Review: CarPro DLux vrs Wolf`s Chemicals Trim Coat Nano Dressing

[Swanicyouth]

I`ve been using CarPro`s DLux for a short time now with some great success. I was able to get some Wolf`s Chemicals Trim Coat Nano Dressing (WCTCND) to compare it to. WTCND is basically Wolf`s trim coating, their "version" of DLux. This is going to be an ongoing review that will be updated as I coat different trim pieces with each product and post my thoughts and how they are holding up. Today I`m starting off only with some small pieces, but in reality its enough to tell me what I need to know about both these products.

First, I`ve coated several areas previously with DLux. Its been working out very well. The product beads water like crazy, darkens, and adds a nice gloss to trim. It`s been 2 or 3 wels since I coated my first trim piece with DLux and since then the car has seen multiple washes and almost a week of strait rain. That product is still looking as good as the day it was applied:

DLux beading on wiper arms and cowl:



Today`s products:



First thing you will notice is the difference in the size of the bottles. DLux comes in a 1 oz bottle for $39.99, WCTCND comes in a 5oz bottle for $29.99 from Autopia Car Care. My WCTCND came all to way to me from Wolfs in Budapest, not from a retailer, that`s why there is no label. To compare costs oz per oz: DLux $40 / WCTCND $6 per ounce. Costs wise, the edge clearly goes to Wolfs. That means DLux costs over 6 times the amount of WCTCND. Is is worth it?

Today`s application was going to be on plastic window trim pieces. I decided to coat these piece removed from the car. This was for 2 reasons:

1. The pieces were slatted and going to be hard to clean and coat correctly. I previously applied Prima Infinity to the pieces on a regular basis, so all that product was going to have to be removed 100% before applying these coatings.

2. It was literally 100 degrees out today. After 5 minutes outside I was completely soaked with sweat. Doing anything outside was miserable. Removing these pieces from the car meant I could work on them inside in the AC.

First I had to figure out how to get these pieces off without breaking or damaging anything. I started by taping up a pry bar as to not scratch anything:





Success. After removing them, I cleaned up the area behind the trim with Pinnacle Waterless Wash.





After that, I brought the trim pieces inside to clean them with several products:



This sounds relatively easy. But it wasn`t too easy. Cleaning old dressing off the pieces involved getting it out of all the corners with Q-Tips. I kept getting more and more dirt and old dressing off corners and tight edges.

This is patience:



Pieces cleaned up:



Close up of the condition. The dark areas are just water:





The idea was to split the pieces in half with a thin tape line (control area) and coat one half with DLux and the other half with WCTCND.



First I applied DLux to half the trim. It only takes two drops of DLux to coat this area. DLux applies fairly easy. However, it has a tendency to leave streaks on smooth plastic like this. I`ve found buffing the area after a minute or two with a blue shop towel pretty much eliminates this issue, not 100%, but almost.

Half DLux, half uncoated:



Next I was to apply WCTCND. Right away I noticed this product is a little thinner than DLux. Its almost like the consistency of water. But it`s similar to DLux in the fact it takes very little product to coat an area. It spreads out almost like you were spreading a solvent type dressing - long and far.

Wolf`s mentions in a video that you can apply multiple coats, as the first coat can get sucked in. So, I applied 2 coats of WCTCND, but its likely the first coat was all that was needed here. My experience with DLux told me that it only needs a single coat, so it just got one coat.

This was my first experience with WCTCND and I wasn`t sure what to expect. I was pleased pretty quickly. Right away I began to notice it starts to try just a little faster than DLux. This isn`t a bad thing, as it doesn`t dry to fast. I also noticed it took less "fiddling" to get it smooth and not streaky on the smooth plastic areas. It seems to have a bit more "self leveling" to it than DLux on smooth plastic, this may have to do with the product being thinner. Application it fairly easy with both products, but if have to give the edge to Wolf`s here. Its a bit easier.

Here are the coated pieces. Its Wolf`s Left / DLux right. There was some bleed through were I put the tape, a little more on the Wolfs side (makes sense because its a little thinner).





WCTCND`s area:





(The different color area on the ends in the pic above is some anomaly in the plastic piece. Its always been there)

DLux`s area:





Back on the vehicle:



DLux:



WCTCND:



Pictures can only show so much and by the time I was done the sun was going down. In person, DLux looks a little more glossy. WCTCND has more of a nice satin new look, its not matte but satin. I think that can be seen somewhat in the last two pictures. However, both have a substantial darkening affect. I like the look of both products.

Both products look good. Upon close inspection WCTCND seems to look a bit better, as it seems to dry more even. But this is only noticeable upon very close inspection. The DLux area looks more like it has a dressing on it, WCTCND more just like dark new plastic.

The real test is going to be how long they last. CarPro mentions DLux should last 6 months to a year, Wolf`s I`m not sure if they make a claim. However, you get so much of the Wolfs product for you money even if it didn`t last quit as long I`d still be pleased.

So, initially I`m very impressed with both products. I know DLux beads like crazy, I`ll have to see how WCTCND handles water next time the vehicle is washed. I`ve liked DLux for a bit now, but I really like WCTCND, maybe a little more than DLux. But this is only based on the application. If the product holds up, the bottle should last forever.

I`ll update durability and more trim pieces soon.

[Wors]

Great test setup Swanicyouth! I am excited to hear the results. Subscribed!

[Todd@RUPES]

Great review, looking forward to the follow up!

[Ronkh]

great work, more patience than I would have.

the stripe separating the products would drive me crazy

[tropicsteve]

thanks for all your effort in the review!

[ihaveacamaro]

Very much looking to the follow up water pics and durability.

Thank you for doing this test!

