My free Acrylic Werks sample and results

[cerdas]

Mark Gonzales, the owner of Acrylic Werks, was good enough to send me a (full retail sized)sample of his product this week. I figured that I would be a good representation of the kind of customer AW was looking for. I don`t own a PC, and the car, my wife`s 95 Honda Civic, had some neglected paint. It is lightly swirled, with oxidation on the upper surfaces. The paint is single-stage Milano Red.



On Saturday morning I washed the car with Zymol (zurtle) car wash, and then clayed the horizontal surfaces using clay magic. After drying, I moved the car into the sun for a few minutes to get the paint heated up, and then moved it back into the shade to begin application of the AW. I did this because AW reads "apply in direct sun for best results". There is no way I`m going to bake in the Texas sun while I do this. This is the only deviation from the semi-complicated intructions that I made.



I wanted to start with the trunk, because it was a nice, flat surface to work on, and had some of the worst oxidation. Here is the "before" picture.

http://www.autopia.org/gallery/data/500/3245aw_before.jpg



For my fellow product-sniffers, AW smells like Nu-Finish.

I put a quarter-sized dab onto my application cloth, and my first thoughts were "wow, this product goes on very easy", and it does, at first. But the instructions tell you to keep rubbing until the surface is streak free. So I kept rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing, and finally more rubbing, until the streaks were gone and the paint was mostly shiny. Then I began buffing the product off. More rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing, until the product was gone.



The oxidation was completely untouched. the surface was slightly smoother than the untreated side, but there was no visible difference. Now, I was pretty tired, but I figured I might as well try again. Same results the second time. The trim below the rear window looked shiny, though. Here is the "after" picture.

http://www.autopia.org/gallery/data/500/3245aw_after.jpg



The treated surface was a little smoother than the untreated side, but the swirls and oxidation were untouched. After all of that work dedicated to that small section of paint, I felt let down. The white cotton cloth that I had used as an applicator was perfectly clean. I have NEVER used a product on that car that didn`t at least take a little of the red paint with it.



Anyways, that all I had to see. There was no way that I was going to go through that with the entire car, especially if it was going to take even more effort than that to see any results!



Today it rained hard. After the downpour I went outside to see if the AW side was beading better that the untreated side, and I was let down again.



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/data/500/3245aw_intherain.jpg



The beads were large and uneven, exactly the same as the untreated side. The AW on the trim seemed to run off in the rain. The 2 month old rain-x on the rear window was still beading nicely, though.



In another thread Mark mentioned that he will be here in Austin giving a seminar to a company that would like to sell his product. He invited me, but I think that I will pass. I`ve noticed that in other discussions of AW, Mark always has further tips and suggestions for the use of his product, because nobody uses it the right way. I`m just a layman, but you know, when I use a Mother`s product, or Meguires, or Zaino, I follow the intructions, and the product works, end of story. I don`t have to have consultations with Mike Phillips from Meguires, or Forrest from Mothers, or Sal Zaino to figure out what went wrong. Put product on, take product off, I`m done. If it`s so much more complicated than that, it`s not really a miracle solution and I don`t want to waste my time with it.



To summarize:

Pros

-it was free

-it cleans trim

-Mark is a nice, helpful guy

Cons

-too much time and effort with application/removal

-made no impact on swirl marks and oxidation

-no real beading of water



Thank you to Mark Gonzales for letting me try his product, I`m sorry that it did not work for me.

[imported_Greg]

Very good well written and open minded article. Nobody is really going to dispute Mr. Gonzales as a person, but so far, his product hasn`t lived to its claims.



I am very suprised that it didn`t take off any of the oxidation or any red paint as Klasse, which is a similar sounding product takes off the most paint of any product I have ever used.



Thanks!

