Best Car Waxes – The 9 wax showdown! FINAL REVIEW!!!

 

Best Car Waxes – The 9 wax showdown! FINAL REVIEW!!!

Ease of Application

Best Car Waxes – The 9 wax showdown! FINAL REVIEW!!!

Best Car Waxes – The 9 wax showdown

Ease of application basically consists of how smooth the wax lays on the paint, how easy it is to spread evenly and thinly, how easy it is to get the applicator inside the tub, and all that fun jaz. Just simply read the first review on my thoughts on all the waxes in general, but here I am going to put a point system to them as some have requested, though personally, I think that the first review will give you a better insight than just numbers. Also note that there are both pastes and liquids here, so while I am grading on one scale, some things like Liquid Glass’s runny nature took away from its score along with ICE’s oversize applicator with undersized tub, while likewise Gold Class and Souveran were incredibly easy waxes to work with with everything nicely sized and everything just done right. Collnite’s finicky nature also took away from its score, along with both the Turtle Waxes, but remember that I also still do stand strong that once you get the technique down, it really is much easier, so keep that in mind.

(5) Meguiar’s Gold Class
(4) Meguiar’s #26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
(5) Meguiar’s NXT 2.0
(1) Turtle Wax ICE Polish Paste
(5) Pinnacle Souveran
(3) Collnite #476 Super DoubleCoat
(3) Liquid Glass Auto Polish/Finish
(2) Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell
(4) Eagle One NanoWax® Paste

Ease of Removal
This did not only take into consideration of how easily the product wiped away, but also how it did with drying time. Collnite was going to be the hardest to rate in ease of use, because while it is super easy to remove with a good drying time, it can be impossible if not applied properly, which is why I have seperated the two catagories. I had to rate the Meguiar’s waxes down half a point, because while they were unbelievably easy to remove, they do require a drying time, while Souveran does not, making it the clear winner. Otherwise, all went well! The Turtle Wax Hard Shell was as my first review said, a royal pain in the you know what to remove simply due to the thing not wanting to dry! Removal was very streaky as well, which ICE also seemed to share a bit of the same problem. Nanowax was still easy to remove, but did require extra drying time, hence the knock down in the score.

(4.5) Meguiar’s Gold Class
(4.5) Meguiar’s #26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
(4.5) Meguiar’s NXT 2.0
(3.5) Turtle Wax ICE Polish Paste
(5) Pinnacle Souveran
(4) Collnite #476 Super DoubleCoat
(3) Liquid Glass Auto Polish/Finish
(1) Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell
(4) Eagle One NanoWax® Paste

Clean hood with cured wax – Water Beading:
This was without a doubt, my hardest test believe it or not, because they were all so simular in their beading, I spent well over half an hour looking at water beads trying to find out which one beaded better than the other, and while in my initial testing I had made a few observations in the video, after spending a lot of time off camera, I realized much of that was probably due to the sprayer itself and the curves of the hood. As much as I hate to do this, on a scale of 1-5, all of them deserve a rock solid 5.

Clean hood with cured wax – Sheeting:
This is where it got REAL interesting and where the differences in the waxes became apparent! After I took the video, again I spent a long time with many gallons of water dripping on my boots from the hood on trying to observe the difference. This was, without a doubt, the easiest one to grade and the most fun! What I have to stress here is that they all do, without a doubt, sheet water, and none of them do a bad job at all! However, there are a few, namely Eagle One NanoWax and NXT that just blew me away, with NanoWax being the big surprise! The water literally just fell right off the paint with this wax and I was just blown away that I had never heard of anyone who made raved about this product because it really is good stuff, especially for the price! ICE also gave me a bit of a surprise because this stuff seriously does sheet water as well. I made a scale down below to give you guys an idea on how I thought they compared.

(3) Meguiar’s Gold Class
(4) Meguiar’s #26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
(4.5) Meguiar’s NXT 2.0
(4) Turtle Wax ICE Polish Paste
(4) Pinnacle Souveran
(3) Collnite #476 Super DoubleCoat
(3) Liquid Glass Auto Polish/Finish
(3.5) Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell
(5) Eagle One NanoWax® Paste

Water Spot protection
I was very disapointed with this test, and the reason is that all the waxes seemed to have failed miserably. Every single one has completely lost all of its shine, and trust me on this one, because I spent a good 45 minutes with 1000watt halogen lamps looking at every possible angle. No one wax wiped off easier than the other, and here is the difference that the wipe off made (note that the tape took some off when I tape off an area).

image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/wolfstrong/detailing/waxtest/IMG_0480.jpg

car wax

car wax

This was done with a clean microfiber and ONR quick detailer mix for the reason that I have found ONR to leave behind the least, if any shine agents that would change the results of the test. Now note that while it does look clean of water spots, this is what the paint actually looked like:

image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/wolfstrong/detailing/waxtest/IMG_0476.jpg

car wax

car wax

Another oddity that I noted was that Liquid Glass seemed to fog up for some reason. I tried to capture this with the camera, and I think you can see the difference here with some fogging in a small area. You will notice it right where my hair is in the picture, that cresent shape that looks like it could be glare is actually a fog:

image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/wolfstrong/detailing/waxtest/IMG_0482.jpg

car wax

car wax

I tried to debunk this with putting the light against it to see if it is due to the cold, or due to the heat of the light, and it seems as though it is due to the cold, though I still can’t be sure. This again just stresses my thoughts on Liquid Glass not being a good winter wax.

