Is this thing on? BlackFire still viable?

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Rollo

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Why are there zero posts in this sub for years? I used Blackfire pro ceramic black edition on my new Alfa Romeo back in 2022 and have maintained it with blackfire wash and coating booster and it still beads awesome after 2 years.

Now I notice that the Pro Ceramic wash I have been using is always out of stock and nobody really ever mentions BlackFire products any more. It's all about gyeon now it seems.

Should I switch to a new set of products and re-coat this summer?
 
The Blackfire brand seems to have been turned into a (commercial) car wash brand, so I'm not sure what the continuation of the boutique products will be. Autogeek has been under new ownership for several years so a lot of things have changed.

I'm sure some other members will have a better answer on your coating questions since I'm a little out of the loop on that.
 
That’s kinda wild how the brand seems to have all but died with nobody around to promote it anymore.

@Setec. What information is available that indicates it’s become geared towards the commercial car wash industry? I’m curious to know more about that.
 
Doesn't PBMG make these products? You would certainly think they would keep it going since it is a "house" product.

I like to buy products of the same line and moved to blackfire pro ceramic from CarPro products and the BF was easy to use and has been more durable than the Carpro stuff was several years ago.

Anyone recommend another product line I should switch to?
 
Rollo said:
Why are there zero posts in this sub for years? I used Blackfire pro ceramic black edition on my new Alfa Romeo back in 2022 and have maintained it with blackfire wash and coating booster and it still beads awesome after 2 years.

Now I notice that the Pro Ceramic wash I have been using is always out of stock and nobody really ever mentions BlackFire products any more. It's all about gyeon now it seems.

Should I switch to a new set of products and re-coat this summer?
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If your really happy with Blackfire's coating, Carzilla has 1 in stock.
 
If you go to the PBMG website the Blackfire link directs you to Wolfgang, so I'm pretty sure the old Blackfire line is history, and that anything available is leftover stock. The Blackfire and Wolfgang were kind of parallel lines, anyway, back when Blackfire was owned by CMA.

EDIT: I'm sorry, that's one of the links--there is another link that takes you to blackfirewax.com, which then redirects to the Blackfire section of the AutoGeek website, where there still seem to be plenty of products in stock, so maybe it's just that the line has been trimmed down.
 
There are some Blackfire products on Amazon. They might be wholesaling the line out. PBMG had too many similar products in multiple lines. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were the same product with different dyes and scents added.
 
DUBL0WS6 said:
There are some Blackfire products on Amazon. They might be wholesaling the line out. PBMG had too many similar products in multiple lines. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were the same product with different dyes and scents added.
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That's what I meant by parallel lines, PBMA and CMA used to share the Pinnacle line, and I always thought the Blackfire and Wolfgang sealants were the same (along with Menz FMJ), the rest of the lines may have differed. That's going way back 20 years ago...when all 3 mentioned sealants suddenly were unavailable due to some VOC issue, and the explanation wording was exactly the same for all 3 of them.
 
DUBL0WS6 said:
There are some Blackfire products on Amazon. They might be wholesaling the line out. PBMG had too many similar products in multiple lines. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were the same product with different dyes and scents added.
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Setec Astronomy said:
That's what I meant by parallel lines, PBMA and CMA used to share the Pinnacle line, and I always thought the Blackfire and Wolfgang sealants were the same (along with Menz FMJ), the rest of the lines may have differed. That's going way back 20 years ago...when all 3 mentioned sealants suddenly were unavailable due to some VOC issue, and the explanation wording was exactly the same for all 3 of them.
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This was discussed at least once a long time ago but I have to think things have changed; anyway, just how many "blenders" are actually out there churning out the various lines of detailing products?

We seem to get a new line of products monthly, all touting themselves as the best, but how many are actually "new" or "unique" or anything other than a re-bottled stock product with a new color and a new scent to try and distinguish them from the competition

I was looking at The Guz's channel at his review of several of "The Final Details" line of products that I assume are fairly new. He was favorably impressed at what he tested so I went and had a look at their web store and their stuff covers most of the normal everyday chemicals we use as detailers and they are quite inexpensive compared to some boutique brands and even some pro-sumer brands. They could be a great value assuming they do what they claim, and their claims are very modest, no chest beating involved

Then you have Suds Lab and you can get that at Walmart all day long and it is reasonable, although I think they miss the boat with hardcore detailers by not selling gallons

On and on and on

There can't be that many revolutionary formulas that are "game changers" despite everyones claims to that effect

I guess I am as much venting here as I am questioning, I just get to the point of overload at all the "new and improved", "ours is better", etc because I am a consumer and this plays havoc with my desire to KISS

Rant over
 
chilly said:
This was discussed at least once a long time ago but I have to think things have changed; anyway, just how many "blenders" are actually out there churning out the various lines of detailing products?

We seem to get a new line of products monthly, all touting themselves as the best, but how many are actually "new" or "unique" or anything other than a re-bottled stock product with a new color and a new scent to try and distinguish them from the competition

There can't be that many revolutionary formulas that are "game changers" despite everyones claims to that effect
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We used to discuss this kind of thing a bit more at Autopia, but yes, how many of these companies have a chemist that is actually on their staff? Certainly the big companies, and Optimum since the owner is a chemist. But the "game changers" are probably developed at the big chemical company level, and then the availability of those building blocks filters down to the formulators and blenders who make the actual products that we use.