[BradE]

Excellent write up Shadow. I love reviews with pics, makes all the difference in the world. :bigups

[Steve @ Guru]

Great review - well done. It will be interesting to see how this review is handled. ;)



($5 says it`s disputed and excuses are made for why the product didn`t work well or you`re told you used it wrong or you`re told the product wasn`t intended to work on your sort of paint or you`re told that you were expecting the wrong things from it or you`re told that the other product you`re comparing it to was applied more thoroughly or .........)



/sarcasm

/frustration



....back to banging my head against the wall.

[cerdas]

Thanks for the positive comments guys!



I`m hoping that the only reason that my review might be disputed is that I didn`t put enough effort into the process. I read the thread about Anthony Orosco`s black truck test, and saw that the AW did in fact remove oxidized paint...but it must have been a Herculean amount of effort to accomplish those results! I`m not willing to go through that, as long as there are other products that will do the job with much less effort.



First person to PM me gets the Acrylic Werks sample that Mark sent me. I`ll give it up for free, although I wouldn`t mind getting an ounce or two of the "new" Z2 ;) (not for this car, but for mine). No reason for me to keep the AW, might as well let somebody else give it a shot. It would be especially cool to see somebody test this stuff with a PC.

[milani]

I got mine in the mail on Wednesday. I have found the perfect test for the product, since I do not want to use it on two new cars. I have a Coleman gas grill with the "coleman green" single-stage paint (do they clear-coat grills?). It is pretty oxidized from being outside. Just curious to see how that works! Thanks for doing the work for me. And yes, the stuff smells like kerosene!:shocked

[cerdas]

My sample has been claimed. I look forward to seeing more reviews of this stuff.

[biswartz]

Shadowman,



That was a very in-depth post. Now I am going to surprise all that followed your post with aphorism and bets that it will be disputed along with excuses. I am not going to endorse or dispute any of what you stated. I just want to know one thing, why in the world wouldn’t you want to take the product back to Mr. Gonzales on Tuesday? What a great opportunity you have! You could take the bottle of Acrylic-Wërks back to Mr. Gonzales in front of all those people he will have there and show him just how his product did absolutely nothing for your Honda’s surface. Show how it did nothing to remove the oxidation from the surface of your single stage paint job, how water will not bead on the surface and that the swirl marks are still present.



Can you then imagine being able to come back to this thread and posting those results? Being able to truly expose the product for what it is? I believe this will put the issue to rest once and for all, wouldn’t you agree? I would be willing to guess that geekysteve will bet an additional $5.00 that most, if not everyone on this post will be in favor of you doing just that.



What better way to let Mr. Gonzales, and everyone else know first hand just how his product really performs? I think you are doing a great service to your fellow detailers and the public by your obvious open mindedness and promoter of truth in advertising. You have nothing to loose, and everyone has everything to gain! I believe even the person who asked you for the bottle would be willing to see you meet with Mr. Gonzales.



Good Luck,

Bruce

[cerdas]

Well, I guess I`m not mean spirited enough to have come up with a plan like that by myself. I just assumed that if Mr. Gonzales went thought the time and expense to get us those (huge) free samples, I would be doing him a favor by passing it along at my expense, so that others can judge the product for themselves. Maybe the person I pass it on to would like it a lot, and Mark would have himself a new customer. Maybe they won`t, and they`ll pass it along as well, giving him another chance. I owe him that much.



I may be wrong, but it seems to me that your post is just a thinly disguised (and pretty sarcastic) way of telling me that you do not believe what I wrote to be true, and you think that if I show up and meet Mr. Gonzales he`ll magically make all of my swirls and oxidation disappear. I have nothing to gain from seeing Mark fail, so why would I lie? I`m not even in the detailing industry! Posting a fair summary of my results here for the education of other Autopians, and jumping up and down in front of the man`s future business clients yelling "snake oil!!!" just seems like two different things to me. I already know from Mark`s meeting with Anthony Orosco that he will work for as long as it takes for his product to achieve results. And those results take far too long to achieve. Do I want to watch Mark sweat over that Civic for the hours that it would take to fix the paint on that trunk? No thank you. I`ll just find myself a product that does the job more efficiently.



