ilogikal1

It depends entirely on your budget. You can get fair results on tighter budget without a machine polish, if you're using the right products and a lot of effort to polish by hand (depending on how much correction the car needs). Alternatively you can get incredible results if you empty your bank account and buy everything you'll ever need. Or you can pay someone to do it for you. As an example, Poorboys Natty's Blue Paste Wax for about £17 will give you a similar finish to Auto Finesse Desire for £120. For the £100 difference, you could get a decent polish, hand polishing pad, clay, fallout remover, pre-wax cleaner and £43 change to go towards the wash stage (depending on what you already have) and/or upgrades. Or, you could spend £200 on a pretty basic, and slightly incomplete, machine polishing kit that would be good enough to get you started; I've chucked a coating (Can Coat) in there in place of the wax, because that'll give you far superior gloss (although less depth) at a reasonable price point. I could happily spend hundreds of your pounds, as stated that kit is fairly basic. That's why it's important to have a budget in mind, because there's always something else. It also depends on the time you have available, where you'll be working (indoors or outdoors - you don't want to be using Can Coat if you don't have a garage to store the car whilst it cures, for example), what you already have, etc, etc. Dodo Juice waxes are pretty reasonable, don't get suckered into the colour charged marketing though - on a black car in particular it'll make absolutely zero difference. Once you get over that, the range is much of a muchness, there's no big differences between the waxes that you'll notice unless they're used side-by-side. That said Blue Velvet usually lasts longest for me. Auto Finesse also produce good products, their pre-wax cleaners/AIO's in particular. Their waxes are okay, depending on what you're prepared to spend, but they've always been more of a boutique brand so you can find less flashy products that work just as well for a fraction of the price (Poorboys, for exmple). That said, if you're willing to pay, they're not bad products by any stretch of the imagination. I would caveat that with saying that I don't think Desire is worth that price, good as it is, though.

Budget? What prep are you doing? The vast majority of your gloss will come from prep - i.e. a deep clean (clay, fallout, paint cleaner, the works) and proper machine polish. If you're just slapping wax on without much/any prep then you won't get much gloss outside of any SiO2 based coating. That said, with answers to these two questions I can probably give you something useful to work with. Budget is important though.

Well, if the Celica is anything to go by, certainly. Also, it's designed for a completely different car so I wouldn't expect it to be a straight fit regardless.

+another one for CTEK MXS 5. Got mine for the Z during lockdown and highly recommend it.

The best people to tell you that would be the reputable trader who is providing and fitting the kit for you... Seriously, speak to Horsham, tell them what you want from it and they'll be able to tell you what strain the kit they're supplying would be running under to get what you're looking for. Or, what you'd need to spend to get reliability out of "over 400bhp".

Am I missing something here? You say you would prefer a turbo, you say you’ve got a price from a reputable company who can supply and fit within your budget. So… what’s this thread actually about then?

Why would it make any difference to forecourts? Any that can offer 3 fuels now (unleaded, Super unleaded and diesel) will still have the capacity to offer 3 fuels when one of them changes composition slightly. They still have to be stored separately regardless of how they’re produced.

Never heard of them. But "Active Cooling Wheel Spacers"; so many questions! Just reads like a massive gimmick with nothing to substantiate the claims. Unless they're cheaper than the known alternatives, I don't see any actual advantage of these.

Panic not; https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/06/new-greener-e10-petrol-to-replace-standard-petrol-in-pumps-is-your-car-compatible/ https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol-explained#compatibility

