Product Review: Meguiars Ultimate Wash (and Wax?)

[motorhead]

I normally buy Meguiars Gold Class or Turtle Wax Ice car wash soap as I’ve had good results with them over the years, and usually buy which ever is on sale at the time. Recently I needed some car wash soap and neither of my normal options was available on sale… however, a new (and usually more expensive) product was. This thick goopy yellow stuff…



As I normally wax our daily driver every 1 to 1.5 months over the Summer I figured this might be a nice option to extend that duration. I first used it on my Buick (usually pretty clean and gets waxed once a year due to minimal use). I wasn’t thrilled with the suds that it produced out of my pressure washer (as compared to my normal soaps which I would cut with 50% water in the storage tank), and because it was a 30*C (+uber humidity) day (even in the shade where I was washing the car) it caused the soap to dry and cause some “streaking”. The good news is that the streaks wiped away with a damp microfiber towel and weren’t hard to fight like hard-water spots. On final rinse I found that there was no more “beading” than during the initial soakdown… and the overall “gloss” wasn’t very wax like with little improvement in colour depth.

Later, on a much cooler day, I did the TrailBlazer SS in much the same fashion as the Buick. Only this time I filled my wash mitt with a glob of the product to ensure greater suds during the wash. This proved to provide a much improved result in terms of the gloss and depth (probably because more product got worked onto the surface). I should note that again there was no “significant beading” after the application like a wax would. So I waxed the truck using Meguiars NXT spray wax… which sucks to remove and I had to use Meguiars Ultimate Spray Detailer (this is a product I do love!) to pull it all off.

Also this “ultimate” soap is supposed to have a “banana” smell to it, the whole time I was working with it I could swear I wanted to gag and puke due to the horrible scent emitted once airborne. It also looks like I am going to get 3 washes out of the bottle which is smaller in volume than what I typically buy.

I think I will stick with the stuff I normally use which have their “surface conditioners” that seem to work well enough for cleaning the car.

[POWER]

good schtuff you nutty Canuck