Legitimacy of Product

[zr123]

** I am in no way advertising for any manufacture or product. The following is just a simple question **

I was browsing eBay for some Meguiar's products and I came across this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4552188589

Can anyone give an input on this product?

Not that I would ever purchase it, but just curious.

As far as I know waxing your car is a must in order to protect it.

Mike, your input would be much appreciated.


Thanks,

ZR

[Mosca]

Man, I just wrote a long dissertation about this on another forum. I understand that you aren't interested in the product other than as curiosity, but I wrote this to someone who had persistence of belief.

Since they are my own words, I'll take some of the relevant points and repeat them here.

The company is actually "5 Star Marketing", not 5 Star Shine. The owner teaches internet marketing, uses his company 5 Star Shine as an example of how to do it successfully, and then offers his product to be marketed by his students.

1) There are no standards for what constitutes "lasts a year" or "lasts five years". No one comes around and checks. If you read the fine print that backs these claims, they don't say that their product lasts five years. What they do is they warrant that if you apply their product to a new car they will warrant the finish for five years. They don't say that it will last five years; they guarantee five years of satisfaction. That's a very different thing. I have 16 years selling aftermarket products to end users (individual consumers). I know what these chemicals are, and I've read the fine print.

2) Remove yourself from product claims for a moment and ask yourself: if you were a small manufacturer that developed a chemical with these properties, the ability to maintain a film against the elements for five years (or even one year), what would it be worth really? Would you really decide to market it $50 a time on ebay, and on websites, to individual users? Or would you sell it to Daimler-Chrysler or GM, or sell the formula to a major player for big bucks and retire? Is it credible to think that such a company would succeed where DuPont, Monsanto, 3M, GmBH, BASF and others couldn't? (I leave Meguiar's out because large as they are in the car care field, they are like a fly to an elephant when it comes to these guys.) Engineering is really all about research money. What is more credible is that these chemicals have been around a long time and are being used by many different companies for the same thing, and that they are being MARKETED in different ways by some companies.

3) There's nothing new here, other than implied claims. Look at the websites pushing 5 Star: "trustmymechanic.com", "cardetective.com", "buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com", etc. Part of the marketing ploy is to surround the pitch with other "useful" content, making the recommendation of 5 Star look off-hand and like it's coming from a consumer advocate. One of them even says to "AVOID THE NEW CAR PAINT SEALANT SCAM!" And then proceeds to say, in so many words, "Fall for OUR deal instead, it's cheaper!" Read the 5 Star website closely; all you'll see is testimonials. Read the "independent test"; 5 Star isn't compared to other products, it is compared to... nothing. Bare paint; and it is compared for its ability to repel distilled water. And the test isn't for 5 Star Shine specifically. Any other paint sealant might have worked as well, or better, or worse. But we can't tell that from the test. All we know is that "a major car wax" failed after 25 washings. Kit? Turtle Wax? Meguiar's Gold Class? Who knows, we are never told.

4) I'm no expert, but I think that I know some people who get government contracts, and they aren't always based on how good a job gets done. Without more details no one can say, but two scenarios are: first, that no one else bid the contract for Aegis; and second, that there were multiple bids of product that were of equal efficacy and 5 Star's was the lowest. There are other scenarios as well, these are only two.

I'll leave the chemistry of the whole thing to Mike and others who know it better. I wrote some of it in the other forum, but I'm sure others can offer more insight than I can; my description was very general. My own research tells me that five year paint sealant is called "clearcoat".


Tom

[Mike Phillips]

Here's the marketing site behind 5 Star Shine,

GorillaWebsiteMarketing.com/

He uses the 5 Star Shine paint protectant to demonstrate the power of viral marketing through sharing mass links between websites. In a nutshell, search engines rank websites with lots of links pointing to it higher than website with few links pointing to it.

By creating an affiliate program, (kind of like multi-level marketing), he was able to get his website, http://www.5starshine.com/ to the top listings of google and other search engines when someone types in the word, car wax, all through the power of reciprocal links.

As far as the product goes, this wax is sold under all kinds of names, you get two little bottles, I think they're 4 ounces each, one is the wax one is a car wash for about $70.00

Read through the marketing hype and if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably isn't.

[Superior Shine]

Aaaaw great!!!!!! I just bought a 55 gallom drum of the stuff!!!!

[Jimmy Buffit]

Darn! I was gonna get some, but they said some guy just bought their last 55 gallons. They said they hadn't sold that much in years...

Jim

[Aurora40]

Originally posted by Jimmy Buffit
Darn! I was gonna get some, and they said some guy just bought their last 55 gallons. They said they hadn't sold that much in years...

Jim

LOL!!!

[gb387]

Man that stuff is $$$$$$$!

[rusty bumper]

You guys kill me!


I try to stay away from products that have to rely on a scantly clad woman to advertise it..........That's a dead give-a-way that the product is usually worthless.

Even I could get a patent now-a-days! I just saw on the news that the patent office is so overwhelmed that they are issuing patents for just about anything!