 

 

FK;

 

 

And Desire;

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the Waxaddict wax was...

 

... shown to be completely MIA.

 

So, in summary from my wax poll back in June.

Roscopervis; There difference between Desire and Desirable is vast; Desire is better. In every single way. Except price, Desirable did win that one... And, yes, FK did indeed prove to be a decent marker.

For Lexx; the differences between Poorboys, Desire and Purple Haze are... er... much less apparent. Which probably doesn't help much. Sorry.

For everyone else, Supernatural still isn't a contender.

Also, prep the paintwork. It makes a difference!

 

 

All waxes were applied on 15th June and 5 of them made it to today (just about), the 5th October, I'll let you do your own maths....

 

For those who can remember that far back, there was a tape width's section of each wax with a single coat whilst the rest of the section received 2 coats, to conclude that; the second layer added to the protection (no idea about the appearance, I didn't actually pay any attention to that at all. Largely because I didn't think to.) in all cases except one of the Dodo Juice waxes. I think it was Blue Velvet, but it could have been the Purple Haze above it, even to the end there was a definite line in the water on the panel between these two sections. In all other cases, the single layer was the first to show signs of wear and it seemed to be round 2-3 washes back across the board (or bonnet in this case).

 

Also, you may remember that I had Nanowax on the doors. Well, yet again I forgot to get pictures of that, but it has finally taken a turn for the worse. The beading is quite flat and irregularly shaped. The sheeting has slowed further to "LSP condition 3"*. It's still going stronger than the waxes on the bonnet (it too has now been stripped though), but 3+ months from an AIO is pretty epic in own right.

*This is the newly initiated, standardised "ilogikal1 LSP condition scale" (LSPcon) which is as follows; "1. Awesome", "2. Good", "3. It's alright I suppose", "4. Tolerable", "5. Yeah, good luck with that" and "6. It's fine, the dealer applied Life Shine 3 years ago!". The 5 waxes above were LSPcon 5. They've now been stripped, so they're now LSPcon 6.

 

And, Nanolex Urban applied to the glass at the same time as the wax - this has now largely worn off the wiped area of the windscreen, the rain is still moving off the glass at 50+ mph but at lower speeds it's just not working any more. Also there's a lot more bug splatter and dirt sticking to the screen, however the rear and side windows were still going strong. This has now been stripped off too - I was going to apply G1, however the last Waxybox included H2Go so I might give that a bash first.

 

Finally, I don't currently plan on doing a mixed sealant test this time but my job is being made redundant come December so I may have plenty of time on my hands but no money for new products so I might do tests with everything I have in my collection by then.

 

If anyone's interested or been waiting for a write up on the other panels with combinations of various things, or anything else I've not covered yet, feel free to ask and I'll provide an unnecessarily verbose opinion or two in my usual manner.

Edited October 5, 2014 by ilogikal1

[roscopervis]

Great test. Good to know that my original ideas on the wax products used were quite accurate. Looking forward to the next episode.

[ilogikal1]

So this week I have mainly been polishing the Z. Actually, that's not even nearly true seeing as I've only put in an hour two each day but let's not get picky. Anyway, in polishing the Z, I've had the opportunity to test out a few new toys.

 

I'll start with the swirl spotting torch; normally I use a Brinkmann Dual Xenon which is very good for this. I have recently bought one of these LED Cree Q5's for another purpose but I know that LED torches can be very good for this too (I usually recommend the Lenser P7 as an alternative to the Brinkmann that's no longer sold) so I thought I'd try it out. Now there are cheaper versions available from Hong Kong which I've also tested (briefly). The more expensive SecurityIng one (£7.79 for those who haven't clicked the link) has two levels of brightness and a strobe effect setting, whereas the cheaper (£1.69) unbranded knock off has just one setting which sits between the two brightness settings of the SecurityIng one. For the purposes of swirl spotting, the cheap one will do. The SecurityIng brighter setting is somewhat better and the dimmer setting useful for offering a slightly different perspective. Now on the one hand, I'm not convinced the SecurityIng one is 4.5x better than the cheap one but on the other hand... it's £7.79! However, either does the job quite well.