Wolf`s looks like an extreme value compared to DLUX.

[Swanicyouth]

I`m working on cleaning the window trim seals and door handles now for the same type of comparison. Let me tell you, its still like 100 degrees here and the heat is killing me, as they don`t come off the car (so easy). So, I`m doing it in the oven / garage.

I`m finding there are 2 products in my arsenal that really clean off the old dressing better than the others:

Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner
1 Z Deep Plastic Cleaner

They work where APCs and degreasers fail. Right now I`m paying for my diligence in dressing all the trim after every wash trying to get all the old dressing off. Also I`m finding scrubbing the black plastic with a pad cleaning brush tooth brush style works better than just using towels.

Thanks for the comments!

[Swanicyouth]

I had a chance to apply both DLux and Wolf`s Chemicals Trim Coat Nano Dressing (WCTCND) to the window trim and door handles. Window trim is split between 2 products (top WCTRND bottom DLux) with a small clean area in between and each door handle on drivers side has a different product. Then I went and did all those same parts on the passenger`s side with WCTCND only.

All taped off, clean, and ready:



I did this in 100 degree heat - but not in direct sun. Both products worked fine in the heat. It doesn`t look like too much work, but getting all the old dressing out of the pieces wasn`t as easy as it seems. I ended up scrubbing them with a pad cleaning brush using Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner and 1Z Deep Plastic Cleaner. I had to be very cautious, as not to scrub the paint as well with the bristles. After that, I wiped them down multiple times with 70% IPA and clean towels.

I was soaking wet with sweat. After I gathered up all my bottles from around the garage for recycling I was pretty amazed how much I drank during this session:



2 Cokes (12oz x 2) = 24oz
1 Birch Beer (20oz x 1) = 20oz
7 Perriers (16.9oz x 7) = 118.3oz
+ --------------
162.3oz = 1.27 gallons !!!

Clean:



DLux:



Clean:



DLux:



Wolfs top / DLux bottom:





DLux Closeup:



WCTCND Closeup:



DLux:



WCTCND:



DLux:



WCTCND:



WCTCND top, clean control area in middle strip, DLux bottom:







WCTCND is a bit thinner, do it tends to want to bleed through the tape line. You can see that in the pick above (WCTCND top). If you look very close, you can also see WCTCND applies to smooth plastic and rubber a bit more evened out than DLux. As it`s a bit hard to get DLux perfectly flat on smooth trim. This is only noticeable upon very close inspection though, but, WCTCND has the edge here.

Here are some pics of the passenger side. These are all WCTCND (ignore my red shirt tinting the pics - guess its not the best color to wear when your doing this):









So far I`m really liking WCTCND a lot. I think I like it even a bit more than DLux due to it seems to have a greater ability to "self level" on smooth trim. One small compliant I have about the product is the lid. It`s just a cheap plastic flip top, where DLux comes with this little built in dropper dispenser in the top of the bottle. I keep having to clean the WCTCND bottle off, as a drop or two always seems to somehow escape from the lid when putting it on an applicator and flipping the bottle back over. But this is only a small complaint, since you get over 6x the amount of WCTCND for even less money than a bottle of DLux.

I also found layering WCTCND boosts the gloss quite a bit, as the last set of pics (passenger side with the red shirt reflecting) all where multiple layers of WCTCND, I just used 2 layers on the driver`s side.

Now its going to come down to how they hold up. Its pretty well known that DLux holds up pretty well. How will WCTCND do?

[MarkD]

Thank you for your excellent review, and all the great pics of these products in action.

I could be wrong, but from your results, and your comments of the two, it seems to me that both of these products are of a quite similar, and perhaps a virtual identical technology.

I treated my SUV in a similar fashion as you, that was a few months back with CQuartz DLX, and so far, the parts I treated are still looking really nice.

The Wolf`s would be one I would like to try as well, since it seems more economical. Surprised that AG doesn`t also carry the Wolf`s line?

About the slight dislike of the bottle, perhaps the product could be transferred to another small high quality bottle with different type of cap?

While I used up my sample of DLX, I kept the bottle, maybe it could be somehow fully cleaned (Alcohol, or?), and placed back into service with this Wolf`s product inside?

I look forward to you further findings on how the Wolf`s has held up? Thanks again!

[sprocketser]

Great tests in there mate , love these kind of threads .

[TroyScherer]

Love the review and this comparison test.


I have been using Dlux and love it as well. I will also admit that I have read some poor reviews and comments on Wolfs TC. This has kept me from trying it. But you get some much more for the cost.

[Swanicyouth]

Here is an update. We had a few hard rains this weekend, and things are starting to happen to the trim

DLux top WCTCND bottom drivers side:



DLux top WCTCND bottom passenger side:





On these pieces, DLux seems to be holding up much better. On the passenger side the WCTCND looks 90% gone. This was applied only 5 days ago.

When coatings fail, people often point to the prep as the culprit. That is why I purposely removed these pieces to scrub them surgically clean, AND made sure to apply the 2 coatings to the same trim piece (opposed to one on drivers side one on passenger side)

WCTCND top DLux bottom:







In the above pics its much closer, but DLux is darker.

All DLux:





All WCTCND:





It looks like after only 5 days, DLux is holding up much better. I`ll let the test go on though to see what happens.

[ihaveacamaro]

Wow, DLUX seems to be blowing the wolf`s away. Thank you very much for the update.

[Swanicyouth]

Beading:

DLux top WCTCND bottom:





WCTCND top DLux bottom





DLux:







Older DLux (from before test started):





WCTCND:





Video of the two:

http://youtu.be/VGIRj-bVUZ8

[Lou Bunn]

Thank you so much for this review! I made up my mind - DLUX!