Stoner Car Care

[Setec Astronomy]

Excuse my preamble, but last week I was rotating my tires and cleaning the backs of the wheels, and using some McKee`s 37 Foaming Wheel Cleaner Gel that I got on closeout from AG a few years ago when M37 pulled out of PBMG fulfillment, and thinking to myself what a great wheel cleaner this is, with an odorless iron-eater in it, and how it was outperforming the Griot`s Heavy Duty I was using alongside it, which smells like cherry urinal cakes.

So I was watching the replay of the TRC SEMA Day 1 livecast on YouTube, and they are in the Stoner booth and Stoner is introducing their odorless iron remover (and wheel cleaner), which seems just like the M37 Foaming Wheel Cleaner Gel (which I think was introduced in 2016)--same blue color, same orange/red (not purple) iron color change, except Stoner variously says they have a patent on it or the patent is pending, and that they have been working on it for a year. I went to the Stoner website and they also have another wheel cleaner which seems to be clear in color called...Foaming Wheel Cleaner Gel. Part of my brain wants to believe that Stoner has been working on this for a lot longer than a year and that they make it for M37 and they just waited for the patent to finalize before bringing it out themselves...or maybe there is going to be a big fight over the patent if McKee`s had theirs formulated somewhere else (are you reading this, Nick?).

Anyway, getting to the point of the thread, I`ve been on this forum almost 20 years (with a bit of a vacation while 3D owned it after they gave me a virus and I boycotted), and Stoner had always been present--Tarminator, Invisible Glass, I guess Trim Shine, have been mentioned in passing ad infinitum, and I have never used any of their products, considering them kind of a Walmart staple and not really "Autopian". But because of this iron remover...er...consternation, for me, I went to their website, and boy do they have a lot of products. They have a glass coating, a new paint coating (5 year claim), a bunch of ceramic stuff...just a lot. Not only that, they actually have several divisions, the Invisible Glass is its own brand, and no longer says Stoner on the can, and they also have an industrial mold release division (think the Meguiar`s or FK mold release products). They have been in business since 1942.

I`m not sure if all this ceramic and other products that should be of interest to Autopians is something very recent (kind of like when a member here or at AGO went to work for the parent company of 303, and all of a sudden 303 had a lot of "Autopian" products), or if I just didn`t know about the breadth of their line because I was never interested...but now I`m pretty interested. Not that I need any more products, other than a good wheel cleaner...and I still have plenty of wheel cleaner to use up before I need any more...of course having enough of anything never stopped me from buying stuff I don`t need, did it?

Signed,

Setec
Recovering Flavor-of-the-Month Member

Oh, PS: I find it interesting that the blurb for the M37 Foaming Wheel Cleaner Gel downplays the color change and doesn`t mention at all the fact that it doesn`t smell like other iron-eaters. A conspiracy theorist would say that it`s such a big deal how could they NOT mention that...unless the formulator that makes it for them was basing their patent (at least in part) on the odorless feature and told them to keep it quiet. Of course we`ll never really know.

[Desertnate]

This made me take a look. I had no idea. Stoner`s have always been just the Tarminator, and more recently, the Invisible Glass people to me.

I noticed many of their products offered in gallon jugs and an entire market place for "professionals" hidden behind a log-in screen. I wonder if they have their hooks in the production/high volume market?