Car Care Advice

That is almost impossible to answer!

(For the benefit of keeping this answer as simple as possible, I will be talking about traditional wax, not synthetic waxes, sealants or blends.)

We at Clean Image have tried many waxes over the years, and we still can’t decide on just one favorite! For example, we have one that works very well on light coloured cars, another that works well on dark coloured cars, another that is good for dark cars with swirl marks, and then we have the waxes which last a long time.

Despite any impression that car care companies may give you, there is no real magic to waxes. They are all basically the same, it’s just that the quantities of the ingredients are altered to give different effects (such as shine vs longevity, ease of application, price, etc.).

The general rule of thumb is that the shinier a wax, the less it lasts. The two extremes of this are show-shine which gives a wet look finish but won’t last much longer than the show, and transport wax which will last years but is opaque.

…and this is the crux of the problem, does ‘best wax’ mean the shiniest, or does it mean best protection, or does it mean last the longest lasting? My opinion is that it should be the best balance of all three with price and ease of use factored in. But for many enthusiast it usually just means the best shine.

The car care business is highly competitive, and unfortunately, some of these products originate in countries with less stringent rules of advertising than the UK. This means that you cannot always trust the label on the bottle. One very very well known brand of wax claims to last of one year, but recent tests show it lasts no longer than 6 weeks - maybe it lasts a year if you don’t take the car out of your garage?

Some brands rely on gimmicks to sell their products (such as setting fire to the car), some rely on smoke and mirrors (listing miracle ingredients), and can only be described as ’snake oil’. Unfortunately, people do get taken in by fancy labels and extravagant claims, and with many things, trends and fashions can develop with people convincing themselves that a product is the best thing since sliced bread. Soon everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.

While we normally say that recommendation is the best way to pick products and services, you should always take products with fancy packaging and fancy price-tags with a pinch of salt… remember that all waxes are basically made of wax, fat, oil, solvent, emulsifier and water, etc.

Testing products are the only way to know for sure about the quality of waxes. Although there are industry test available, the most famous one currently being the Guru Report (although technically not an ‘industry’ test), these test usually have fairly large flaws. The most obvious being that they amount to lab tests and not real world tests. The biggest problem with the Guru Report is that being American, it misses out on products popular in Europe - but companies that didn’t fair well in the tests found other flaws (or excuses).

Unfortunatly, these tests are copyrighted and the results cannot be republished here, but suffice to say that these reports often carry some pretty big shocks, with some of the cheapest products performing exceptionally well, while high priced boutique waxes under-performing in spectacular fashion.

The real key to having a beautiful car is not the wax, it’s the preparation of the paintwork. As the old saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, no matter what wax you use.

Waxes and sealants are clear coatings, any problems underneath will show through so you are better off thinking about polishes than waxes.

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