Should Meguiar's bring M101 Foam Cut Compound into the U.S. Market?

[paco]

Well, I think people might be ignoring one very simple reason why it isn't available in the US.



FORMULA - solvents; may be not approvable by regulatory agencies in the US (especially California). The only way they might be able to is to dumb down the formula and the US variant would probably not perform as well the EU version. There is really no other reason why the US wouldn't have access to a product that is avaialble there. As for taking market share from other products, it really doesnt matter to Meguiars which product is selling, as long as shops are buying Meguirs and not 3m and other compeitors.



Like the alcohol industry, sales are based on Gallons of product sold and not necessasrily product x vs. product y. They'll look at individual products to determine which ones to keep and which to delist but that is a complicated decision process based on sales relationships, marketing, profit margin etc.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Well, I think people might be ignoring one very simple reason why it isn't available in the US.



FORMULA - solvents; may be not approvable by regulatory agencies in the US (especially California). The only way they might be able to is to dumb down the formula and the US variant would probably not perform as well the EU version. There is really no other reason why the US wouldn't have access to a product that is avaialble there. As for taking market share from other products, it really doesnt matter to Meguiars which product is selling, as long as shops are buying Meguirs and not 3m and other compeitors.



Like the alcohol industry, sales are based on Gallons of product sold and not necessasrily product x vs. product y. They'll look at individual products to determine which ones to keep and which to delist but that is a complicated decision process based on sales relationships, marketing, profit margin etc.

Paco, I think we've covered that issue multiple times now. Read the first paragraph of the product label:

Note the line: "Globally VOC-compliant formula." It has absolutely nothing to do with solvents, regulatory agencies, or anything of the sort.

 

[Envious Eric]

I still want to try some out! Cant vote until Ive tried some....anyone have some to sell/give me?

 

[paco]

Paco, I think we've covered that issue multiple times now. Read the first paragraph of the product label:

Note the line: "Globally VOC-compliant formula." It has absolutely nothing to do with solvents, regulatory agencies, or anything of the sort.

VOC is just one element of regulatory approval. I don't by into the fact that a huge company would specifically only market an ultra compound product to EU even if EU distributors had a significant in developing it. Makes no sense.



Meguiars wouldn't care if you bought 101.. or any other product .. as long as you were buying Meguiars. Period. Money is money.. irregardless if you buy the old Fine Cut or you buy the 101 etc. The last thing they want is a fustrated pro shop that stops using a Meguiars product and moves onto 3m etc. Plus, it seems as though this could easily be a 1-step solution for bodyshops that is quick n easy... Something bodyshops would adopt quickly and favorably as it saves time and money.. So there is no reason other than a regulatory formulation issue that doesnt allow them to sell it in their LOCAL market.

 

[imported_Picus]

Offer it in 5 gal jugs only, who cares? The people who really want it will buy it, the people who want to mess with it (and will potentially mess up their paint) won't. Hell, I will pay for 10 gallons right now and will sign any waiver you like.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

VOC is just one element of regulatory approval. I don't by into the fact that a huge company would specifically only market an ultra compound product to EU even if EU distributors had a significant in developing it. Makes no sense.

I totally understand and agree that it makes no sense.



However, I have a 20-page docket from FedEx outlining everything that was gone through to vet the product through customs when I imported it, and that paperwork shows that it meets all applicable regulations and standards. While the product does contain Napthalene (a known carcinogen) it is still well within TSCA regulations. The only requirement here would be a standard warning on the label "This product contains a substance known to the State of California to cause cancer." There are a lot of chemicals used within our industry that carry the same warning and sell on a regular basis, so that excuse is out IMHO.

Meguiars wouldn't care if you bout 101.. or any other product .. as long as you were buying Meguiars. Period. Money is money.. irregardless if you by the old Fine Cut or you but the 101 etc. The last thing they want is a fustrated pro shop that stops using a Meguiars product and moves onto 3m etc. Plus, it seems as though this could easily be a 1-step solution for bodyshops that is quick n easy... Something bodyshops would adopt quickly and favorable as it saves time and money.. So there is no reason other than a regulatory formulation issue that doesnt allow them to sell it in their LOCAL market.

I kinda doubt Meguiar's cares much if shops move on to 3M, considering 3M owns them... but that too is a separate issue.



