Chemical guys

Angel_r24 said:
Best part of Luber is that you can dilute that A LOT!!! I make it a light baby blue color. Smells great too!
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I didn't know that. I also really like their pad cleaner, which I found out you can dilute as well.
 
I read through this thread the other night in bed... and never want to take the time to type on my phone.

I did want to chime in, not to add to the obvious disdain of Chemical Guys... but just because I feel like I've had a lot of experience with them and my perspective counts.

They're pretty terrible, in a nutshell. Either V7 or Meg's Glaze rank as the worst product I've ever used, but more so than that, what really irks me is that Chemical Guys as a whole seems like a disorganized frat-house full of aspiring con-artists, than a legitimate serious organization devoted toward formulating superlative products.

Their website, Instagram, Facebook and on and on is chalk full of nothing more than bar-babes that barely rank a 6, in a tank top spraying snow foam on a car. Then comes all the puns on their website, like "Just the tip" and showing the tip of a wheel brush etc etc. Hardy har-har, HOW CLEVER you all are! I remember that joke... from 3rd grade, but then I had to learn cursive and go to lunch.

Anywho... haha... yeah, I won't be buying from them anymore. Sure, their Red Citrus Wash has been pretty good, I'll admit, but they don't make anything I can't find from someone else.
 
agarabaghi said:
I didn't know that. I also really like their pad cleaner, which I found out you can dilute as well.
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Yup!! I dilute that 20:1 and it cleans them good. I usually spray that a couple of times on my pad before using it. Then damp it on my shirt/shorts and it's good to go.

I clean the pads with an infant bottle brush. Almost like a giant toothbrush for like 99 cents at your local grocery store!! Check by the bottle sections, you wont miss it. They have the stiff brushes but look for the soft bristles brush.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using AG Online
 
Today I used Chemical Guy's carpet and upholstry brush for the DA for the first time. It's the one with long bristles, not the stiff one with short ones.

So the brush came on it's own. No packaging, no instruction... it's a brush so I guess that's ok.

It put it on my Meg's DA with the 5" BP. Fits well, all is good so far.

So after I spray my carpet solution, I have to decide what speed to choose on the DA. I figured that since this will be rubbing on carpet, it will need a lot of power for the brush to keep spinning on a DA with the bristles grabbing the carpet. So I put it on 6.

Turn on the DA, bristles starts flying in every direction. I shut it off and pick them off the carpet. Brush must have lost about 50-100 bristles in the 2 seconds it was running.

So I put it to speed 3, and turn it on again. Same thing happens.

So I tried on speed 1.5 and it finally stopped sheeding. Of course the brush wasn't rotation most of the time. So I am very skeptical about the usefullness of this brush.

An other fail in my book for their products.

Do any of you guys use this brush and do you have any advice to use it efficiently?

Oh last thing, I tried to take the brush off the Backing Plate and could not. I will go at it with a flat screwdriver in a few mins... sigh.
 
Regarding your brush question. I have sold cleaning chemicals, brushes, carpet extractors,Floor buffers, high end shop vacs etc. to manufacturing companies for years. The whole concept of putting a brush on a da and spinning it on carpet is ridiculous in the first place. I would never do it and never suggest it to a customer. Most carpet fibers are spun to begin with and so going at them with a spinning machine/brush combo, ouch! Just my humble opinion and 20 plus years of experience. As for CG and their brush, they don't mfg them any more than AG does or any other company selling them. Obviously not made in the USA either. I'd use an extractor, rent one if it's your car. The powder product you can buy at Home Depot "Capture" works great too. Scrub in with a brush, vacuum up.
 
Calendyr said:
Today I used Chemical Guy's carpet and upholstry brush for the DA for the first time. It's the one with long bristles, not the stiff one with short ones.

So the brush came on it's own. No packaging, no instruction... it's a brush so I guess that's ok.

It put it on my Meg's DA with the 5" BP. Fits well, all is good so far.

So after I spray my carpet solution, I have to decide what speed to choose on the DA. I figured that since this will be rubbing on carpet, it will need a lot of power for the brush to keep spinning on a DA with the bristles grabbing the carpet. So I put it on 6.

Turn on the DA, bristles starts flying in every direction. I shut it off and pick them off the carpet. Brush must have lost about 50-100 bristles in the 2 seconds it was running.

So I put it to speed 3, and turn it on again. Same thing happens.

So I tried on speed 1.5 and it finally stopped sheeding. Of course the brush wasn't rotation most of the time. So I am very skeptical about the usefullness of this brush.