All I`m saying is that AW is not the product for me, but I`m passing it along so others can judge for themselves.

[biff]

Originally posted by biswartz





I believe this will put the issue to rest once and for all, wouldn’t you agree?



I believe that Shadowman`s test already put this issue to rest once and all, (for him at least)



He used the product as directed, wasn`t satisfied with the results and now is moving on to something else.



He gave it a very fair shot, now he`s expected to go meet with Mark in hopes of what? That Mark will have yet another missing piece of the puzzle that will invalidate his test and his opinion of the product?



Time to let go of this one....

[Corey Bit Spank]

So I`m still going to have to use olive oil as to not use abrassives on my paint? :( I wonder if crisco is clearer and resists dusting more.



Good review. :)

[Anthony O.]

And here I was beginning to think it was just me:nixweiss



Shadowman,



In my two tests I did with AW I came away with the same result, which was that it can make the surface "shine" and if used with clay it will make the surface "smooth" ( the clay is the reason for that) but is lacks in "gloss and depth" and yes the swirls and scratches remained.



You gave mention to my last test with the AW and oxidation but the oxidation was light compared to the heavy paint overspray which was taken care of with the claying session. So it was not AW that removed the overspray or the oxidation but rather it was the clay.



I must admit that the reply from Bruce does seem a bit odd and perhaps sarcastic, defensive. It`s as if they just cannot accept the findings and results that myself, you and others have come to using AW`s. Now there might be a few here who have good results with AW but I am guessing that the majority will have the same results as you did.



I found your review to be fair and honest and done in a very professional manner for one who is not a "pro":xyxthumbs



Anthony

[AWMark]

Hello Guys,



Well I guess Shadowman did not get the results he was hoping for. I think we will honestly all live to see another day. Shadowman, I really appreciate that you offered to send your sample on to someone else. I`m going to post some pictures of a demonstration I performed on a retired officers car. It was 1987 Pontiac Fiero GT, the original paint was red but it had been repainted a maroon metal flake. The sides were in acceptable shape but the top panels were heavily oxidized, mostly white and felt very porous on top. He took it to a few local detail shops for a quote. The shops said he would be better off repainting the car. Thing is he didn`t want to throw that kind of money into right away, so he was willing to give me a shot at it. I will try to have the shots developed tomorrow and get them posted by Thursday. I again used only a Kodak Camera and will have the photos put on disc. This is only to let you see that even in some pretty tough situations I`ve been fortunate that this product did not let me down. When your face to face and there are several people watching, you better have something that delivers the goods or all those people will just turn around and walk away. Today, I demo`d a brand new Nissan Maxima, Pearl White. The customer had just picked the car up yesterday. I demo`d his wiper arm (just amazing how oxidized it was), rim, and half the deck lid (you could see and feel the difference). You know, he bought and then hung around and watched me do 5 other demo`s on pretty much every type of vehicle. I really enjoy working the military bases because these guys and ladies own just a terrific range of vehicles. I`m due to demo an Officers Bright Yellow Viper GTS sometime this week. Look guys, I know this product is not for everyone and that`s why there are so many to choose from. Each will grab you in a different way. It will be up to the company you choose to do it`s best not to lose your business. Now there are some additional customers out there who got demo`s and if Shadowman`s results have influenced you not to demo the product you can send it back to me postage collect, like I said no obligations. Thanks again and to all have a very nice night.



Mark G.

[biff]

Originally posted by AWMark





Well I guess Shadowman did not get the results he was hoping for. I think we will honestly all live to see another day. Shadowman, I really appreciate that you offered to send your sample on to someone else.





Mark, I`m glad to see that you are taking the high road on this. It shows your professionalism and it is appreciated. I hope it sets an example for your supporter(s).

[Thomasfl]

Agreed Mark your attitude is right on track. Actually that was great that you offered free samples to people who have experience detailing and can base their results against other products that are out there, it is always great to know the strenghts and weaknesses or your product.