It's probably been awhile since most of you have read that article. I buy Consumer Reports every month and try to keep them as references. The car wax comparo was in the May 2000 issue.
#1 rated car wax was Zymol liquid (actually the Zurtle Wax version of Zymol). They said the shine with Zymol was the best but durability and cleaning ability wasn't great. Nu Finish paste was rated #2 in glossy finish but #3 overall.
They liked 3M Cleaner Wax for its cleaning ability - best overall but found its durability was only fair. It finished #5 overall.
The surprise to me was the #2 overall finish for Prestone Bullet Wax. They gave it top marks for durabilty which seemed the test was slanted towards. Armor All wax finished #4 overall for the same reasons except that it hazed and scratched more than the Prestone.
Test parameters were gloss, durability, cleaning ability, resistance to scratching and hazing and ease of use.
What product finished dead last?? Meguiar's Cleaner Wax paste.
Finally, they did a separate test, "Polishes for persnickety people". Compared the multi-step systems of Meguiar's Deep Crystal System and Mother's Ultimate Wax System. The first sentence of the article goes, "Waxing a car is drudgery enough, but imagine doing it three times in a row". Neither system got a good review as they felt the one-step products did almost as good a job as the three-step systems. They summed up with, "...we don't think these products are worth the trouble".
Based on that commentary I don't expect to see another car wax comparo in CR any time soon.