Jason Rose @ Meguiar's did provide some pretty weak excuses at one point that amounted to:

M101 Foam-Cut Compound is part of a system (foam cutting pad, backing plate, and compound) specifically created for the automotive paint refinish industry in Europe.



Interesting note for the history buffs...this is the first compound developed by Meguiar's for a specific international market and purpose (rotary, foam cutting pad, on Europe fresh paint.) AND! It is the first time Meguiar's actually did the development work outside of the United States...to the extent of settng up a temporary lab in Switzerland. Our development team flew to Europe and did the formulating while on European fresh paint in actual paint shops. Fun, fun. And we nailed it! The Foam-Cut System works incredibly well in Europe.



Refinish paint chemistry, sanding, and buffing techniques in Europe are different than in the United States. Paint could have been sent over to California for the compound testing, but it would not represent the paint surface exactly as in Europe. European paint sprayed in a California shop by a California painter in a California paint booth with a California paint gun...would result in a paint surface other than what you would find in Europe. And sending over painted panels from Europe would mean the fresh paint would be out of the sanding/buffing window by the time it arrived. More importantly, detailers sand and buff differently in Europe. So the best development option was to formulate and validate the product in Europe. The strategy worked big time!



So why is it not offered in the United States?

VOC compliancy is not the problem. The formula is VOC compliant globally.



The main reason is that the system did not work too well in the United Sates. We did field testing and results were not up to Meguiar's standards. I know this statement contradicts what you are hearing/reading...but both what I am saying now and what you are hearing are true. Here's how...we developed a system and tested a system. The compound was used on fresh paint in the U.S. and applied with the foam cutting pad and backing plate in the system. Shops rejected the system profoundly. The compound (which remember is rock star in Europe) had a jacked up buffing cycle on fresh paint in the United States. And shops rejected the use of the foam pad and backing plate. How many body shops in the United States do you think use a small 6 inch x 1inch foam pad with a cushy soft backing plate for cutting out sanding marks? Switching to other pads and backing plates improved overall performance slightly on domestic fresh paint, but not well enough to justify this expensive formula.



So why are some people saying M101 works so well here?

Any performance of this compound, either good or bad, that is discovered when used in the United States, on fully cured or OEM applied paint, with any other pad, any other backing plate, or any tool other than rotary...is unintentional and not validated by Meguiar's at this time. So if you acquired M101 and are using it in the United States, you are in undiscovered country...and you are on your own. I have seen and experienced what some people are talking about. Cuts like crazy in some situations (I have to be purposefully vague here, but you don't have to.) So, although not being used as designed in the system, there is some pretty remarkable performance being experimented with out there.



So will Meguiar's be launching a M101 like product in the United states? Or perhaps apply the formula to a different application method?

I will not confirm or deny.



But from the makers of M86 Cut & Polish Cream, M105 Ultra Cut Compound, M205 Ultra Finishing Polish, and the D.A. Microfiber Correction System...I can tell you this much...we are NOT sitting around twiddling our thumbs and letting grass grow around our feet!

 

[paco]

What a load of crap.. I can't understand how Meguiars would issue such a ridiculous statement. WOW... guess when Barry sold .. things currently changed interally. That was the biggest amount of double speak I've read in a long time.

 

[imported_Picus]

What a load of crap.. I can't understand how Meguiars would issue such a ridiculous statement. WOW... guess when Barry sold .. things currently changed interally. That was the biggest amount of double speak I've read in a long time.

Amen. I read it twice because I thought I'd read wrong the first time.

 

[imported_Erik Mejia1]

What a load of crap.. I can't understand how Meguiars would issue such a ridiculous statement. WOW... guess when Barry sold .. things currently changed interally. That was the biggest amount of double speak I've read in a long time.