Right boys and girls, strap yourselves in, for I am about to bring you a terribly exciting update about... ...stuff I've reviewed before. Yay, I hear you all say. Well the super exciting stuff is that today's rereview comes in the form of plastic trims. Woohoo! I started off with a filthy engine bay that hasn't been cleaned, much leass detailed, for an exceptionally, somewhat embarrassingly, long time. For reasons that may become clear at some point, I didn't wash the bay first. I did, however, take pictures and we all love pictures. Because I didn't wash anything first, I needed some cheap microfibres that could be disposable if required. For reasons, I ignored the Amazon offerings which I could have received weeks ago and on time, instead I threw some into my ECP order. Now, I've said it before (in this thread, no less) and I'll probably say it again; ECP are f**king useless. What I won't ever do is order anything from ECP again. Full details can be declaired upon request but in the interests of getting on with it, I'll move on. I started with this: I threw some of this at it: And did a bit of wiping over, which did this to my brand new, cheap, disposable and totally-not-worth-the-f**king-effort-to-obtain-it cloth: Which did this: Which is a bit more siliconey shiny than I was hoping for based on my previous useage. So, I won't be using this on my dashboard after all. I would be happy enough to use it on the kick plates and under the bonnet (or as a very short lived air freshener. I still very much love the smell of this stuff). It does a decent job of lifting loose dirt and dust though, so if you're happy with the siliconey shininess of it, it would be a decent product for interior trim. Would be, execpt for the fact that you can't actually buy it anymore. But aside from that small detail, it'd be perfect. Not content with that, I moved on to another part of the engine bay which is as much of a t**t to clean as ECP are to buy things off. Get used to it, it's a theme throughout! Anyway, this: Is what I started with. I sprayed product both directly on the trim as well as the cloth, wiped over thoroughly with various clean sides of the microfibre until no more dirt came off, then a final wipedown with a clean cloth and more product. 50/50, untouched section on the right. And then after a few minutes once the Silicone Dash Spray had dried: Told you it was a t**t to clean. Two observations on SDS; 1) It's done nothing to clean the bolt. 2) It's done a better, but not great, job on cleaning the trim but done a great job of making the trim shiny, shiny. Which I don't particularly like. Thus, Silicone Dash Spray is good enough to remove light, loose dust and dirt, but not heavier dirt. It gives a more uniform finish on textured plastic than it does on shiny, untextured plastic. The other side started with this: Then I threw some of this at it: For those not paying attention, this is would be the reasons, and this may be the point at which they become clear. Anyway, that stuff did this. And here's as close as I could get to a 50/50 without any tape to it all proper like. There's a line there somewhere. It's not straight, and it's not in the middle of the car, but it's there. The finish is s**t on both sides, much like ECP's service, although in slightly different ways but I've long since given up trying to get a good finish on that particular trim without some very specific equipment and a good amount of time to concetrate on it. Before it gets filthy again 18 minutes later. But that's detailing for you. Am-I-right?!? Not content with the equally-as-s**t-as-ECP's-customer-service panel (to give it the technical name), I moved on. To this: Which got Silicone Dash Spray on the left of the bend and Waterless Wash Neutral Enhance on the right of it. Giant scratch aside, the left is shiny. The right is not. And here that is at a different angle. And here's this picture because... er... I dunno, but here's this picture anyway. Like I did from my f**king woeful experience of ECP's customer "service", I moved on. To this. Now I'm pretty sure the last time I cleaned this was when I changed the (original) battery on my Z. Which would have been between 4 and 6 years ago. Let's call it 5. I'm pretty sure I've not had the trim stripped away since then and now. Anyway, I dampened another fresh cloth with Waterless Wash and wiped over, to leave this: I then wiped over the rest of it, rather than just the top, and... didn't take a picture of that. But it happened. The internet says so (now), so it must be true. And this; Was sprayed with Neutral Enhance and then wiped with a clean coth dampened with more Neutral Enhance (y'know, what like the instructions did gone done say). And that, became this; Who new it had writing printed on it?!? Feeling braver, I manned up and moved onto paintwork. Now, I know what you're thinking, but bear with me on this. Okay, I don't know what you're thinking. But I'm willing to bet it something along the lines of "waterless wash on paintwork? You're either mad or brave". And you're right. I'm brave. Although.... If you know me, you're probably thinking something more along the lines of "he's got something up his sleeve here." And you're right. Unlike ECP, who struggled to get much right. Again. Anyway, this happened. What? You didn't really think I'd attack proper paintwork with waterless wash did you? Who do you think I am?!? It's a 50/50 of sorts. This side of the wiring has been cleaned (mostly) with waterless wash, the other side has not been. Now, it's lifted the loose debris and dirt and left the rubber trim looking pretty good, but it's done literally nothing to lift the more stubborn dirt. Anyway, I then ran out interest in taking photos (actually, that's not true, but it's largely just more of the above as I went back to the plastic scuttle panel). I did, however, finish cleaning all the bits that I started cleaning, even those bits where I stopped to take pictures half way through, like the fuse boxes. At some point I'll do a proper job of it, with the right products and equipment, but for now a filthy car is actually quite useful for testing products. Who knew that either. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. I can't promise it'll be anything new. Or interesting. Or spelt correctly. But that hasn't stopped you reading this before - and if you're prepared to enable, I'm prepared to be enabled. Or something. Oh wait, a summary. Okay then, to summarise: ECP customer service is non-existent. S**t would actually be an improvement. Silicone Dash Spray smells delightful, does light cleaning and leaves a siliconey shiny finish, albeit not super glossy. I will happily use it, just not on my dash! Waterless Wash Neutral Enhance is a pretty standard waterless wash. Seems to work quite well on under bonnet plastics and rubber, lifts loose dirt and... won't ever be used on anything with a polished finish on my car. Ever. And is no substitute for actual, proper cleaning equipment under the bonnet. So there you have it, completely new information that no one could possibly have predicted I would have summarised before today. Or something.