Also, it has the added benefit of being slightly smaller than my Brinkmann;

 

 

 

 

The other thing I've been trying out is a new polish. I'm an avid fan of Menzerna polishes (203S for heavy cutting and 85RE for light cut/jewelling) for the Z as they finish down well and are well lubricated, which is perfect for the soft Nissan paint because it means you can work it for longer, however I'm coming to the end of my bottles of these so I took the opportunity to try something else for a change. On this occasion I opted for Scholl S20 and S30+.

 

So when I attacked the car with the clay cloth at the weekend, it seems I really did attack it - I think I may not have left the cloth to soak in the shampoo solution for long enough before use, although I may have applied a bit of pressure when using it on the paint. Either way I was left with some rather inconsistent marring on just about every panel. It seems the heaviest marring was on the bonnet, so this is where I tested the Scholl S30+ out. I started with trying it by hand on a Lake Country CCS Orange Hand Pad (which is a light cut, exactly like the CCS orange machine pad but oval and no Velcro [sorry, "hook and loop fixture" on the back).

 

Pictures tell a thousand words apparently, so have a few thousand words - lit with the SecurityIng torch above, incidentally.

 

 

Unpolished section in the middle, polished section closest;

 

Up close and cringeworthy;

 

 

Polished section - just worked in for 2 minutes with a firm pressure, buffed off and then an Eraser wipedown (I rememered someone on DW suggested Scholl polishes may contain fillers - S30+ certainly does not in my experience);

Flake pop!

 

Some deeper swirls and RDS remained, but given this was a quick hand job (oo-er!) and easily a 95% correction rate; I was instantly impressed.

 

Up close - unpolished;

 

And polished;

 

 

I did another section with 85RE to compare, S30+ removed more swirls (no photos but I'd say 85RE removed maybe 80-90% of the swirls, but it took much longer to work). I did notice that S30+ is much less oily too which worried me slightly as I was concerned that it would dry out too quickly when using it by machine. I needn't have worried, it's equally as easy to use by machine as it is by hand. I had to adjust my technique slightly to accomodate it but essentially you just need to apply firm pressure for a couple of passes follwed by a couple of passes with light/no pressure. There was no drying out and no dusting at all, it removed all the swirls (and nipped out the ones I missed by hand too) but did leave behind the RDS - but it is a finishing polish, so that's no surprise. For those who like to know these things, I used S30+ on both a blue Hex Logic pad and a green Lake Country Constant Pressure pad with a DAS 6

 

I will be testing some new pads at some point. I just don't get on with the Hex Logic pads (I find they don't quite finish down as well flat pads and the pattern is more liable to clogging) and the Contant Pressure pads have been discontinued and replaced. I'll probably be trying LC Hydro-Tech or CCS next, but that's another post altogether.

 

I've not had a chance (or rather a need, really) to play with the heavier cutting S20 fully yet, but S30+ will definitely be replacing the 85RE. Initial impressions of this are that it's much oilier than S30+ (similar to 85RE). It can be used as a one stage polish simply by changing the pad down a step (form the orange Constant Pressure down the green) to finish quite well - although not quite as well as S30+ finishes, so I'll probably use this as the first in a two stage polish more often than not.

 

 

Going back to the torch for a moment, this was taken at about 11pm with no other light source than the SecurityIng torch clipped to a blind, shining through a window about 15 feet or so away. Okay, it's really just an excuse to pic whore;

[Stutopia]

Nice work. Almost out of menzerna (which I found to dust - though it was quite warm out) so these two seem like a nice next stop on the learning curve.

[ilogikal1]

Nice work. Almost out of menzerna (which I found to dust - though it was quite warm out) so these two seem like a nice next stop on the learning curve.

 

I should point out that I don't know how the Scholl polishes behave in sunlight or on warm panels yet - I might have a better idea when I get round to the boot and/or rear bumper as they're the only panels that see direct daylight from the garage, however seeing as it's now officially not summer any more, it could be months before any panels see direct sunlight again.

[ilogikal1]

I had an extensive review of S30+ being used in the sun but the internet has just eaten it.

 

In essence;

 

I've now played with it in direct sunlight by DA today - there's a moderate amount of dusting pretty much from the outset but it didn't dry out and still allowed plenty of working time. There was evidence that it might bake on a little when it comes to buffing.

 

On a panel left in the sun to warm up and then moved into the shade - a tiny bit of dusting (and I do mean tiny) but otherwise no different to working on a cool panel.

