imported_jaobrien6
New member
I received one of the promotional kits including all 3 SFX polishes and all 3 SFX pads. I held off on this review to give me a chance to try everything a couple of times. Cars used on: '97 Acura Integra - Dark Blue & '04 Acura TSX - Dark Grey
SFX-1 Polish: This is definitely an agressive polish, and has noticeable grit in it when you first apply it. I primed the pad first with QD (Meg's FI) and went to work on the hood of my older car (still shows some effects of my Pre-Autopian days). The SFX-1 polish in conjunction with the SFX-1 pad (a cutting pad) definitely removed some marring and scratches that were in my hood, and left noticeably marring of it's own like most aggressive polishes. Overall, I'd say it works well... BUT... the polish is extremely difficult to remove. I tried using more polish, less polish, working it longer, working it shorter, using LC pads instead of SFX-1 pads, nothing made a difference. The residue this stuff left was like glue. Spraying some FI on there and trying to remove made little difference. The only thing that ended up working was some AIO, but even then it didn't come off easily. The temperature was about 55 degrees one time I tried it and 45 degrees the other time. I was not working in the sun. Frankly, I'm stumped, I tried every different thing I could think of, but this was the most difficult product to remove that i've tried (some of the other polishes i've tried: 1z upp, pp, mp, 3m PI-III RC and MG, DACP, #80, all are easier to work with).
SFX-2 Polish: Used in conjunction with the SFX-2 polish, did a good job of removing the marring left by the SFX-1 polish, and produced a nice gloss. However, remember when I said that SFX-1 was the most difficult product I've ever tried to remove? I stand corrected. This stuff is worse it seems (or else I'm just getting frustrated by this point). I tried it on another car to see if it's car specific. It did work a *little* better on my other, newer car (I didn't want to try the SFX-1 on my newer car as it doesn't need it), but it was still extremely difficult to remove. Again, I tried a lot of different techniques. Working longer definitely is the right way to go (when I tried working it for less time in order to make it easier to remove, I ended up not working it long enough and I left marring when I tried to remove the product), but it's still not easy at all to remove the residue that's left.
SFX-3 Polish: Leaves a nice gloss, I will admit, but is no easier to work with than the other two. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to work with this.
Note on the dusting problem that's been mentioned before: I did not have this problem. In fact, I found it to produce very low amounts of dust. Not sure why. :nixweiss
Overall Impression: They produce nice results, but are not user friendly at all. I would probably score them at 2/5. That may be a little harsh, but they were so hard to work with and that outweighed the nice results. If you try them, and don't have the problems I did, then they'd probably work well for you. If anyone has any suggestions of anything else to try, I'd be happy to give it another shot.
SFX Pads: Good quality, velcro seems very firmly attached. I do have 2 complaints. First, because the velcro goes all the way to the edge of the pad, you have to make sure that the edge of the pad doesn't touch anything. This makes it much tougher to use the pad to buff odd areas like the tops of bumpers. I realize that this was done to make sure the velcro was attached better, so I guess it's a trade off. Second, the pads are very firm, even the finishing pad. This means that you have to apply more pressure to ensure full contact with the paint. Especially when applying LSP's, this isn't something that I want to have to do. I would probably score them at a 3/5 right now. If they soften up a little over time, and the velcro stays attached, that will probably move to a 4/5. I'd still like to try the Sonus DAS pads, as that design looks a little better to me, but I haven't needed to buy new pads yet (still have a bunch of LC pads in good shape), so I haven't tried those yet.
John
SFX-1 Polish: This is definitely an agressive polish, and has noticeable grit in it when you first apply it. I primed the pad first with QD (Meg's FI) and went to work on the hood of my older car (still shows some effects of my Pre-Autopian days). The SFX-1 polish in conjunction with the SFX-1 pad (a cutting pad) definitely removed some marring and scratches that were in my hood, and left noticeably marring of it's own like most aggressive polishes. Overall, I'd say it works well... BUT... the polish is extremely difficult to remove. I tried using more polish, less polish, working it longer, working it shorter, using LC pads instead of SFX-1 pads, nothing made a difference. The residue this stuff left was like glue. Spraying some FI on there and trying to remove made little difference. The only thing that ended up working was some AIO, but even then it didn't come off easily. The temperature was about 55 degrees one time I tried it and 45 degrees the other time. I was not working in the sun. Frankly, I'm stumped, I tried every different thing I could think of, but this was the most difficult product to remove that i've tried (some of the other polishes i've tried: 1z upp, pp, mp, 3m PI-III RC and MG, DACP, #80, all are easier to work with).
SFX-2 Polish: Used in conjunction with the SFX-2 polish, did a good job of removing the marring left by the SFX-1 polish, and produced a nice gloss. However, remember when I said that SFX-1 was the most difficult product I've ever tried to remove? I stand corrected. This stuff is worse it seems (or else I'm just getting frustrated by this point). I tried it on another car to see if it's car specific. It did work a *little* better on my other, newer car (I didn't want to try the SFX-1 on my newer car as it doesn't need it), but it was still extremely difficult to remove. Again, I tried a lot of different techniques. Working longer definitely is the right way to go (when I tried working it for less time in order to make it easier to remove, I ended up not working it long enough and I left marring when I tried to remove the product), but it's still not easy at all to remove the residue that's left.
SFX-3 Polish: Leaves a nice gloss, I will admit, but is no easier to work with than the other two. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to work with this.
Note on the dusting problem that's been mentioned before: I did not have this problem. In fact, I found it to produce very low amounts of dust. Not sure why. :nixweiss
Overall Impression: They produce nice results, but are not user friendly at all. I would probably score them at 2/5. That may be a little harsh, but they were so hard to work with and that outweighed the nice results. If you try them, and don't have the problems I did, then they'd probably work well for you. If anyone has any suggestions of anything else to try, I'd be happy to give it another shot.
SFX Pads: Good quality, velcro seems very firmly attached. I do have 2 complaints. First, because the velcro goes all the way to the edge of the pad, you have to make sure that the edge of the pad doesn't touch anything. This makes it much tougher to use the pad to buff odd areas like the tops of bumpers. I realize that this was done to make sure the velcro was attached better, so I guess it's a trade off. Second, the pads are very firm, even the finishing pad. This means that you have to apply more pressure to ensure full contact with the paint. Especially when applying LSP's, this isn't something that I want to have to do. I would probably score them at a 3/5 right now. If they soften up a little over time, and the velcro stays attached, that will probably move to a 4/5. I'd still like to try the Sonus DAS pads, as that design looks a little better to me, but I haven't needed to buy new pads yet (still have a bunch of LC pads in good shape), so I haven't tried those yet.
John
