Turtle Wax Liquid Clay Bar & Ice Polish review

[StarBlazer]

Yesterday morning I took advantage of the overcast sky and cool temperatures to clean and wax the 96 Civic. The car is not perfect in terms of finish but not horrible either. Normal for an 11 year old non-show, daily commuter car. I waxed the Civic instead of the Pilot because I wanted to see how these products worked before I put on the new truck.

The Liquid Clay Bar was very easy to use. You apply it as if you were washing the car. No real elbow grease. It was a thin product, watery, not paste. It lathers up on the car and you hose it off. This product worked as advertised. It stripped off all the old wax and other contaniments. If you just stop there, you won't be happy. You need to apply wax after this. The real benefits of this product aren't really obvious until after the waxing.

After the clay bar and drying, I applied the ICE Polish. The labeling on this product is somewhat confusing, probably purposely. Although it is labelled a polish, it does contain wax. This product went on extremely easily. It is the consistency of baby oil. I was pretty liberal with the amount applied and it doesn't seem to get overloaded. I let it dry for about 5 minutes. It wasn't so much hazy but streaky. I took a damp cloth and wiped the car down to remove the excess wax and then buffed with the included microfiber cloth. Very shiny results, but not neccessarily any more shiny then other types of wax.

The real benefits of this product is the ease of use. Both went on super easy and came off super easy. No hard buffing, no elbow grease. There is no white residue so you can use it on the plastic pieces with confidence. There's no gunk left arround the lettering and Honda emblems. The car is really smooth now and I credit the clay bar for this. Most of the swirl marks are gone as well. The finish looks deep and shiny. Its not a miracle worker however. If you have scratches or pain imperfections, you still will after this.

It rained today, you can thank me for that, and it beaded nicely as expected with any wax. I'll follow up at some point with a durability assesment.

Bottomline, Clay bar is great and easy to use. Ice is easy to use, no build up or white residue and the finish seems as comparable to paste wax.

[GreenMachine]

Thanks for the review! I might have to try them out now.

[tim.s]

Sounds less like a clay bar and more like a chemical stripper. But if you got the results you wanted, so what.

[OCDetails]

That liquid clay bar stuff is a crock. It cannot do what a normal clay bar can do. It just isn't possible to put bits of clay in a polish and achieve the same results as an actual clay bar. All you have to do is clay half your hood and then use this liquid clay stuff on the other half and feel the results. It is obvious what the liquid clay can't do if you compare it like that. Do the experiment on a car that actually needs to be clayed. If the car is more than a year old and has never been clayed then it would be a good canidate for that test. I've done it and the results are obvious.

They make it sound like claying you vehicle is so hard to do and that you need their Liquid Clay product to make it easier. To do it right takes practically no time at all. Here is a brief video I made this weekend on claying.



How tough is that? Seriously though, the Liquid Clay Bar may be a good paint cleaner, but it isn't able to pull the contamination out of the paint. At the very most it would be leveling it off at the surface and leaving particles embedded. That isn't healthy for your paint at all.

It is a good 'off the shelf' paint cleaner and polish, but I would definitely suggest using a real clay bar for that step. It isn't something you have to do every day, so the investment is worth it. You should clay your vehicle whenever it needs it, but usually it only needs it two or three times a year.

Anyway, sorry to rant. That was a good review and it sounds like you did good work.

[StarBlazer]

Liquid Clay Bar is marketed to people like me who know little about detailing a car. On an eleven year old car this product as well as the Ice polish made it feel smooth and look better. I don't think its a horrible product. I'll look into the actual clay at some point and maybe I'll post a comparison as you suggested. For the detail-minded person this may not be the way to go. For the average Joe like me, it made the car feel and look better and there was little effort. If I were to sell the car today, I'm sure I'd get more money now then before I used this product based on the appearence only.