 

Summary - it is October, so we're not talking height of summer temperatures here today! However the dusting experienced in direct sunlight, whilst noticeable, was by far nowhere near as bad as some products I've used (we're talking much less than SRP - at least the previous formula of - for example) and baking on may become an issue. Realistically, if you're polishing in direct sunlight in the height of summer when panel temperatures can easily reach 40+ Celsius then you're asking for trouble, but panel temps in the mid-low 20's will be messier but not too much of an issue.

 

Usual caveats apply - I'd always recommend polishing in cool, dry, shaded areas out of the elements whenever possible, however I do acknowledge that, that's not always possible.

[ilogikal1]

My winter prep is now completed and I've got a couple of new (to me at least in some cases) products on the go to test durability.

 

My usual major detail steps followed;

Prewash with Car Chem Snow Foam.

Various areas were degreased with Bilt Hamber Surfex HD & a Polished Bliss Boar's Hair Detailing Brush.

Washed with Glacier Wax Pure Shampoo & a Microfibre Madness Incredisponge.

Detarred used Tardis.

A few spot-test areas for fallout showing no reaction at all meant I didn't bother, on a whole, with any iron remover this time round.

Clayed with the Car Pro Clay Cloth & Car Chem "Z Bath II" (that'll be the tailor made stuff to you) shampoo (and water, obviously) for lubrication.

Polished with Scholl S30+ by DA on a green Lake Country Constant Pressure pad, followed by a Car Pro Eraser wipe down.

LSP of choice for this year is Nanolex Premium Spray Sealant - this is basically a spray form of Nanolex's simplest SiO2 coating which can be used on any surface.

 

Trim - the wing mirror base plates, front numberplate plinth, kick plates, all badges and all rubber seals around the doors, bonnet and boot were cleaned with Surfex HD. Rubbers were then treated with Einzett Gummi Pfledge whilst the plastics were given an Eraser wipe down. The mirror base plates were then sealed with HubiKote HubiTrim. Everything else was sealed with Nanolex Premium.

 

Wheels & tyres were cleaned using Auto Finesse Imperial and a combination of Wheel Woolies, a Vikan brush and a Valet Pro Detailing Brush.

Snow foamed with the aforementioned Car Chem.

Wheels treated to a layer of Sonax Brilliant Shine Detailer.

Tyres dressed with Gyeon Tire, which was force-cured with a hair drier (because my heat gun developed legs and ran away).

 

Exhaust was cleaned & polished with Auto Finesse Mercury and various cloths & microfibres, and then sealed with Britemax Final Shine (the second of the twins).

 

Glass was foamed & washed as per the rest of the car. Later on I clayed (or re-clayed) it all with a Dodo Juice Supernatural Clay Bar and Valet Pro Citrus Bling diluted 4:1 for lube because I couldn't remember if I did the glass with the clay cloth when I did the paint. The glass was then cleaned with G6, wiped down with Eraser and sealed with Angelwax H2Go - 2 coats on the rear screen & driver's window, 1coat on the passenger & quarter windows, 3 coats on the windscreen.

 

Interior was given a vacuum and dust down, surfaces dressed with MadCow Mango Sauce and leathers cleaned with Dr Leather Wipes. HubiKote HubiFresh is this week's scent of air freshener.

 

My headlights were a little misty at the beginning of summer so I polished them up and tried a couple of different sealants (I know, I usually advise using G-Technique C1/4/5 but I didn't want to open my C5 until my wheels have been refurb'd [which I'm still procrastinating over by the way] so I was just trying out temporary fixes) - I was not expecting coating type durability with these, but neither Werkstate Prime, Poorboys EX-P nor FK1000P (or any combination thereof) lasted the 4 months since application. This time I'm trying HubiTrim, which is a coating.

 

HubiTrim is one of the new products. It's really easy to use, it's a bit more gel-like than most coatings which makes it a thicker liquid. It's a simple job of apply sparingly, allow 5 minutes to cure and then buff. Buffing is remarkably easy, applying sparingly is the difficult part especially on small areas like the mirror base plates - on larger areas like the headlights it's much easier to spread the product though - which leads to a bit of wastage.