An other fail in my book for their products.

Do any of you guys use this brush and do you have any advice to use it efficiently?

Oh last thing, I tried to take the brush off the Backing Plate and could not. I will go at it with a flat screwdriver in a few mins... sigh.
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Yup bought both of them and the velcro De laminated and wouldn't stay on the hook n loop. Some of the worst investments ive made for automotive detailing. Mr woody on the other hand from them is actually pretty good.
Also the cyclo brushes that screw into your DA are actually pretty good too

Sent from my SCH-I605 using AG Online
 
You would not believe what I had to do to remove the brush from my DA. At some point I almost gave up, I was thinking I will just remove the backplate and throw it with the attached brush in the garbage.

Pulling with all the strenght I could muster with only the tip of my fingers to hang on the brush it would not budge. I went at it for 10 minutes with no succes. I tried a screwdriver but I was afraid to break the backing plate. Finally I managed to slide a thin plastic ruler between the brush and the BP and even with that thing cutting almost half of the binding material it was a pain to remove and took a few more minutes.

That thing is never going on the backplate again. That is for sure.
 
custmsprty said:
Regarding your brush question. I have sold cleaning chemicals, brushes, carpet extractors,Floor buffers, high end shop vacs etc. to manufacturing companies for years. The whole concept of putting a brush on a da and spinning it on carpet is ridiculous in the first place. I would never do it and never suggest it to a customer. Most carpet fibers are spun to begin with and so going at them with a spinning machine/brush combo, ouch! Just my humble opinion and 20 plus years of experience. As for CG and their brush, they don't mfg them any more than AG does or any other company selling them. Obviously not made in the USA either. I'd use an extractor, rent one if it's your car. The powder product you can buy at Home Depot "Capture" works great too. Scrub in with a brush, vacuum up.
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Hum... My grandmother had a carpet cleaning machine when I was Young. The machine looked like an upright vacuum cleaner but how it worked was a large liquid reservoir along the central tube would feed cleaning solution to the 3 brushes that would work the carpet. The brushes were very similar to the one I got from CG except they did not use hook and loop material, they had anchoring pins that would lock in the base of the machine. So if that is prefectly good for house carpeting, I doubt 1 brush will damage the super strong carpet found in cars.

But, since you know about extractors and I have no intention of using this damn brush ever again... what would you suggest as a very portable hot water extractor? I don't have a truck yet so it needs to be portable enough to carry in a car without too much hassle. Right now I am using a Bisell Little Green machine and it leaves a lot to be desired.
 
I have a Bissell little green machine and it has helped me out in pinches. I love the thing. The trick with it is too find the right cleaner to use with it. I always use hot water with it. I can get in and around harder to reach spots. Takes time it's not a beast that is gonna leave spotless carpet in a couple of passes but it works for me.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Everybody is entitled to like what they like and not like what they don't like. However you make some comparisons that I don't think are accurate. CG doesn't need to advertise on TV, they advertise on their website and YouTube...which is a lot more effective for their target demographic than advertising on TV (and a lot cheaper, too). It's hardly by "word of mouth" more like "word of YouTube"...they have a viral marketing campaign which targets their demographic.

You also compare them to Meguiar's (sort of). CG is a tiny company in comparison to Meguiar's (even when you include CG's corporate parent/donor Warner Chemical Mfg. Co.), and that's even before Meguiar's was bought by 3M.

As was brought up earlier in this thread (or another thread), most auto product sales (heck, most product sales) is about marketing, image, perception, hype, mystique, etc., rather than the actual product. CG is very good at what they do in this regard.
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Like I stated they have a marketing program. However not like the big guns. They use viral marketing but who doesn't. Like you stated. They target a demographic using the web It's not massive marketing when compared to bigger companies like Meg's or Mothers
When was the last time you saw a Collinite commercial or ad in a magazine. They may have twitter and FB but they are not throwing millions at advertising and marketing. They just make good stuff.
With the web and social media if a company makes junk word will get out faster then they can get "the going out of business sign" in the window.
When it comes down to it companies stay in business not because of a image, hype or over stating product effectiveness. A company can only run on those legs so long before they have to change or go out of business.
They stay in business over time because products work and they have a customer base that they satisfy. Certain customers may not be in the CG demographic. I'm not in CG's demographic. Their marketing is actually pretty cheesy and I don't think it's needed.
I like their products I use that they sell. If it does not work for me or something better comes along I like and proves to be more cost effective for me I will use that then. If someone asks my opinion about a CG product I will give them my honest opinion. I'm not slighted just because I don't care for the company image. It's what's in the bottle that counts.
 