I don't think the explanation provided by Meguiar's is a load of crap. I think they developed a market specific compound, that's all. Since the auto refinishing industries are different here and abroad, it makes sense that professionals here may not have been so accepting of a compound that requires them to change the way they've been polishing. It's human nature to be wary of change. I do however think that we as detailers/ hardcore enthusiasts can make Meguiar's realize that there is a market for this compound. And I think they might be thinking the same thing. I'm hoping that threads like this will convince them to go forward and get this compound in the hands of people here in the states.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

If you guys thought that one was bad, here's another pair from Mike Stoops @ Meguiar's:

As has been stated numerous times, this product was specifically developed for Euro aftermarket paint, and that won't be found in the US unless someone imports a used vehicle that had some body work done in Europe. That said, and as others have noted, the product can work wonders on both European and domestic factory paint in some circumstances. But that can be said in some way, shape or form for almost anything. Heck, M105, which is almost universally loved by DA users everywhere, was developed as a rotary applied product, mostly with a wool pad no less. And yet........

I don't know that we're talking it down... if anything, we're really proud of the product and what it's capable of. But it was developed for that specific market and so that's where it's marketed. Really as simple as that.



As for where it's manufactured, that's easy. Same as all the rest of our compounds, cleaners, polishes, waxes, sealants, industrial chemicals.... in the USA.

And another....

OK, we'll try to distill down the discussions that have taken place on other forums after some folks managed to obtain this European only formula here in the USA.



This is the first product that Meguiar's actually developed outside the US. It was still created by our chemists here in Irvine, CA, but we actually shipped our lead man for the project to Europe, along with a mini lab set up, so that he could quickly respond to testing and inputs and tweak the formula as needed. Pretty cool stuff, actually.



What is M101 designed for? Rotary buffing with a dedicated foam pad on European aftermarket (ie, body shop) paint.

Why "European" aftermarket paint? Because, unlike factory paint which is the same whether the car is sold in Europe, North America or Asia, aftermarket paints vary in different parts of the world. It's a high solids versus low solids situation with these different paints, and that can require different compound formulations to achieve maximum results. Oh, and for the record, factory paint is vastly different from a chemistry standpoint than the paint used in a body shop. If a body shop, whether in Europe or North America, were to shoot factory paint it would virtually never cure due to a body shops inability to bake it at sufficient heat and for sufficient time. It's just not economically feasible for a body shop to have that sort of equipment.

Why "dedicated foam pad"? While use of a wool pad is commonplace here in the US for sanding mark and swirl removal, in European body shops they almost never use wool. And rarely do they compound the entire vehicle - it's mostly spot repair following a repaint, and it's almost always with a foam pad. They also tend to run the rotary at fairly low rpm. So we've developed a dedicated foam pad to use with this compound, taking into account the cultural toward low speed rotary and anti wool bias.

Why did we send a chemist and mini lab to Europe? Lead time, really. Imagine if we sent product over there, had it tested, then had to tweak and send a new batch across the pond, repeat, repeat, repeat? It would have taken months. And we couldn't do the testing here because the aftermarket paint used in Europe is very different from that used here, due to environmental regulations.



So basically what we have here is a product developed for a very specific type of paint system and a pretty specific work flow. That a handful of guys have imported this back to the US (it is made domestically, just like all the rest of our products) and are finding success with it using either wool or microfiber pads is interesting, to say the least. At the moment we have no solid plans to introduce this product to the US market.

So they ARE claiming it's because of environmental regulations, but not for the product itself, it's because of the aftermarket paint in Europe.



My contention would be that while yes, maybe it doesn't work well on paint that's green out of the booth here in the US (haven't tried it in that context, so I can't agree or disagree), but the simple fact is that it DOES work well on fully cured OEM and Aftermarket paint. Even though it was developed with the body shop market in mind over in Europe, the product certainly holds a valid place in the domestic portfolio even if that means placing it in the DETAILER line instead of the Mirror Glaze line.

 

[Nth Degree]

The explanation makes perfect sense when you look at what part of the US market they tested the product in: Body shops. Of course they resisted using foam pads. If the product doesn't work with a rotary and wool pad and have heavy fillers, they ain't gonna like it.



There are, however many Meguiar's products available to the public that are not used in body shops. I'm pretty sure the MF system isn't being used by body shops. It doesn't have to be marketed to that segment to be viable. If there is demand, even a little at first, let it be available to those who ask for it. M105, M205 and the MF system have become the products of choice of so many today because of the numerous positive reviews they have received.



Sounds more to me like the R&D for the MF system may have been quite costly and Meguiar's doesn't want it to be obsolete before it meets the projected profits from it.

