wasted money. rant

[weekendwarrior]

You know, I started trying to streamline my arsenal a while back. This is what I have decided on making the "core" of my arsenal:

ONR:
Clay lube
Interior Wipedowns
Door Jams
Quick Detailer
Use it to remove polishes when they are "sticky"

Car Washes
I have a gallon of QEW (prefer it to ONR for washes)
I have a gallon of DuraGloss for regular washes

Glass
Zep cleaner from Home Depot - 1 gallon makes a bazillion when diluted

Engines, Wheel wells and Undercarriages
Any APC that is on sale, diluted to required strength

Dressings
Optimum Protectant Plus for leather, dash, and other interior surfaces.
Meguiar's Hyper Dressing diluted for engines, wheel wells, tires, etc
I will also keep a tire gel (one that's on sale) on hand for when more durability is needed.

Waxes/Sealants
Zaino, DuraGloss and FK1000 - sealants
CMW, Collinite, M26, and Sauveran - waxes

Polishes
M105
M205
M86
3M ECC
3M UF
SIP
106FF
Menz Final Polish

I can accomplish most everything needed with the chemicals listed above. I will probably have a fire sale soon in the classifieds.

[seismic]

Originally Posted by dan46n2

Be careful using Purple Power, it eats some types of plastic. I use it to strip Dulso coated interior pieces on my Vette when I refinish them. I would worry about it damaging plastic pieces in the engine, or at the least discoloring.

Can you elaborate on this? I just used Purple Power in my engine bay (full strength per the recommendations on the back) and I noticed that it severely faded the rubber hoses in my engine bay and gave one of my belts a bit of a squeal when starting up the car. I wiped on some Klasse interior cleaner--just wanted to finish off the bottle--and it made them look new again.

[duke4ever]

hehe I use Orange Blast degreaser it's usually on sale at walmart and works great...

[SoCalB6]

Originally Posted by weekendwarrior

You know, I started trying to streamline my arsenal a while back. This is what I have decided on making the "core" of my arsenal:

ONR:
Clay lube
Interior Wipedowns
Door Jams
Quick Detailer
Use it to remove polishes when they are "sticky"

Car Washes
I have a gallon of QEW (prefer it to ONR for washes)
I have a gallon of DuraGloss for regular washes

Glass
Zep cleaner from Home Depot - 1 gallon makes a bazillion when diluted

Engines, Wheel wells and Undercarriages
Any APC that is on sale, diluted to required strength

Dressings
Optimum Protectant Plus for leather, dash, and other interior surfaces.
Meguiar's Hyper Dressing diluted for engines, wheel wells, tires, etc
I will also keep a tire gel (one that's on sale) on hand for when more durability is needed.

Waxes/Sealants
Zaino, DuraGloss and FK1000 - sealants
CMW, Collinite, M26, and Sauveran - waxes

Polishes
M105
M205
M86
3M ECC
3M UF
SIP
106FF
Menz Final Polish

I can accomplish most everything needed with the chemicals listed above. I will probably have a fire sale soon in the classifieds.

I have heard that M86 is very, very similar to SIP in terms of cut and finish. Have you tired them side by side to compare? That could free up some room plus, some $$$ too!

[WhiteStripes]

I rock Meg's APC+ for about anything that isn't paint, cloth or glass. Works on everything.

[SoCalB6]

Originally Posted by WhiteStripes

I rock Meg's APC+ for about anything that isn't paint, cloth or glass. Works on everything.

Interesting, how are you using (dilution) APC+ on glass?

[CocheseUGA]

Originally Posted by SoCalB6

Interesting, how are you using (dilution) APC+ on glass?

Read it again.

[JuneBug]

I'm with Weekend Warrior on this - I'm trying to reduce the number of products, problem is - I have a ton! I've found that for basic chemicals - my local detail store - Majestic Solutions has about everything I need, but I do like some Chemical Guys stuff too.

[duke4ever]

Originally Posted by JuneBug

I'm with Weekend Warrior on this - I'm trying to reduce the number of products, problem is - I have a ton! I've found that for basic chemicals - my local detail store - Majestic Solutions has about everything I need, but I do like some Chemical Guys stuff too.

How's that chemical guys stuff? I've been very hesitant to try any chemical guys stuff because I've fished these forums and keep hearing about quality control problems with them. Although I haven't seen too much as of late, say late 2008-early 09.

[Got_Leather]

I have tons of crap I don't use anymore either. I have a few products that I use for a variety of things.

The one thing that ALWAYS bugs the hell out of me is when people brag about how they spent $$$$ on this new wax when all they had to do was correct the paint and use whatever they had.

[Jakerooni]

I will toss this out there for food for thought.... But IMHO I think the only place any pro should invest any sort of real money would be their compound/Polish products. Everything else can be done just as good with OTC as they can be done with High dollar name brand stuff.

APC is APC and can and will clean just about anything out there. They all work roughly the same with very little difference between most brands out there.

Glass cleaner is Glass cleaner and it's 99% about the technique behind the how to use it rather than the product itself.

Wax is wax and I don't care what anyone else says about it. Of course there's a line of quality I wouldn't cross. But once you reach that line and get a good quality wax they are all about the same in the end.

Shine is shine... You can basically choose between Water based (Hyper dressing) or Silicone based... (Old school and many OTC's)

The only thing I would really invest cash for product and anything I've personally seen make a difference is the compound/polish... Some fill, some don't (as much) Some work with a pass or two others take many passes and still don't work as well. Some work great on Soft clears others really are made for Hard Clears. And every combo can be different. What worked perfect yesterday might not do jack crap today. So this is where you need to do some research and invest your time and money.

[duke4ever]

Originally Posted by Jakerooni

I will toss this out there for food for thought.... But IMHO I think the only place any pro should invest any sort of real money would be their compound/Polish products. Everything else can be done just as good with OTC as they can be done with High dollar name brand stuff.

APC is APC and can and will clean just about anything out there. They all work roughly the same with very little difference between most brands out there.

Glass cleaner is Glass cleaner and it's 99% about the technique behind the how to use it rather than the product itself.

Wax is wax and I don't care what anyone else says about it. Of course there's a line of quality I wouldn't cross. But once you reach that line and get a good quality wax they are all about the same in the end.

Shine is shine... You can basically choose between Water based (Hyper dressing) or Silicone based... (Old school and many OTC's)

The only thing I would really invest cash for product and anything I've personally seen make a difference is the compound/polish... Some fill, some don't (as much) Some work with a pass or two others take many passes and still don't work as well. Some work great on Soft clears others really are made for Hard Clears. And every combo can be different. What worked perfect yesterday might not do jack crap today. So this is where you need to do some research and invest your time and money.

I pretty much agree with this. Everytime someone brings up the glass cleaning thing, I am one of the first to always just say windex or cheap blue stuff. I really don't see the point in $50 a gallon glass cleaners.

The only thing I'll say about the APC's is that, I think you should probably have at least 2 different APCs only because, some might be much stronger than you want for a certain material. For example, I use orange blast degreaser for engine/wheel wells etc... but diluted Simple Green for things like interior plastic etc...

And both are really cheap! The orange blast even worked great for cleaning rubber mats after a bad winter