Color-X didn't work like I expected

[Paradox]

Sorry to start a new thread, but attaching this to the other thread, this might get lost.

Well, I tried Color-x in a small area where I found a few minor scratches on my new vehicle, and as my adult kids would say, "it didn't work well". I tried lightly at first, afraid to do more damage, buffed, and then harder with more X, buffed, then more color-x, and harder with feeling and more buffing, and there was absolutely no difference. So, where is says on the bottle, "Helps remove fine scratches" is not accurate. These are minor scratches, barely noticeable, and not deep enough to be felt by a finger nail. Not too happy as a first time Meguiar's customer.

I also went with the 100% cotton dry towels that were recommended on this site, not Meguiar's, but 100% made in the USA, and they **** also. I washed these first, before using them, and while they did dry the vehicle, they left little white particles on my black car.

Not sure if this detailing is all it is cracked up to be. I have a 2000 LeSabre bought new that looks absolutely beautiful, and I have only ever used whatever my wife had under the kitchen sink for soap, and dried it with an old wiper blade, and an old bath towel. With the odd waxing here and there with whatever wax was cheapest, over six years, the car looks great. My 30 year old TR-7 is equally as nice. You young kids might want to google Triumph TR-7 to know what car I am referring to.

I will use up the ClayBar, the Color-X and NXT, I have purchased. I realize most of you are not into old fart cars like LeSabres and Lucernes, but paint and shine is shared by all vehicles. Once the Lucerne is clayed, Color-xed and NXTed, I will park it next to the the LeSabre, and post a picture (If I can figure out how to do it) and I would bet no one would know the difference or could fault the LeSabre's paint or shine.

Being retired, I have the time and the money to easily spend time detailing
my Lucerne, but if some cheap dish soap and 20 minutes to make a car look wonderful, as opposed to a day in my garage every weekend lopping expensive goop on my car, (which may or may not do as claimed), to make it look the same...well what do you think I am going to do.

Over to you Mike.

[Mayur]

Re: Color-X *****

If you are using the product correctly and its still not removing the scratches then the product may not be powerful enough to get them out. If your working by hand, pick up a tube of Scratch-X. I for one recommend a PC 7424 or a G-100 and using some products from the professional mirror glaze line such as #83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish or #80 Speed Glaze.

Mayur

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Color-X *****

First, sorry your not getting the results you expected. We have thousands of people and actually hundreds of thousands of people that use and love ColorX, so when someone has a problem we tend to try to trouble shoot where the problem might be besides the product.

Second, we're going to change the name of your subject as this is a family friendly forum and we don't want words like that on our forum.

Third, I'll post more to this later but we've been on the computer since 6:30am, we're still on it and right now we're going to have some dinner; can't work 24 hours a day, please hang in there till I get back to type some more.

[Thejoyofdriving]

Re: Color-X *****

I would agree with mayur, it is really difficult to remove any type of scratches by hand. I tried scratchx on my dads Porsche and i didnt see any diffrence, my dads car is marred by holograms and swirl marks like no other, but im pretty sure i just didnt put enough passion behind it, with a g100 though it would have been a different story. I am a 100% faithful and SATISFIED meguiars customer. Using dish soap is going to strip off all of your wax protection and dish soap is meant for dishes, not cars. Dish soap also does not have as much lubricity, so it washing can scratch your paint while you are rubbing dirt particals into the paint. I truthfully feel bad for those cars, there is no comparison between a car done with dish soap and dryed with a bath towel and a car that is washed cleaned clayed polished and waxed. Take time and do a proper detail and i will let your eyes do the talking.

[Joe's detailing]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

Paradox, don't throw in the towel your experiencing a minor setback. As others have said before, the product has to safe for consumers if product don't Improve scratch removal, upgrade to professional grade...

If you can't find a difference between a detailed car and one that's never getting the same treatment, then your uninformed about products or have very limited knowledge in field...

As knowledge in detailing experience progresses,products will achieve what they state and you will see more clearly....

[richN]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

I have found that using#80 by hand works great.I feel it far supasses scatch-X. I would only use #80 by hand on the problem areas only, because to do the whole car with 80 by hand I dont think you could be consistant enough to get the results you hoped for.

[PorscheGuy997]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

Sir, you really need to cool it...

ColorX works well for removing light oxidation and scratches. Like everyone else said, it probably is not enough for your scratches.

Next, you can't 'use up' a claybar - it doesn't dissolve. If yours is dissolving, stop using dish soap as lubricant.