So we're not counting the 45-60 minutes it takes to warm the batteries up to be able to do a quarter mile in 9.47 seconds, then? Asking for a friend.

This. Rubbing with a microfibre will eventually shift it, but when using glue remover it's best to soak it in the stuff whenever you can. Saturate a cotton (or bamboo if you're bothered about the environment) makeup pad remover/paper towel (basically anything you can use to keep the area wet) and leave it to soak in for a few minutes first - just don't let it dry out! - then dab a bit on a microfibre and start rubbing. If it's not coming off freely go for another soak to make it easier. And remember to rinse thoroughly when done, you don't want glue remover to dry on the surface. Any glue remover should work (even AG in this instance) but if you've already bought Koch Chemie stuff you're all set.

Im not sure that’s something we need to see, if I’m honest, based on the Proto!

Well that's impressive. They've actually made it look worse than the real thing.

The seal tends to be held within the lid typically where the pot itself isn't a fancy airtight jobbie itself.

The interwebs tells me Wangan Blue was the "original" name of Bayside Blue. If it's on the interwebs it must be true.

Looks fine to me.

Ah yeah, but does the baby Supra come with luxuries like a cassette plalyer though?!

Taking photos whilst driving and posting the evidence on a public forum. Smart.

I promised (threatened) updates, so have another one. Apparently I start updates with this photo now, so... Up next we have VP Dirt Magic. VP market Dirt Magic as a "Dirt Magic Spray Bike and Motorcycle Cleaner", that is to say, The also go on to say: So it's a Cleaner. That's safe for many Purposes. One might even say All purposes. A multi Purpose Cleaner, if you like. Or, stretching it a little bit, an All Purpose Cleaner.... So here's my issue with APC's in general. Like buckets, there is usally a hefty "detailing" (or "valeting") tax. Case in point; buy a bucket, that'll be £1, sir. What, you want to wash a car with it? Oh that'll be £10.49, sir! Oh, sorry, you want to use the word ceramics on your bucket? That'll be £12 then, mug! Ahem... anyway. APC's: same thing. Almost literally. APC, £1. APC for washing cars, £10.49 . APC with Megs branding, £13. That said, compared to anything you'll pick up in Halfords, £4.99 for Dirt Magic is pretty good value, it's almost exactly half the price for the comparible volume of product. That notwithstanding, go to a supermarket. Even the branded stuff is £1.50 per litre instead of £8.99. However for the extra £7.49, you do get "1 litre PRO". Whatever that is. Pricing aside, a good APC is useful to have because they can be used for... well, All Purposes. Well, not ALL purposes, they're no use for fetching you a cold beer for example. Yes, I've tested that... moving on. For All Cleaning Purposes, they're handy. The instructions are easy enough: I'm not a power ranger, so I don't actually own a crotch rocket. Instead I decided to test it on two wheels of the car instead. Same thing, innit. And, what's more, photos are back. Sort of. But we'll come back to the sort of later on. I started with this. Looks like a bike to me... anyway. It's not the dirtiest wheel in the world, but it's not clean either. Instructions say: So it's designed to be used neat on your bike, so I used it as such. On my "bike". Sprayed on, took some pictures; Initial impressions; Dirt Magic has a very pleasant, strong cherry scent. It foams a little bit and seems to turn the dirt