 

Nanolex Premium Spray Sealant is a new-to-me product, it's actually been around for a while though. This is also very easy to use - 2/3 sprays onto your "applicator" (make-up pad), spread as far as you can bear & buff after between 5-10 minutes to remove streaks. Now this is an odd product in that once it's been applied it quickly turns to a gel-like substance on the paint before curing to a solid coating (which apparently takes about an hour at the right temperature). I found that this made spreading required the right technique more than anything - it seemed to "dump" a lot of product on the paint quite quickly before the applicator dried out, but once on the paint it spread across the surface moderately well. I found the best technique was to spray the applicator and immediately wipe an S like pattern on the section you're working on (maximum 2' by 2' is what I found to be about right) and then spreading it out from the centre to the edges in circular motions. It also makes buffing... interesting. Whilst it's a gel, it feels a little sticky (think spilt fizzy drink left to dry) at first but quickly becomes considerably more slick feeling.

The following day with a change in lighting I noticed the bonnet looked quite patchy, however the darker patches were easily removed with a more thorough buffing, which was a pleasant surprise as I was sure it would have cured enough to need polishing out by that point. However, given the terrible job I'd done on the bonnet I decided to give the entire car a quick wipe over with Nanolex Final Finish QD (which is sometimes recommended [sometimes not mentioned depending on the source] by Florian of Nanolex fame to stop the common fresh coating/water spotting issue).

 

Angelwax H2Go is another new-to-me product. It's very similar to Car Chem Glass Sealant, except it's a clear liquid. It's a spread with an applicator (make-up pad!), allow to haze (10-15 minutes) and then buff type affair. It's very easy to apply & very easy to buff. You can't over-apply as such, as with the Car Chem stuff it just smears a bit when you buff it; it's simply a case of allowing a few more minutes to cure and then rebuffing until you're smear free.

 

Anyway, that's a lot of words (I know, that's unusual for me right?!) so have some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was told I needed an "arty shot". Apparently that involves parking on a hill. I don't get it either.

 

 

I also had a crack at HDR;

 

I'll stick to the day job. For the next 6 weeks at least.

[GMballistic]

^^ Not sure what you wrote as I just looked at the pictures. Bit like a porn mag.

 

 

 

Seriously though I was waiting to see what you thought of GTechniq on your headlights and you didn't even use it. Oh well I'll have to try that one myself.

[Stutopia]

Car looks well mate. Nice arty shot too, definitely needed

 

Hubikote HubiFresh is the shizzle, I've started wearing it as cologne it's so good - better than stripper scent, which was a bit too realistic for my liking. I could smell the cigarette burned shoulders.

 

I was gonna break out the Hubi Trim also, but some light drizzle stopped me - sounds promising. I found that I'd used the HubiRims recently (as metioned on the iFoam thread) when a bottle appeared in the shed - super impressed by it's endurance and all the Hubi-stuff I've tried.

 

 

[ilogikal1]

Cheers chaps.

 

^^ Not sure what you wrote as I just looked at the pictures. Bit like a porn mag.

 

Seriously though I was waiting to see what you thought of GTechniq on your headlights and you didn't even use it. Oh well I'll have to try that one myself.

 

Only 3 of those many, many, many words are worth reading anyway.

 

I'll be given GTechniq a bash when (or at this rate, if) I get my wheels done, I'll use the remnants of my C4 on the lights then... I wouldn't hold my breath if were you though.

 

 

Car looks well mate. Nice arty shot too, definitely needed

 

Hubikote HubiFresh is the shizzle, I've started wearing it as cologne it's so good - better than stripper scent, which was a bit too realistic for my liking. I could smell the cigarette burned shoulders.

 

I was gonna break out the Hubi Trim also, but some light drizzle stopped me - sounds promising. I found that I'd used the HubiRims recently (as metioned on the iFoam thread) when a bottle appeared in the shed - super impressed by it's endurance and all the Hubi-stuff I've tried.

 

HubiFresh is easily my favourite scent. Sadly one tends to get used to a smell and not notice it so much after a while so I tend to alternate it with something else every so often.

HubiWash is pretty good too, as well as Rims & Fresh. I wasn't impressed by Restore (it wasn't bad per se, I just didn't find it especially good either) but that's the only product I've not been impressed by so far.

[GMballistic]

You'd better get your wheels done, ...you've been saying it for long enough now.

