GrahamS
ClioSport Club Member
335d
Thank you AutoFinesse is the first thing I need to say.
Just to give a bit of background so everyone knows where I am in the car cleaning ranks. I love a clean car but like most people I rarely find the time to spend a whole day doing the million steps to get a flawless finish. I have never used an auto finesse product so it's a new brand to me; starting neutral. There are a few products I've used but it's mainly the stuff from halfords. Wash, clay, wax is my ideal. Usually it's wash and dry though.
The car. Is my daily Clio DCI which gets driven to London several times a week where I park it in a tree lined road, to Bournemouth every few weeks and down to the sussex coast once a month. If wax is going to get a test its on this car. I do relatively high mileage on every type of road from farm tracks to fresh motorway (which I'm sure will be caked in road salt very soon). Claude has done 120k and is all original paint, some therefore is in good condition and some is stone chipped.
I wash the car weekly with dodo juice super natural concentrate and dry it with a wacking great microfibre. I have clayed the car only about 2 weeks ago and hence you can see the iron out didn't have much to play with.
On with the review
Both types of product I have never used before.
An "iron out" type product is something I wanted to try for a long time.
I wanted to run a fair test so bought a test pot of DJ Super natural hybrid; something I have also never used before so have no preconceptions. Having done some reading it would be a good comparison. Applied on a 50:50 line straight down the car. Spirit on the drivers side and DJ on the passengers. I have never used hard wax so it was all new and comparison was easy.
Start - 1 dirty car
Pressure wash and shampoo left him like this.
I then started on the test, Iron Out said to start with a dry car and leave to dwell for 3-7 minutes depending on the temperature. I opted for 7 minutes as it was quite chilly today. As said I clayed the car only a couple of weeks ago.
Application, the product is viscous which leads to very good adhesion on the panel whilst leaving to react. As I received the product in a sample bottle I had to use my own spray head. I found because it was thick it meant I had to have a very fine spray head to get good coverage. My recycled AG head made it squirt more than mist. My again recycled ecover spray head worked much better. Because the product is thick you also get through it quite quickly. I had to be careful to get a whole coat on the car and if I were to purchase some would be concerned about how many whole car applications I would get per bottle.
This aside it worked fantastically and got to bits I couldn't even see with my eyes. It was easy to get off and I could see in the wash off the extra containments it was removing. Having never used a product of this type before I was pleasantly surprised.
During
Dirty wash off
After
I then clayed the car using a turtle wax bar from a kit in Halfords. A little more came off but not much due to the recent clay.
Wax time
Firstly the smell. Absolutely wonderful, the insects came out of hibernation to pollinate the paint after. I can't put my finger on what it smells like but I know it's something I love (Sweeties)
I found the wax went on very easily and a small amount covered a large area. It was easier to apply than the DJ as it's a little softer and left more of a mark so you could see where you'd applied (this is surprisingly difficult on a silver car). Upon removal it came off easily and left less residue than the DJ. Neither were difficult to remove or apply but the AF was better.
AF application
This shows the side which has AF on. Passengers side has no wax at this point. AF allowing the flake to work it's magic.
I found the AF gave a beautiful finish. A very deep shine which is difficult to pick up with a camera. It bought out the metallic flake very nicely which I hope you can see below.
The only niggle I found was that on the the slightly worse condition paint it was a little more difficult to rub off when dry (I missed a bit on the rear 1/4 as well which came off with relative ease)
My car smells wonderful this evening though and looks spectacular for a DCI!
Unfortunately it got a little dark tonight to get any really good finished item photos so I'll get them up tomorrow. Enjoy for now
Just to give a bit of background so everyone knows where I am in the car cleaning ranks. I love a clean car but like most people I rarely find the time to spend a whole day doing the million steps to get a flawless finish. I have never used an auto finesse product so it's a new brand to me; starting neutral. There are a few products I've used but it's mainly the stuff from halfords. Wash, clay, wax is my ideal. Usually it's wash and dry though.
The car. Is my daily Clio DCI which gets driven to London several times a week where I park it in a tree lined road, to Bournemouth every few weeks and down to the sussex coast once a month. If wax is going to get a test its on this car. I do relatively high mileage on every type of road from farm tracks to fresh motorway (which I'm sure will be caked in road salt very soon). Claude has done 120k and is all original paint, some therefore is in good condition and some is stone chipped.
I wash the car weekly with dodo juice super natural concentrate and dry it with a wacking great microfibre. I have clayed the car only about 2 weeks ago and hence you can see the iron out didn't have much to play with.
On with the review
Both types of product I have never used before.
An "iron out" type product is something I wanted to try for a long time.
I wanted to run a fair test so bought a test pot of DJ Super natural hybrid; something I have also never used before so have no preconceptions. Having done some reading it would be a good comparison. Applied on a 50:50 line straight down the car. Spirit on the drivers side and DJ on the passengers. I have never used hard wax so it was all new and comparison was easy.
Start - 1 dirty car
Pressure wash and shampoo left him like this.
I then started on the test, Iron Out said to start with a dry car and leave to dwell for 3-7 minutes depending on the temperature. I opted for 7 minutes as it was quite chilly today. As said I clayed the car only a couple of weeks ago.
Application, the product is viscous which leads to very good adhesion on the panel whilst leaving to react. As I received the product in a sample bottle I had to use my own spray head. I found because it was thick it meant I had to have a very fine spray head to get good coverage. My recycled AG head made it squirt more than mist. My again recycled ecover spray head worked much better. Because the product is thick you also get through it quite quickly. I had to be careful to get a whole coat on the car and if I were to purchase some would be concerned about how many whole car applications I would get per bottle.
This aside it worked fantastically and got to bits I couldn't even see with my eyes. It was easy to get off and I could see in the wash off the extra containments it was removing. Having never used a product of this type before I was pleasantly surprised.
During
Dirty wash off
After
I then clayed the car using a turtle wax bar from a kit in Halfords. A little more came off but not much due to the recent clay.
Wax time
Firstly the smell. Absolutely wonderful, the insects came out of hibernation to pollinate the paint after. I can't put my finger on what it smells like but I know it's something I love (Sweeties)
I found the wax went on very easily and a small amount covered a large area. It was easier to apply than the DJ as it's a little softer and left more of a mark so you could see where you'd applied (this is surprisingly difficult on a silver car). Upon removal it came off easily and left less residue than the DJ. Neither were difficult to remove or apply but the AF was better.
AF application
This shows the side which has AF on. Passengers side has no wax at this point. AF allowing the flake to work it's magic.
I found the AF gave a beautiful finish. A very deep shine which is difficult to pick up with a camera. It bought out the metallic flake very nicely which I hope you can see below.
The only niggle I found was that on the the slightly worse condition paint it was a little more difficult to rub off when dry (I missed a bit on the rear 1/4 as well which came off with relative ease)
My car smells wonderful this evening though and looks spectacular for a DCI!
Unfortunately it got a little dark tonight to get any really good finished item photos so I'll get them up tomorrow. Enjoy for now