So, unfortuneatly, none of them were scorable in the protection ability as they all performed the same, so I thought I would try some beading to see how they acted, and this is where some of you may be in for a bit of a surprise, I know I am!

image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/wolfstrong/detailing/waxtest/IMG_0492.jpg

car wax

car wax

image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/wolfstrong/detailing/waxtest/IMG_0486.jpg

car wax

car wax

I’m not sure if I caputred it on camera very well, but they all seem to be beading very, very differently. Liquid Glass and NXT don’t seem to be fully beading up at all anymore! Compare them to the beading in the video, and I believe you will draw the same conclusion. What also leads me to believe this is that they are not showing a tape line anymore, while Turtle Waxes ARE, especially ICE paste! All the other waxes were showing the tape lines which shows simply that they do infact have a higher surface tension over the unwaxed paint, which would lead me to believe wax is present.

I then went onto trying to sheet water on this, and it again left me with a very hard test. All the waxes dropped down a lot in points here, but surprisingly, some do a bit better than I thought:

(2) Meguiar’s Gold Class
(3) Meguiar’s #26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
(1.5) Meguiar’s NXT 2.0 *****
(3) Turtle Wax ICE Polish Paste
(2.5) Pinnacle Souveran
(2) Collnite #476 Super DoubleCoat
(1) Liquid Glass Auto Polish/Finish
(3) Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell
(3.5) Eagle One NanoWax® Paste

*****I also HAVE to note to everyone that I could be wrong on NXT not beading up in this test, but I can assure you I studies it long and hard and while it may be beading up, it is not doing it NEARLY to the extent of the others, which is maybe where Ultimate Quick Detailer is suppose to come into play, but I personally wouldn’t take that beading over the others in any situation given a choice![/i]

I didn’t bother taking a video because of all the headache I am having with my computer, and considering it officailly takes 4+ hours to get a video on youtube for me, I will probably just upload the sheeting one since that is the impressive one, once I get that whole thing figured out with getting it off the camera!

Final Thoughts
Well, I can honestly say that I have learned a WHOLE lot from this little test, probably the most important thing being just how important it is to prep the surface prior to waxing with a REAL good clay job to where not even the plastic baggy can pick something up, and polishing the paint to absolute perfection. I also learned just how little importance a wax actually plays in this game, because after this test, I am convinced on just how little time you have to remove whatever is on your paint, and just how thin of a layer of protection these waxes offer, even with some of the best in this test like Collnite and NXT.

As all of you probably have done by now, adding up the points gives a final score of this:
(17.5) Meguiar’s Gold Class
(19.5) Meguiar’s #26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
(20.5) Meguiar’s NXT 2.0
(12.5) Turtle Wax ICE Polish Paste ******
(20.5) Pinnacle Souveran
(14) Collnite #476 Super DoubleCoat
(13) Liquid Glass Auto Polish/Finish
(10.5) Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell
(19.5) Eagle One NanoWax® Paste

What I want to note on ICE is that let’s say that it might not of marred the surface if application was easier (again, still up in the air or not if it is a bad batch) and which in turn made removal easier, it could of had the chance to score a 21, which would put it as the winner, but that is all dealing with if and buts, and the point of me saying this is that the scores really don’t matter, it is just something there for fun. So, as you can see Meguiar’s NXT 2.0 and Souveran scored 20.5 which puts them in a tie for first place while Eagle One NanoWax and Meguiar’s #26 scored a 19.5 for a tie in second, and third left up to a solid 17.5 from Meguiar’s Gold Class. So don’t go out and buy simply based on the scores, READ what I wrote, and see which one seems like you would enjoy using the most!

I have to say in all this, Souveran was a bit of a letdown for me, and Eagle One NanoWax was a HUGE surprise! NXT also, obviously is just a solid, all arounder wax. So the question is probably in everyone’s mind, “So what wax are you going to use on your car!?” and for my situation, my car is one that is driven every single day, get’s a lot of abuse from the weather, and I plan to want to wax about every month at the most. Overall, I am leaning towards Eagle One NanoWax or Meguiar’s #26. NXT would probably be my top choice, however I do have the dilema with it falling apart after that water spotting abuse test on how it would hold up against other containments and if it would just fall on its face again. Durability also comes into play here, and as many know, Collnite lasts a good, long time, and I am sure with a little practice, it wouldn’t be a bad product to work with. I have heard horror stories about ICE’s durability, so I can’t say much on that. So I guess my answer to which one is:

The test must go on!. I am going to strip them all with a paint cleaer, re-apply, and test for durability, but this time take care of the paint and make sure to avoid water spots at all costs! For all those who don’t believe me on the NXT looks vs Souveran, I might also do a side by side of those two for everyone to see! It is now past midnight, and I have to wake up at 7am, so gnight everyone! I hope you learned from this as much as I have!
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