Dan
Well-known member
I have two cars that are parked outdoors 24x7. As much as they need good paint protection, they need clean paint. I have noticed that claying, while getting the surface smooth, does not clean the paint completely. If I continued to apply a wax or sealant on top of this grime, the surface would not look its best and it would suffer from the contamination. I think a lot of Autopians are anxious to use a polish, but since I keep the vehicles fairly free of marring/swirls, I'd rather not waste clear when I can use a strong chemical cleaner to remove surface contamination. To this end, I've been toying around with lots of AIOs (All-In-One cleaner, polish and wax/sealant).
I've collected over a dozen AIO's in the quest for finding something that really works well for me. I wanted to see what actually cleaned the paint the best. I decided to round up a few that I thought were good contenders. The testbed is a 2001 Audi S4. It has been washed and clayed but has not seen any polish in over five years. I separated equal sized sections and used cotton makeup applictor pads. The choice to use the applicator pads was for two reasons, white shows dirt well and I didn't want to clean a bunch of foam applicators. I'm not sure I'd advise using them on soft clear, but on the test car, they seem to induce no marring.
Round 1:
The contenders:
DG101 - A well known cleaner/sealant from Duragloss. It produces a nice wet look, not as sterile as your typical sealant.
DG105 - Duragloss' latest generation Selant with a good cleaning package, claimed their most durable sealant.
DG501 - The strongest paint cleaner Duragloss has, seems to have a bit of cutting power unlike DG101 and DG105.
FK215 - A jack of all trades. This is probably the strongest polish of the bunch, but packs good cleaning ability. Durability is not its strong suit.
KAIO - A near legendary AIO with amazing cleaning power.
Optimum Poliseal - Another jack of all trades that seems to suffer a bit on the durability side, but it makes up for it with good cleaning power and finishes out very well. A great substitute for a finishing polish and its just super easy to use.
Wild Cards:
3M Finishing Polish - I wanted to see how well a polish can clean
PoorBoys ProPolish - A cleaner only product, could this be better than an AIO?
Zaino Z2 - Wait what? Why a "pure sealant"? Well, it seems to clean surfaces very well.
PB Pro vs Poliseal vs FK215 vs DG501
DG501 and FK215 are pretty clearly on top. The surprise is how little PoorBoys ProPolish cleaned.
Z2 vs DG101 vs D105 vs 3M FP vs KAIO
The surprise here is how well Z2 cleaned. KAIO was effortless to use and it was a strong hitter too, keep in mind KAIO is white so the pad doesn't look as dirty compared to the others, but it seemed to hit the strongest. DG101 and 105 seem to be close but the edge goes to 101. Its also very surprising that 3M FP doesn't put much of a dent in the dirt. While the KAIO'd paint easily felt the smoothest, the roughest was the 3M FP.
While KAIO is without a doubt the best cleaner, it lacks in durability (obviously not tested here). DG501 stood out as the best all around with great cleaning ability and a bit of cut to reduce any micromarring when used via machine. Its so cheap and easy to use and durable that it has become on of my favorites.
However, how does it stand up to the leader in my other AIO test, ZAIO?
http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-detailing-product-discussion/132351-durable-aio-4-way-test.html
Time to find out.
Round 2:
I split the car into two areas with some masking tape, took out the Griots and some brand new white pads and got to polishing.
ZAIO seems to clean very well, but is it better than DG501?
DG501 Side (the picutre of this side is pretty bad, the color seems very washed out, which it wasn't.
DG 501 is in back, ZAIO pads are in front. Its really too close to call via the pads. Both sides of the car feel very smooth (contaminants wise), but the ZAIO side is a little bit more slick(the LSP seems slicker). The thing that was not hard to tell was the looks. ZAIO looked much better in this case. In my other test, the ZAIO wasn't the best looker, however, on solid yellow, it looks amazing, it seems to have a carnauba like glow while being ridiculously shiny. On a lighter metallic, the DG501 may have won, but not here. Either way these two are great choices for a quick paint cleanup.