So I don't think this basic model has changed much from what you describe, it has just shifted to different materials as the technology has evolved to be less silicones and more ceramic/graphene, etc. Just as a side note, I brought this up many years ago on Autopia, when Dow Corning was a company (a few years ago they ended the joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning, and went their separate ways), as a major silicone producer, they had "recipes" on their website on how to make "waxes" and other car care products using their ingredients. And recently I googled "polysilazane" and among other things came up with this: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/brands/pm/durazane.html where you can buy the ingredients to make your polysilazane coatings.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
We used to discuss this kind of thing a bit more at Autopia, but yes, how many of these companies have a chemist that is actually on their staff? Certainly the big companies, and Optimum since the owner is a chemist. But the "game changers" are probably developed at the big chemical company level, and then the availability of those building blocks filters down to the formulators and blenders who make the actual products that we use.

So I don't think this basic model has changed much from what you describe, it has just shifted to different materials as the technology has evolved to be less silicones and more ceramic/graphene, etc. Just as a side note, I brought this up many years ago on Autopia, when Dow Corning was a company (a few years ago they ended the joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning, and went their separate ways), as a major silicone producer, they had "recipes" on their website on how to make "waxes" and other car care products using their ingredients. And recently I googled "polysilazane" and among other things came up with this: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/brands/pm/durazane.html where you can buy the ingredients to make your polysilazane coatings.
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I would blow up my garage, so thanks but pass...

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

Honestly, I barely made it through high school chemistry so I probably shouldn't be turned loose with anything more than the ingredients for BBQ Sauce
 
chilly said:
I would blow up my garage, so thanks but pass...

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

Honestly, I barely made it through high school chemistry so I probably shouldn't be turned loose with anything more than the ingredients for BBQ Sauce
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I don't know if you're joking or not Chilly, the "recipes" were for the car wax companies, not for us guys in our garages. And my point about the polysilazanes is that Armour or Gyeon or whoever may make their own coatings, but the base materials come from chemical companies.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
I don't know if you're joking or not Chilly, the "recipes" were for the car wax companies, not for us guys in our garages. And my point about the polysilazanes is that Armour or Gyeon or whoever may make their own coatings, but the base materials come from chemical companies.
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Joking

I guess I have an acquired sense of humor


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Back in the day Mothers and Zaino claimed to have their own chemists, whether those were in house or contracted, it's hard to know for sure.
 
DUBL0WS6 said:
Back in the day Mothers and Zaino claimed to have their own chemists, whether those were in house or contracted, it's hard to know for sure.
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I always wanted to try Zaino back in the day but no one would ship it to Alaska because of some Zaino policy

Rani at Pak Shak offered to ship me some on a one time only deal a decade or more back and I passed because I figured I might like it and then I would be unable to get any more
 
chilly said:
Joking--I guess I have an acquired sense of humor
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Not at all, I just wasn't sure--and didn't want anyone else to get the idea I was suggesting we mix our own sealants, just trying to point out that anybody who is making/formulating/blending detailing products, is making them from base materials supplied by someone else, that in most cases they all have access to, and access to the application chemists at those companies that supply the base materials, which went to your point of all these products having more similarities than differences.
 
DUBL0WS6 said:
Back in the day Mothers and Zaino claimed to have their own chemists, whether those were in house or contracted, it's hard to know for sure.
Click to expand...

I'm sure Mothers has their own staff chemist, and I'm sure Zaino doesn't, Zaino doesn't even have a real location. When we used to have the discussions on Autopia about the Zaino "factory" (their address was here in NJ), I decided one day to drive down there--it was a UPS store.

chilly said:
I always wanted to try Zaino back in the day but no one would ship it to Alaska because of some Zaino policy
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Ha--as I noted earlier Zaino is here in NJ, but I (and anyone else in NJ) can't order from the Zaino website, Sal explained to me (via email or PM) that this was because of "sales/marketing agreements that pre-date the internet". We used to have to order it from a guy in PA who at the time didn't have an e-commerce site (not sure about now), he had a website that showed the products and the prices and you printed a form and filled it out and added it up and put your CC# on it and either mailed it or faxed it or scanned/emailed. Or maybe he didn't even have a website, maybe he just emailed you the form.

I don't remember if you could call him up and do it over the phone. Don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy, pricing was same, he was very prompt with shipping--it was just ridiculous that either he didn't trust Sal to give him his cut from the internet sales to NJ, or Sal wouldn't do the IT work for that. It was kind of ridiculous, and last time I looked the Zaino site still said "NJ customers email xxx for ordering information". I never noticed anything about Alaska.

And another "don't get me wrong", the Zaino products were good, it was just clear that some of them were out of a Duragloss barrel, the old Z-16 was DG 253 (looked smelled worked the same), Z-6 was FC&S (looked smelled worked the same), Z-8 seemed to be a more concentrated AquaWax. There was also the old system where Zaino had a product which was like the 601 PBA, but I guess that seemed too fishy so they took whatever the active was from that and made it ZFX, which was like having your own detailing chemisty set and added to the mystique.

Of course David B over at Autopia tried that one with PolyCharger.

Anyway, apologies to the OP for the thread-jack.
 
Thanks for that bit of history Setec. I have been a hobbyist for decades and remember when Zaino was all the rage. I used Duragloss products exclusively for many many years.

It looks like autopia has some of the Pro Ceramic car wash left so I will order that and stick with the blackfire stuff a little longer. However, if anyone has a full line product they would recommend as a replacement I am open to suggestions.

I can't stand the thought of trying to do research on Facebook groups, and Discord is how I used to communicate with my World of Warcraft guild--when did it become a replacement for forums? :confused:
 
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