Wax Test of What I had around the house.

[BoostKillsStres]

Here's my cleaner/wax comparison.
I had several types of wax around the garage, I've rated the ones I have in terms of left over swirl marks and color improvement after doing a test area and looking at the results VERY closely with a 100 watt trouble lamp at night in the garage which shows ALL of your paints imperfections. Believe me, after 16 years and 110K miles the hood looks rough under the trouble light even though my hood paint looks better than most as it was repainted by the previous owner a little while before I bought it at 53K miles.

Anyway, here's the results all used by hand:
#5. Meguiars Cleaner/Wax Paste -- Left the heaviest swirls so its pretty aggressive on the paint for cleaning. There was so much swirl I couldn't really tell if it improved the color at all. I was able to use this to remove oxidized paint then follow with #1 below to get rid of the swirls, came out very well on the nose of the car.
#4. Turtle Wax 'Black' Color Cure Car Polish Liquid -- Left swirls but not nearly as bad as #5 and does do a ok job of getting rid of some haze in the paint so it looks a little 'more black'
#3. Nu Finish Car Polish Liquid -- Left some swirls and cut some haze out. The swirls seemed to be very fine and this stuff was rated years ago as one of the best gloss improvers by Consumer Reports and we've all seen the "good after 50 car washes" advertising on TV so its pretty tough stuff for not being a wax and is very easy on and easy off but leaves white chalky stuff after buffing where you almost need to hose off the car to get rid of it all.
#2. Meguiars Yellow Wax #26 Liquid -- Very minor swirls and still removed some haze as I could see a more black area where I had used it, kinda like a black puddle. This does seem kinda greasy or something as buffing it off takes a little work to get it all off as it kinda looks like it smears when coming off. Leaves a little fine powder after buff.
#1. Zymol Cleaner Wax Liquid -- Very very minor swirls, looked just a tad better than #2 and also still provided that black puddle look where I'd used it so it still removes haze in the paint and does a good job getting it back black. The bottle says it removes swirls and fine scratches which I believe. This is water based with no solvents and has a lot of natural ingredients with carnauba and beeswax and others. Goes on and comes off very easily if you don't let it dry totally, will streak some if you let it dry but a little water and buff will take care of that. This is the one I'm going to use this go'round and see what it looks like when complete. Also leaves some fine powder after buff but most all liquids do that come off easy. It does say on the bottle, for max gloss to lightly spray cool water on the freshly waxed finish and buff with a soft clean cloth.
I also tried some corn starch on all the wax test areas. What I found was it didn't seem to make any difference in removing swirls except on #5 above and it still wasn't able to remove much of the swirls if at all and trying to get it off the car when done is another one needing a hose to get it all off.

Anyway, there it is, best I can do w/o taking photos and thats tough on a black car with a flash because you never know what area the flash is going to set off. All the products did remove fine scratches the cat had put in my paint from his paws sliding on the dirty car(cats lucky to still be alive) so thats a good thing. He had better learn not to get on the cars if he knows whats good for his health....

HTH

 

[OneLethal87GN]

I know this is an old post but I tried to remember which you said worked best when I went shopping at Wally world. I must have mixed them up because I ended up buying Meguire's carnauba cleaner wax. It is in a liquid form. Is this the same type stuff you found to leave heavy swirl marks?

 

[BoostKillsStres]

Sorry, I only used the paste and worked all the waxes pretty good into the paint so I can't tell ya about the liquid but I would imagine it wouldn't be as bad especially if you apply it easily. But yes, of the ones in my list it had the most swirls/abrasion and I don't plan to use it again. I'd like to try the new nano and nxt? to see how they do under the trouble light in my test.

 

[OneLethal87GN]

Sorry about that man. After digging it out and looking at it I actually bought Mother's, not Mequire's. Did you ever get your car looking the way you wanted?

 

[BoostKillsStres]

Well, under direct sunlight walking around the car I've still noticed some very fine, not sure what exactly you'd call them, swirl marks or wax/buff lines in the car mostly on the sides of the car where I didn't use a little spray of water to buff off the Zymol but the car certainly looked good on the top side where I did use a water spray buff to get all the wax off. So like I said, I'm still interested in trying another one step product like the nano or nxt to see how they do from here.

 

[OneLethal87GN]

I've read where they say to mist cool water right after waxing then wipe it off. This supposedly spreads the wax out evenly for a better shine. I only tried it once and it didn't work like they said. How did you do it?

 

[BoostKillsStres]

With the Zymol as per their instructions, I waxed then buffed just before the wax dried completely then again buff w/ the fine spray of water. Worked well to remove the final wax haze from buffing. I used an old windex bottle to mist the water on the paint. Seems to add a little extra friction to remove the final buffing leftovers and would probably work w/ other waxes too.

 

[OneLethal87GN]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I'm going to try and polish my car for the first time tomorrow. I'm using the Mother's Gold carnauba cleaner wax, a wool pad and my buffer. I may try to misting thing too. Thanks again.