On a side note, I proceeded to top these with ZFX'd Z5. DG501 did not play along very well. Any hope that they shared similar chemistry was destroyed at this point. The DG501 side was very grabby and made it a pain to apply Z5. I would not recommend using DG501 as a base for Z5.
I've collected over a dozen AIO's in the quest for finding something that really works well for me. I wanted to see what actually cleaned the paint the best. I decided to round up a few that I thought were good contenders. The testbed is a 2001 Audi S4. It has been washed and clayed but has not seen any polish in over five years. I separated equal sized sections and used cotton makeup applictor pads. The choice to use the applicator pads was for two reasons, white shows dirt well and I didn't want to clean a bunch of foam applicators. I'm not sure I'd advise using them on soft clear, but on the test car, they seem to induce no marring.
Round 1:
The contenders:
DG101 - A well known cleaner/sealant from Duragloss. It produces a nice wet look, not as sterile as your typical sealant.
DG105 - Duragloss' latest generation Selant with a good cleaning package, claimed their most durable sealant.
DG501 - The strongest paint cleaner Duragloss has, seems to have a bit of cutting power unlike DG101 and DG105.
FK215 - A jack of all trades. This is probably the strongest polish of the bunch, but packs good cleaning ability. Durability is not its strong suit.
KAIO - A near legendary AIO with amazing cleaning power.
Optimum Poliseal - Another jack of all trades that seems to suffer a bit on the durability side, but it makes up for it with good cleaning power and finishes out very well. A great substitute for a finishing polish and its just super easy to use.
Wild Cards:
3M Finishing Polish - I wanted to see how well a polish can clean
PoorBoys ProPolish - A cleaner only product, could this be better than an AIO?
Zaino Z2 - Wait what? Why a "pure sealant"? Well, it seems to clean surfaces very well.
PB Pro vs Poliseal vs FK215 vs DG501
DG501 and FK215 are pretty clearly on top. The surprise is how little PoorBoys ProPolish cleaned.
Z2 vs DG101 vs D105 vs 3M FP vs KAIO
The surprise here is how well Z2 cleaned. KAIO was effortless to use and it was a strong hitter too, keep in mind KAIO is white so the pad doesn't look as dirty compared to the others, but it seemed to hit the strongest. DG101 and 105 seem to be close but the edge goes to 101. Its also very surprising that 3M FP doesn't put much of a dent in the dirt. While the KAIO'd paint easily felt the smoothest, the roughest was the 3M FP.
While KAIO is without a doubt the best cleaner, it lacks in durability (obviously not tested here). DG501 stood out as the best all around with great cleaning ability and a bit of cut to reduce any micromarring when used via machine. Its so cheap and easy to use and durable that it has become on of my favorites.
However, how does it stand up to the leader in my other AIO test, ZAIO?
http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-detailing-product-discussion/132351-durable-aio-4-way-test.html
Time to find out.
Round 2:
I split the car into two areas with some masking tape, took out the Griots and some brand new white pads and got to polishing.
ZAIO seems to clean very well, but is it better than DG501?
DG501 Side (the picutre of this side is pretty bad, the color seems very washed out, which it wasn't.
DG 501 is in back, ZAIO pads are in front. Its really too close to call via the pads. Both sides of the car feel very smooth (contaminants wise), but the ZAIO side is a little bit more slick(the LSP seems slicker). The thing that was not hard to tell was the looks. ZAIO looked much better in this case. In my other test, the ZAIO wasn't the best looker, however, on solid yellow, it looks amazing, it seems to have a carnauba like glow while being ridiculously shiny. On a lighter metallic, the DG501 may have won, but not here. Either way these two are great choices for a quick paint cleanup.
On a side note, I proceeded to top these with ZFX'd Z5. DG501 did not play along very well. Any hope that they shared similar chemistry was destroyed at this point. The DG501 side was very grabby and made it a pain to apply Z5. I would not recommend using DG501 as a base for Z5.