I use a lot of CG's products. Like them a lot. I have a lot more than this photo shows.
 
Most of the products I use are CG- I know most on AG hate CG, but most of their products work very well for me.
 
WAXOFF said:
I use a lot of CG's products. Like them a lot. I have a lot more than this photo shows.
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I use quite a few of their products too and like the ones I use, but you have a lot of redundancy going on there. Just saying, no offense meant.
 
Calendyr said:
Hum... My grandmother had a carpet cleaning machine when I was Young. The machine looked like an upright vacuum cleaner but how it worked was a large liquid reservoir along the central tube would feed cleaning solution to the 3 brushes that would work the carpet. The brushes were very similar to the one I got from CG except they did not use hook and loop material, they had anchoring pins that would lock in the base of the machine. So if that is prefectly good for house carpeting, I doubt 1 brush will damage the super strong carpet found in cars.

But, since you know about extractors and I have no intention of using this damn brush ever again... what would you suggest as a very portable hot water extractor? I don't have a truck yet so it needs to be portable enough to carry in a car without too much hassle. Right now I am using a Bisell Little Green machine and it leaves a lot to be desired.
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Yeah, well like you said your grandmother had it :laughing:

I'm not saying brushes are a bad thing, just that rotary brushes are when it comes to carpeting. There are different brush set ups on newer extractors.

The biggest thing with extractors is you get what you pay for and on the cmmercial grade you pay. I sold carpet extractors, flor scrubbers etc that went from $5K upt to $15K! I demoed them all too, especailly the extractors at my home on my carptet :dblthumb2:

What I would suggest is not buying them from a detail supplier as you'll pay full mark up and it's not their field of expertise. I'd suggest finding a commercial vacuum /jan san house in your area that may have a used one at a reasonable price, feel free to pm me if you find something your looking at and want my opinion.

This is one of the lines I repped for years:

NSS | Products | Carpet Extractors | Predator CXH Spotter
 
I'm a little late to the party but I just thought that I'd throw in my 2 cents as I'm a fairly new customer to Chemical Guys.

I'm not a professional, I've only enjoyed detailing our own vehicles for many years.

I had finally settled down with Meguiar's Products for several years and was pleased. However, I recently started looking around as to other products on the market just to change it up a little and first noticed the MTM Foam Cannon using CG's Soaps online.

I picked up a Foam Cannon and a few CG's products and I've been enjoying their performance every since.

Not only do I feel that the products perform nicely, but they can go a long way when purchasing the gallon size, looking for deals online and diluting if desired. They also smell rather nice while applying, go on and off rather well (if you remember less is more) and seem to hold up well for me.

This is what I've purchased that seemed to work thus far:

Honey Dew Soap
Citrus Wash & Gloss Soap
Bug and Tar Soap
Inner Clean
Polishing Compounds (V34,36, & 38)
Quick Detail V7
Clay and Luber
EZ Glaze
Wet Mirror Finish
Jet Seal
50/50 Wax
Diablo Wheel Cleaner
Leather Cleaner and Conditioner
Stripper Scent

For my all clean product, I've been using Optimum Power Clean by Optimum Polymer Technologies and for Tires I've been using Tuf Shine and CG's Tire and Trim Gel. For carpets I've been using Folex if needed.

And as others have stated, I love some of their Micro Fiber Towels. Much better than what I was purchasing locally.

Their Monster Extreme Thickness Microfiber is our favorite thus far.

Oh, and I find there videos online to be entertaining and helpful when showing the applying methods, etc ...

Happy Detailing,
Tim
 
I've only tried their stripper scent, but that stuff is scrumptious.

I really want to try their purple stuff air freshener.
 
I don't hate CG.

I don't love CG.

I just think they have a good product line that is over hyped and redundant.......
 
I use some of their stuff.
Silkshine is amazing for dressing interiors and works well on tires unless there is heavy rain.

All Clean+ is great on plastics and tires around 1:10

Nonsense is great on carpets between 1:10 and 1:20 and great on wheels between 1:5 and 1:10.

Their goat's detail brush is great for wheels and interiors.

Professional bottle and sprayer is real nice except the sprayer is too short for the bottle so I use Adam's 36oz sprayers in the bottles and the CG sprayers in any 16oz bottles I have.

Stripper scent, I've yet to find one person who likes it.
 
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