[OCDetails]

That's the beauty of clay though. It is actually easier to use that than it is to use the polish. But since clay is a patented technology and there are only two companies in the world that make it, it limits who gets to have it. I guess Turtle Wax is jealous that Mother's, Meguiar's, and Clay Magic hold the corner on the market of consumer grade clay. Their 'liquid clay' product isn't really a great substitute though.

[StarBlazer]

It's been two months since I used the Turtle Wax Ice and I wanted to post an update. After two month the water was still beading on the hood nicely but was not so much on the roof and trunk lid of the Civc. I rewaxed the car and am happy with the results. The first time I did this it was overcast and cool. This time it was rather warm and sunny. I started to wax the car in the mostly sunny area as the instruction said this was possible. Although I had no problem with the application, the black car was just too hot so I moved it to a much more shaded area and waited a bit for it to cool. The wax went on very easily. The actual application didn't make a difference hot or cool. It buffed up with the microfiber cloth included very well. I also waxed the Pilot with this as well. I used it on the black plastic on both. Those buffed up to a nice shine as well and didn't feel I needed any black magic type products. I had a harder time seeing the wax on the blue Pilot than I did the Balck civic because their is no white remains, just a haze. It was also easier seeing the haze in the shade than in the sun. Seems backwards. I feel comfortable using this product. I understand Turtle Wax is not highly regarded in the detailing world, but this product seems decent to me. I will continue to use it.

[StarBlazer]

I still have the original bottle of Turle Wax Ice as in the previous review except when I took it off the shelf this year, it had a distinct brown color to it. It was no longer crystal clear. I tested it on a small spot on the back fender and it didn't glide on as easily as before. I sent an email message via the Turtle Wax website, asking if there was an expiration date and if that was normal. There was no response from them. I was just hoping for a coupon or something like that. Since I liked the results, I dumped the bottle and went to the store a bought the Turtle Wwax Ice Paste. But when I opened it, there was rust around the foil seal, and the product was caked solidly in the canister.

So I returned it and bought the Meguire's clay bar kit. It was recommended at that time of the first post that I try a real clay bar and not the liquid clay bar. The Meguire kit included two pieces of clay (only used one), Quick Detailer (as the lube), a small bottle of cleaner wax, a case for the unused clay, and a microfiber cloth.

I washed the pilot and clayed it. Very easy to do. There was a bit of residue left over, so I followed up with the Turtle Wax Liquid Clay, because it is like washing it again. I had some on the shelf so what the hey. Then I used the cleaner wax and buffed it up with the micro fiber cloth. You have to be more careful because it will leave the black plactic white unlike the Ice.

[StarBlazer]

The end result is very good. Since I'm not a detailer I can't comment on the best waxes or clay bars on the market. I can say that as the average Joe cleaning the family hauler that the whole process was very easy and fun to feel the difference.

If you haven't clayed before, try it. The Meguire Kit give you everything you need and the results are super smooth and noticeably shiny.

Thanks OCDetails for the video and the push in the right direction.

[bigdadi]

Here is a link of applying to a Mustang with Ice Wash, Ice Liquid Clay, Ice Polish with many photos.

http://speedshop.mustangworld.com/ou...w_07/index.htm

[vtec95]

I got some clearcoat scratches on the back door of my pilot...regular waxes work to hide it but when the car gets washed again, its back...any idea on how to get it out permanenetly?

[humanoid]

Originally posted by vtec95
I got some clearcoat scratches on the back door of my pilot...regular waxes work to hide it but when the car gets washed again, its back...any idea on how to get it out permanenetly?

Depending on how deep the scratches are a good orbital buffer with some polish followed by carnuba wax should take care of it.

[JamieR]

Sounding like a Meguiar's fanboy, but I'm really impressed with their prducts.

Scratches can be tricky, especially if they are deep. There can be several solutions to fixing them, depending on the severity, as you have found, waxing is only a temporary fix. Go to the Meguiar's forums and look at their advice, or create an account and post the question there. Very friendly and knowledgeable group over there, and more than willing to help any way they can.

Jamie