Lastly, Meguiar's products will make a difference in your paint. You must use the right products and use them correctly. I'm surprised that your clear coat isn't striped with scratches from using an old wiper blade. Also, dish soap isn't meant for cars - dish soap for dishes and car soap for cars. Why are you spending every weekend in the garage working on the paint? You're obviously doing something wrong if you have to do that. Meguair's is not expensive compared to the money that you'll spend having someone else detail it for you.

Oh and by the way, we on MOL are not all young and clueless. Most of us can identify a TR-7. We each have our own specialties. Do you know what DDR2 800 is? You might want to try Google...

Please be kind; most of the problems are caused by a lack of car respect on your part. Meguiar's is trying to repair it instead of wasting money on what is cheapest.

[imacarnut]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

You must use the right products and use them correctly.

agreed, the technique makes all the difference...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

Sorry to start a new thread, but attaching this to the other thread, this might get lost.

Well, I tried Color-x in a small area where I found a few minor scratches on my new vehicle, and as my adult kids would say, "it didn't work well". I tried lightly at first, afraid to do more damage, buffed, and then harder with more X, buffed, then more color-x, and harder with feeling and more buffing, and there was absolutely no difference.

So, where is says on the bottle, "Helps remove fine scratches" is not accurate. These are minor scratches, barely noticeable, and not deep enough to be felt by a finger nail. Not too happy as a first time Meguiar's customer.

There's a number of themes that run through this forum as well as other detailing discussion forums and that is people don't like to look at swirls and scratches in the clear coat finish on their cars and when they try to remove them the get frustrated because simply put... it's not easy. The general reason for this is because compared to older single stage paints pre-1980 are harder than modern clear coat paints.

One thing we'd like to point out... it's not our fault. That is, it's not Meguiar's fault the paint technology changed. Modern clear coats last a long time, at least longer than traditional single-stage paints, and that's a benefit to you and me. A lot of people confuse

Last a long time

with

Look good a long time

and this just isn't true. You could wash a new car with a SOS pad and scratch the heck out of and because of the chemistry of the paint, even with scratches the clear coat paint, the resin itself resist breaking down via oxidation. Thus the paint will last a long time but it sure won't look good.


Another big picture theme that you'll see running through all detailing discussion forum is the popularity of the Porter Cable Dual Action Polisher, we call our the G100 and it comes with a life time warranty, most of the rest of the world simply calls it the PC.

The reason the G100/PC is becoming so popular has to do with the first theme, clear coat paints are hard.

Let us re-phrase that...

The Rule
Generally speaking, modern clear coat paints are harder than traditional single stage paints.

The reason we say it the way we typed it above is because there are modern clear coat paints that are soft, sometimes very soft, but generally speaking these paints are the exception to the rule, not the standard.


Now we're not standing in your garage working with you on your car, so we can only go by the results you're seeing and sharing with us and we're confident that what you've described is accurate, but that doesn't mean ColorX doesn't work, it means it doesn't work in your situation, on your paint type to your expectations. While some of these factors are out of our control, we go above and beyond our customers expectations and offer you a 100% money back guarantee if you're not satisfied which not only do we encourage to to take advantage of but I can assure you on Monday morning when the rest of the team is back in the office we will take it a step further and we will take a proactive step to insure we see you through to success no matter what it takes.

One thing for sure... Meguiar's knows paint polishing, if any company can see you through to success its Meguiar's.


Now on to trouble shooting your problem via a keyboard and pixels on an electronic cyber window into your world.


ColorX is a cleaner/wax, more specifically it's a strong cleaner/wax, and while it's a strong cleaner wax it's still gentle to the clear coat finish, the strength behind ColorX is in the chemical cleaners and the diminishing abrasives and while the amount and combination of these ingredients is substantial relative to the type of product it is, it is still limited in what it can do especially by hand.

Meguiar's alway teaches the philosophy of

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

This means, if ColorX doesn't fix the problem then the next step is to try a more aggressive product, in the Consumer Line this would be ScratchX, it's not that ScratchX is a whole lot more aggressive than ColorX, but it is a dedicated paint cleaner, that is it has one function and that is to remove below surface defects, (remove paint), on the other hand ColorX is a combination product that is it's part cleaner, part polish and part wax.

The point being is a dedicated product is usually better performing a dedicated purpose versus a combination product.

That said, if ColorX isn't working for you to remove scratches and you're technique is dead-on, the while ScratchX may do the job, in the real world if you want to remove swirls and scratches out of your car's clear coat finish then you need to consider stepping up to machine cleaning and polishing.