[ilogikal1]

You'd better get your wheels done, ...you've been saying it for long enough now.

 

I've only been saying it for about 3 years now.

 

I'm still being very indecisive. I can't ever seem to make my mind up whether to keep the standard colour or to go for something else and match the door handles to either the new wheel colour or the body. Every time I think I'd decided, I change my mind again.

[GMballistic]

Standard colour might be a bit boring. Personally I'd try something different but it's just a matter of personal preference.

 

Maybe make it your New Years resolution ~ to finally make your mind up that is.

[ilogikal1]

Standard colour might be a bit boring. Personally I'd try something different but it's just a matter of personal preference.

 

It's pretty much a "something different vs. keep it OEM" argument going on in my head. Then the "something different" side drops the "you might as well get new wheels then" bomb.

 

Maybe make it your New Years resolution ~ to finally make your mind up that is.

 

What, and risk making a decision before selling the car on?

[Ekona]

He didn't say which New Year...

[Stutopia]

Go OEM+ so sort of silvery but a bit different, leave the door handles alone, they look great.

[ilogikal1]

Sometimes I think there's too many different colours on the car already, at which point I tend to like the idea of painting the Brembo's Azure, ditching the orange reflectors for clear ones and doing the wheels & door handles in the same colour - usually some form of silver.

 

Other times I think doing that will make it 'just another modified Z' (albeit on a small scale compared to some) and I prefer the OEM appearance with it's multitude of colours.

 

And then usually something more demanding comes along and takes all my money anyway thus negating the need to make a decision.

[ilogikal1]

I gave the car a quick wash today (MOT tomorrow, the car's got to look pretty ). I was demonstrating pre-washing to a mate who has taken a sudden interest in exchanging all her free time and money for a shiny car so whilst I normally would do one or the other, today's process was; AF Citrus Power, rinse, Car Chem snow foam, another rinse, wash using HubiKote HubiWash (the Kryton Green version to be precise) and then a final rinse with filtered water followed by a spot of lunch (not on the car, though. Obviously).

 

HubiTrim on the headlights is working well all of one week in (I know it's early days yet, but still) - no signs of hazing, which could be due to the almost complete lack of sun shine since application (of the coating, not application of the sun... just clarifying) but I'll give benefit of the doubt to the coating and assume that it's working as desired. It does make the headlights both bead and sheet very well though.

 

BSD on the wheels didn't stop them from getting absolutely filthy, however they did clean up well with a completely touchless wash - albeit with the help of Citrus Power & snow foam - and they are still showing the insane beading that BSD is known for.

 

As for the Nanolex, I can't say I've overly impressed after today. The car's covered about 200 miles since it was applied and it lives outside so has been subjected to the wonderful Yorkshire weather this week. Now on the one hand it showed great beading earlier in the week during the rainfall, also after one particularly muddy journey (they're still building houses around here so you can imagine the state of some roads when it rains heavily!) the self-cleaning attributes were clearly evident by the mud outline of where the Z was parked on my drive after a brief rain spell. This I liked.

However today, before washing, the car was filthy so the beading was compromised as you'd expect. After the wash however, the beading was, if anything, worse and the sheeting was horrendously slow. This I did not like.

It did occur to me that the LSP was technically Final Finish rather than Premium Spray Sealant, and I am led to believe that FF can last up to 6 weeks on its own, so I suspect this is just FF failing after the first week rather than the underlying PSS - I'm not sure how chemical resistant FF is, so I'm willing to accept that either Citrus Power, snow foam and/or shampoo has weakened it to this extent, not least of all because I really only used it to stop water-spotting on PSS this first week anyway.

 

I'll give the Z another wash if I get the chance to before I go on my jollies in a couple of weeks otherwise it'll have to wait until I get back - if I come back, people have been telling me for weeks now that everything in Australia is designed to kill you (it's a wonder anyone lives there with all the stories I've been told!). Assuming I do make it back alive I'll have plenty of free time on my hands for washing cars though so with any luck I should be able to confirm whether it's FF or PSS some time in the next 1 to 4 weeks.

Edited November 1, 2014 by ilogikal1

[GMballistic]

 

Enjoy the holiday.

 

 

[ilogikal1]

Don't you start too!

 

Cheers mate.