darker... almost like it's wet. But anyway, after about a minute or so-ish-that-might-have-been-two-or-three, I rinsed off with the pressure washer (15 degree nozzle if you're interested). Then took some more pictures. Whatever's on the calipers is surviving well. Shame I have no idea what it is! Meanwhile, the "bike" looked like this: For a tocuhless wash, that's not a bad result, it's lifted a lot of the heavy dirt, but obvioulsy that's not clean. So ignoring the instructions almost entirely I; Sprayed on (okay so far) to the wheel (not bike), Sprayed onto a wash mitt (also not a bike), Wiped over (that's not in the instructions at all!), Left for zero minutes (that's less than 1 minute), Rinsed off with the pressure washer (that could be considered blasting with clean water, I'll allow it). Which left me with; ...okay, so that "sort of" I'm coming back to, that's happening now. I might have taken photos after the wiping over, but before the rinsing and not taken any of the actual finished result because... well, I'm sh*t and out of practice at all this. But clearly I care so much that I'll definitely try harder next time. Probably. In the meantime, here are the almost-but-not-quite-finished pictures. When I did rinse the "bike", it did remove all of the dirt. I can't prove it with pictures though. What I can do though is give you my final impression of Dirt Magic... sort of. I'll come back to that. It's a pretty good cleaner when used neat, but does need to be wiped over to properly clean - so it's not the illusive miracle touchless wash! It's safe to use on everything - again, no pictures of this (I don't even care anymore), but I have tried it on paintwork, on the lower panels, with similar results (although wipe over follow up on the paintwork). The cherry scent makes it very pleasant to use. So that other sort of then. This is marketed for a specific purpose (rather than All Pur... you get the idea!) and is therefore advised to use neat. I don't like to follow rules, so at some point I will check if, and if so how far, it can be diluted. Price wise, it comes in around about the same as Autosmart G101, which I just happen to have a container of, so I will be using that as a benchmark. And I'll put it up against the £1 supermarket offering. If I remember to do those things. So would I buy it? Probably not, based purely on price. There's a huge price difference between this and supermarket APC's and not enough of a performance difference to warrant that. Would I use it again? Absolutely. I wouldn't be disappointed to receive some more of this. If the price was more aligned to even the branded non-detailing APC's, I would actually prefer the cherry flavoured APC over the typical lemon flavoured you tend to get for domestic purposes in supermarkets. That said, if Sainsbury did a cherry version for £1... To close, I guess I just don't care enough about APC's to pay more than I absolutely have too but I am bored of lemon flavoured APC. Not £7.99 bored though. Also, if someone could remind me what the hell is on the caliper, I'd appreciate it, plzkthx.

A man after my own heart!!

Thanks. Treat yourself, you deserve it. Honestly, so much better than the standard gun, I can't express it enough. I don't disagree with you actually. Suds don't serve any practical purpose in shampoos, but I do feel better if I have some visible evidence that I'm not just throwing (more) water at the car in a highly inefficient way. Yes, you should... you'll never get rid of your waterless wash if you don't.

Awesome work, Col.