Working by hand for the work you're trying to do and the expectations you have is never going be easy or fast. Working by machine will get the job done and it will take a lot of the work out of the process and be a lot faster.

If you spend a couple hours reading through the forum where we post pictures from our Saturday classes you'll find plenty of before and after pictures showing what can be done by hand and what can be done by machine, in almost every instance the results produced by machine always exceed the results produced by hand.


Paradox... it's okay to feel frustrated with your results, working on clear coat paints is hard, if it were easy... I wouldn't have a job.


This is a long reply and we have two Rolls Royce automobiles to polish out tomorrow, one is a single stage paint the other is a basecoat/clear coat finish but before ending this thread we would also like to point out that when working on clear coat finishes, if you have a light colored car, that is the basecoat color is light, (under the clear coat layer), then there's never going to be a huge, dramatic before and after visual result after hand applying a cleaner/wax.

You can clean the surface and together with claying restore a lot of gloss, but that's not going to be a huge difference like these results on a clear coated black finish.

Taken from this thread




That's not to say you can't get great results out of clear coat paints with light color coats under them as you certainly can, especially when under the right lights looking for certain types of defects, like swirls in the sun.



Taken from this thread

Before





Here's some of the best shots we were able to capture with the sun low in the sky, which makes this kind of photography very difficult to do well.

After

By hand area using ScratchX








The section we worked on by machine




Here's Joey's shot...




See the difference in results by hand versus machine? You have to study the pictures with the words to get a handle on what's being shown. Point being even with the right products and applying them with a seasoned veteran of polishing paint, removing swirls and scratches by hand is difficult and doesn't always meet your expectations or ours... it's the nature of the paint.


Shoot me an e-mail with a phone number we can contact you at on Monday and hang tight...

[Thejoyofdriving]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

Nice post mike!

[Paradox]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

First, my apologies to those who seem to have taken offense at my post; that was not my intention, nor was it intended to be personal. My reference to "you young kids" was a term of endearment and not a slam. Heck, I even referred to myself as an old fart. It sure seems though that misguided retaliation is personal.

Second, Mike, I am sorry I used that particular word, however, I think you did me a disservice by editing my post, and explaining why, as now anyone reading it will think I used a truly offensive word. The word was "*****" and have heard it used in the company of young children on television in prime time. Perhaps it is only a bad word when associated with Meguiar's products. I would hope you will leave my explanation here intact so future readers will not think I am some foul mouthed individual. Opps, I did use the word 'fart'.

Last evening I was disappointed with the Color-X results. The frustration probably was apparent in my post. Thank you Mike for your detailed reply.
Over the last weeks I have learned much from you and some of the members here. Thank you all!!! Perhaps I will take it to a professional as PG977 suggests; it will be worth the several hundreds of dollars, and less grief all around.

So, PorscheGuy977, was this post cool enough for you? Perhaps a little kinder than a personal attack, would you say? And, one does "use up" a clay bar, perhaps not in the sense of emptying a container of wax, but it does become unusable (hence 'used up') and thrown away. Nowhere in my post did I suggest I would be using dish soap as a lubricant. Boy, and they say the paint on a car is thin..........

[angusdope]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

I've never had any experience with Color-X (our distributors here probably can't see a market for it ), however I've found Scratch-X to be effective on everything from Series 1 Land Rovers to 2001 Ford Focus. Spend a little time refining your technique and I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results and remember we're all here to help!

[Paradox]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

I've never had any experience with Color-X (our distributors here probably can't see a market for it ), however I've found Scratch-X to be effective on everything from Series 1 Land Rovers to 2001 Ford Focus. Spend a little time refining your technique and I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results and remember we're all here to help!

I am willing to try Scratch-X. Can it be applied by hand or does it require a power buffer? Thanks for the suggestion.

[gb387]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

I am willing to try Scratch-X. Can it be applied by hand or does it require a power buffer? Thanks for the suggestion.

You can apply ScratchX by hand, originally it was for use by hand only but the formula has been changed recently, anyway.... Here are a couple very good links:

How To Remove Swirls By Hand
How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX
What it Means to Remove a Scratch

Keep in mind when trying to remove swirls and scratches by hand it is going to take some time and effort, you might spread the work out over a couple days. Now ScratchX is a paint cleaner remember there is no need to let the product dry like a wax and it does not leave any protection behind so you must apply a wax after the ScratchX.

I hope this information will help!

[Mayur]

Re: Color-X didn't work like I expected

^That is correct. Scratch-X will kill you after one panel. It killed me when I did this one long scratch but in the end the scratch was gone.