Worst products you ever used.

5.0_GT_kid

Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Apr 18, 2004
1,155
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Largo, Florida
Since we got all these threads talking about good products, lets talk about what DOESN'T work. I'll go first.

Black Magic Interior Dressing - Can you say g-r-e-a-s-y? You'd be better off smearing cooking oil all over your interior, and it'd probably smell better too. This stuff was pure crap. All it did was attract dust and smear/outgas on the glass. I'll never again buy another Black Magic product. I replaced this with Durgloss #203, Eagle One and then a local product called Flashwax.

Back to Black - Another horrible product. Doesn't last long and will wash off, leaving streaks where it runs down the paint. I replaced it with Duragloss #301 which not only looks better, but is also water resistant.

Advanced Auto Tire Shine - They were selling this for crazy cheap one day, so I picked up a bottle to try it out. Yeah, that'll never happen again either. This stuff barely lasted a couple days because it always managed to sling off the tire onto the car, no matter what I did.

Mothers California Gold Carnuba Wax - This was given to me as a gift and it was the first wax I tried on my Mustang. It just didn't give a decent look. Also didn't last very long either.

Armor-All Hard Shine Wax - Same as above. Given to me as a gift and it just flat out didn't shine.

Zymol OTS wax in the blue bottle - I normally wouldn't have listed this, except that it was outperformed by much cheaper products. Way overpriced.

Meguiars Quik Detailer - Just did not perform. Seemed more like water mixed with some car wash soap rather than a true quick detailer.
 
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Funny, I use the Meg's QD all the time. Of course, my car is garage kept, so maybe that helps, but I use it pretty much every time I drive it.

Meg's cleaner wax. I used it once because it came free with the clay kit. It's not a bad product really, but you can't replace the 5 step process with a wax and think it'll look good (5 steps=wash, clay, paint cleaner, polish, wax).

Mother's claybar. This was years ago, and how a claybar can't work well is beyond me, but it couldn't get relatively fresh overspray off my truck (yes, I took the wrapper off, and I know how to use a claybar). Fast forward about 4 years, I decided to try it with a Meg's bar I had just used on my car. Overspray came right off. I've stuck with Meg's since.

Not a bad product, but I *HATE* the smell-Meg's gold class trim detailer. Does wonders for the mirrors, cowl, taillight housings, etc on an SN95, but it stinks. I usually love how their products smell.
 
Back to Black - Another horrible product. Doesn't last long and will wash off, leaving streaks where it runs down the paint. I replaced it with Duragloss #301 which not only looks better, but is also water resistant.

when applying back to black, you DO buff/wipe off the residue of after letting the product sit on the plastic for a bit, right? you shouldnt get streaks
 
3m wax (I believe Imperial was the name) lasted about a week maybe 2 then dead.

Rain Dance (old school lol) it went on easy and looked good but damn was it hard to remove no matter what.

Armor All original just to much "bling" for dash duty and not much better to tires. It's water based so that is a plus but water based dressing don't last long on tires during the raining season. It would work well for under the hood duty as it dried to the touch.

Black Magic tire dressing it just slings crap everywhere no matter how long it has to dried or buffed.

All I can think of.
 
Meguiars Swirl and Scratch Remover. I bought a bottle of that and rubbed out this black Camaro. It shined good, but it hardened up on the car so hard that I had to fold up a rag and push so hard to break it apart and get it off.

I ran to the store and picked up a bottle of 3M Swirl and Scratch Remover for Dark Colored cars, and it shined better than the Meguiars and it didn't clump up. It had easy clean up.

Someone mentioned Meguiars Quik Detailer. It is a type of sopay water type spray, but it worked well on my black Lightning. It was great for bird droppings too. I was at a car show, and I got two on the hood, I let it soak in there, and it wiped off leaving no marks.
 
BTW...the best smelling products are Wizards. They smell like black cherry. They don't smell like chemicals because they don't have any harmful chemicals such as Crystalline Silica, or Quartz.

Those two chemicals are very harmful to breathe in. It is like microscopic peices of glass that stick right into you lung tissue.
 
Any kind of wet tire spray IMO is total crap.

I use turtle wax wet tire gel. Jus tuse a little and be sure to let it dry before you go driving or else everything on the street (dirt, rocks, squirells, etc..) will stick to your tires.

I have used the MG detailing spray and it worked just fine for me too.
 
Any kind of wet tire spray IMO is total crap.

I use turtle wax wet tire gel. Jus tuse a little and be sure to let it dry before you go driving or else everything on the street (dirt, rocks, squirells, etc..) will stick to your tires.

I have used the MG detailing spray and it worked just fine for me too.

I hear ya on the wet tire sprays, but I always have good luck with the spray foam ones. I hate the gels because they are so dam messy and waste a good rag.
 
Also that Turtle Wax ICE liquid polish sucks. I applied it on half of my hood the first time I used it. Noticed no difference from one side to the other. If I asked somebody to point out which side had the polish they would just be guessing.
 
I use Back to Black and it works good to start off, but it doesn't last very long.

Black Magic Quick Detailer works pretty well.

Eagle One Tire Gel is by far the worst product i have ever used. It could possibly look the best, but even if i let it dry for hours, i have tire gel speckles all over my car after i drive.


Meguiars Gold Class wax sucks ass too.

edit: Forgot to add this too. Armorall products suck all together. Lowes stopped carrying the wheel cleaner that i used, that was by far the best wheel cleaner i ever used (Dupont Teflon Wheel Cleaner) so i went to target and grabbed the Armorall Triple Wheel Cleaner or something and it was horrible. Left white marks and took forever to rinse. So im using that Black Magic Performance wheel cleaner (the one with the 350z on the front) and it works good.