Continuing to make a dent in these: Today is focusing on VP Snow Foam. Now those that know me well enough will know that Car Chem Snow Foam is my benchmark, with the link between VP and CC I'm expecting big things. First things first, let's address the big grey thing in the indoor enclosed space. It looks like CC Snow Foam - it's the same watery consistency and it's red(ish - although it does look more orangy in the pictures). When you open the bottle, it smells like CC Snow Foam. Oh, and VP don't sell it anymore. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is Car Chem's Snow Foam. Except that Car Chem don't appear to sell it anymore either*. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure this is exactly the same stuff with a different label on. I'm still going to test it anyway. *I may or may not test the new offerings to see how they match up to my favourite that was the old version. I'm making no promises though. Deciding against decanting the foam from one bottle into another, I instead just screwed the foam lance onto the VP bottle. There was a minor issue with this theory... the thread was not quite compatible. So I ended up decanting half the bottle anyway. Now the way I have my lance set up, I use neat solution in the bottle and adjust the solution to mix to obtain the desired PIR. In this case I'm not washing the car, I'm just testing the foam on a car that's barely moved anywhere in months. Aside from a film of dust grime, the car wasn't especially dirty. I opted for ~6% PIR for anyone interested. Standard process - fire at the car, wait 3-5 minutes (closer to 3 given I'm working in direct sunshine and I was keeping an eye on drying out, particularly on the front end and far side), followed by a thorough rinse (complete with pause for passing neighbours on the left hand side, hence why the video ends before the rear is rinsed properly): As you can see, it's a thinner foam but still has good working time, which is exactly how snow foam should be - yes, shaving foam consistency looks better (at least until you find it hanging around on the drive for 18 years afterwards as you become legally responsible for it's education and wellfare until it's old enough to look after itself and move out... or something) but because it doesn't slide off the panel, it's not removing any of the dirt. Having used it, it's very similar to (old) Car Chem Snow Foam. There are no noticable differences in any way, shape or form. All of which makes this review somewhat irrelevant; it's the same as Car Chem Snow Foam which I've been recommending for years as the joint best snow foam available... except it appears it's no longer available as you can't get from VP or Car Chem any more. Unless "Pre-Soak Snowfoam" is the same thing rebranded and purple (and even if it's not exactly the same stuff, I'm pretty confident it's still a decent product though).