 

[Junebug]

Just speaking from what I've seen at a half dozen or so bodyshops in NC, they don't use Meguiars. They would consider Megs a brand for the non-pros, the weekend painter or for detailers. The brand most shops I've seen use is 3M. Now, you can say well 3M owns Megs and yada yada but they could care less. So, maybe the whole thing with Megs trying and not succeeding getting into bodyshops has more to do with old perceptions and the why switch if what we have works?



My thoughts on M101 are while it may be great, I have to believe the guys that tried it, I won't be getting it untill it becomes available here and at a reasonable price.

 

[justin30513]

And after all of this, I still don't know why it's not sold here

LOL!

 

[RaskyR1]

Just speaking from what I've seen at a half dozen or so bodyshops in NC, they don't use Meguiars. They would consider Megs a brand for the non-pros, the weekend painter or for detailers. The brand most shops I've seen use is 3M. Now, you can say well 3M owns Megs and yada yada but they could care less. So, maybe the whole thing with Megs trying and not succeeding getting into bodyshops has more to do with old perceptions and the why switch if what we have works?



My thoughts on M101 are while it may be great, I have to believe the guys that tried it, I won't be getting it untill it becomes available here and at a reasonable price.

You bring up a good point JB. In my area all I've seen in the body shops is 3M too and it could very well be 3M stepping in......

 

[Bill D]

If the environmental/ VOCs really aren't that big of an issue, this appears to me to be an unfortunate case of "in the box" thinking with regards to what paint and how M101 can correct.



I'm wondering if Menzera were to create a "for European aftermarket paint only" polish, if it would it do the same as Meg's and not sell it here for the same reasons.



Menzerna's present polish line is "intended" for European paint but detailers and enthusiasts use it all the time on a very wide range of polishes,both factory and aftermarket.



It still may be very true: if US body shops and similar business that would probably contribute to the bulk of M101 sales are reluctant to try it and switch over to it, it sounds like its going to stay in Europe even if for that reason alone



I'd be surprised if forum members wouldn't eventually be able to get some kind of international contact who could supply it. I'm an optimist.

 

[Paul Sparks]

Could anyone tell me if Meguiars has reps that call on body repair shops as 3m and CarBrite do ? Maybe this a opportunity for them to get into that side of the market if they aren't presently represented there. My connection with that side of the industry is very limited but I've never seen meg's products in use as a primary product at a repair shop. Just a thought.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

I'm wondering if Menzera were to create a "for European aftermarket paint only" polish, if it would it do the same as Meg's and not sell it here for the same reasons.



Menzerna's present polish line is "intended" for European paint but detailers and enthusiasts use it all the time on a very wide range of polishes,both factory and aftermarket.

You're referring to Menzerna S-500 Fast Gloss. Currently available only in Europe and from what I'm told, it cuts better than Power Gloss, and finishes similar to Power Finish (203). The difference is that product is NOT VOC compliant in the US. I heard through the grapevine though that they're working on a version for the US market.

Could anyone tell me if Meguiars has reps that call on body repair shops as 3m and CarBrite do ? Maybe this a opportunity for them to get into that side of the market if they aren't presently represented there. My connection with that side of the industry is very limited but I've never seen meg's products in use as a primary product at a repair shop. Just a thought.

If I remember right, I think Mike Phillips said that was actually his job at one point during his tenure at Meguiar's; I could be mistaken though.

 

[David Fermani]

Meg's needs to concentrate their efforts on an approved DA system for US Body Shops. Nothing but the crappy 3M 3 step system which is years behind the technology. Not like bodymen aren't familiar with DAs. It would be like taking candy from a baby.

 

[Paul Sparks]

Meg's needs to concentrate their efforts on an approved DA system for US Body Shops. Nothing but the crappy 3M 3 step system which is years behind the technology. Not like bodymen aren't familiar with DAs. It would be like taking candy from a baby.

Back in 05 I contacted a local Meg's rep and he never returned my calls. Maybe they do need a more aggressive salesman to hit the local shops and demo the new lines. A few of the local shops that I'm familiar with have never heard of microfiber pads. Add m101 to that and I think you have a winning line.

 

[David Fermani]

That's a whole nother story.....If the 3M reps could offer Meg's then game over.