On a related topic, I've finally made a start on using this: Specifically for this update: Ceramic Suds. Now, I must begin with a caveat or twelve. Firstly, the equipment I have to hand is... sub-optimal. Specifically the lack of basic equipment. Like buckets. Fortunately I was throwing it at my sister's family wagon, so safe wash technique has always been less important than the shiny shiny. So I made do with what I had; a pressure washer and a snow foam lance. Ceramic Suds is an SiO2 based "concentrate luxury car shampoo", that "leave a protective hydrophobic layer of liquid glass", and some other stuff about cleaning well and all that good stuff you should expect from any reasonable shampoo. Think Gyeon Bathe+, but green with a scent of... "iced lemon" apparently. If "Iced" mean "faint" then I can smell it. It's got a lemon tone to it in concentrate form, but it's not a strong scent. To be honest, it wasn't until I noticed the scent listed on the webstite as "iced lemon" that I even placed it as lemon, it's such a mild scent. It's a very watery consistency, as such is very easy to decant, and Car Chem state a dilution ratio of 200 to 1 (200:1). However their description actually means 1:200 (1 in 200) because they state "Add 50ML of Ceramic Suds to a 10L bucket and top up with warm [water]" (the bottle finishes the sentence, whilst the website doesn't). Now this is a very minor and pendantic point - the difference is litterally 10,000ml of water + 50ml of shampoo (10,050 solution @ 200:1) versus 9,050ml water + 50ml shampoo (10 litres of solution @ 1:200). Pendantry aside, second caveat: Dilution ratios were ignored entirely. Preamble done, I pre-washed with Car Chem's snow foam first then rinsed the car. It wasn't especially dirty to start off with but there was a traffic film left over avter the foam which required a contact wash. Now, as I mentioned, no buckets - I know, who the hell doesn't have even a single bucket, right?! Well, turns out, that would be my sister. We're very different people... So I improvised with the foam lance (and rinsing the wash mitt with a separate water source). Obviously I did my maths and measured out exactly the right amount of shampoo that Ineeded.... Okay, I just poured some Ceramic Suds into the foam bottle, then poured a bit more in for good measure. Then I topped up with warm water leaving me with 1litre of solution. I did measure it afterwards - the bottle was filled to approximately 20cm high, I now have approximately 18cm of shampoo left. I'm pretty sure that means I've used 10%, i.e. 100ml: So, approximately 9:1. Or 1:10 solution in the foam bottle. Which was then fired at the car @ approximately 10% PIR. So rather than hitting the panel at 200:1/1:200, I had it more or less hitting the panel at... somewhere in the region of 999:1 (or 1:1000). Maybe. Anyway, the theory was simple enough; fire the solution at the car, hope it foams a bit, spread it around the panel with a (cheap) microfibre mitt, rinse with the pressure washer, repeat for the next panel. The reality was; fire it at the panel, realise it doesn't foam much at all. Admire the (literally) instant beading that it adds. Realise I still need to actully wash the car and get on with it. So my approach was not ideal and didn't really give the shampoo a fair shot at all. I will be treating my sister and her household to two new buckets (when I can pick some up rather than paying more for delivery than I'm prepared to pay for the buckets!) and I'll give it a fairer shot with an updated write up. In the meantime, I do have some initial observations. Firstly, as I mentioned, it doesn't seem to be a particularly foamy shampoo - again, I circle back to the Bathe+ comparison - it foams up under running water (when filling the bottle) but it's not what you'd call sudsy by any means. If suds are important to you; a) you've got the wrong priorities, b) this is not the shampoo for you. Caveat number three: remembering that I was using it at 5x the dilution ratio. I didn't find it particularly slick on the surface. It wasn't grabby by any means, but there was a touch more resistance across the panel with the shampoo than with clean water. The sensation wasn't enough to worry me that I was causing damage, but it was noticable and worth noting. At the very least, it's an odd sensation for a shampoo. That said (and repeat caveat 3), it did clean very well and managed to lift all except the most stubborn of tar spots lower down on the sills. And a final repeat of caveat 3; the protection it adds was immediately evident and every bit as impressive as my personal favourite, Bathe+. The car has precisely zero protection on it - my sister is the type to expect my brother-in-law to wash the car, he being the type of person who would washing up liquid for shampoo (albeit not due to the dilusion that it's "stripping" previous LSP's - also; no, it absolutely does not, the surfectants in washing up liquid are designed to affect water behaviour that some people, mistakenly, believe demonstrates a weakened LSP. It does compromise LSP in the same way this and shampoo does, just with the opposite effect. Anyway, moving on.). Using Ceramic Suds through a foam lance created a number of problems for me - notwithstanding the dilution ratios, it instantly adds a layer of protection that very effectively beads and somewhat effectively sheets water. So you spray it at the panel, put the foam lance down and... find a reasonably dry panel. Fortunately I have a short gun, so I resorted to spray the panel with one hand, immediately wipe over with the other. Took some practice, but I think I nailed the technique in the end. I did have to pause to rinse the panels every so often, largely because I was working in the sun which has finally decided to make an appearance this week. Where I wasn't able to rinse/wipe properly (namely, the middle fo the roof - it's a Grand Scenic. With roof rails. And I was in too much of a rush (read: too lazy) to get steps, so the middle section of the roof didn't get a contact wash) it resulted in minor smearing (similar to Bathe+ and even WetCoat when not rinsed throughly enough before drying). When I say minor, it was enough to bother me, but neither my sister nor brother-in-law even noticed it. I would strongly advise using buckets. I used the whole 100ml of shampoo doing the car, which I could have done with just 50ml in a bucket and would have got more of the shampoo on more of the car at the same time. P*ss Poor technique aside, I'm generally quite impressed with Ceramic Suds, and I'm pretty certain with comparative use it might even give Bathe+ a run for it's money. Of course, I will test this one day and post the results. You may have noticed the lack of pictures again with this one. I know, I'm being sh*t, but that's the reason I'm delaying reviews of the VP Snow Foam and Dirt Magic. I'm aiming to get pictures for these in use on the Z tomorrow. Or to put it another way; quit your moaning, I'm working on it! When I have buckets, I will review this review of Ceramic Suds and I might even get pictures for the the re-review. Maybe.