Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
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Jay Leno’s Garage Hand Wax - Review and How-To by Mike Phillips
The two most common procedures the majority of car owners perform to their car's to maintain their appearance is to wash them and wax them. Pretty straightforward stuff. If a person will do just these two things and do a good job plus use quality products, they can preserve the factory finish over the service life of the car or at least until they sell or trade the car in.
Exclusive distributor
Autogeek is the exclusive distributor of Jay Leno's Garage line of quality car care products. As such, I get to test out Jay's new line and tell you what I think.
Cleaner/Wax of Show Car Wax?
In the car wax world there are two general categories for car waxes.
Car waxes that clean the paint
These are called cleaner/waxes or AIOs. Note, lots of cleaner/waxes don't actually say "cleaner/wax" anywhere on the label or in the product description yet they can and will be a one-step cleaner/wax especially if the target market for the wax is Joe Consumer. The reason for this is because the average person drives a daily driver and the paint becomes stained over time as well as accumulates swirls, scratches, water spots and oxidation. A quality cleaner/wax will clean, polish and protect in one step and this means it will address "some" of these paint issues so after wipe-off the user will look at their car's paint and see a visual difference.
Car waxes that don't clean the paint
There's not specific name in our industry for these type of products but all of my working life, in my articles, videos, TV and my how-to books I designate these non-cleaning waxes as either,
And the reason why is because they don't offer any cleaning ability, they can really only be used on paint that is either new, like in a brand new car or excellent condition, for example before using the product you washed, clayed, compounded and polished the paint so you have restored it to new or like new condition.
In reading the information about this product on the AG store and also the label copy on the product, it does not mention any ability to remove light defects like swirls, scratches, water spots or oxidation. And while I hate to assume, I went ahead and assumed that this product is a show car wax, that is it is NOT a cleaner/wax. And as such if you purchase this product you should know this ahead of time and use it on cars that have paint in excellent condition.
My tester car - 2013 Camaro Daily Driver
This car belongs to my wife's daughter. It is a daily driver and not really taken care of on a regular basis. In fact, I think I was the last person to detail this car and that's when I used it to showcase RUPES tools when I used this car in my RUPES how-to book on the section that covers how to use RUPES tools to do production detailing. That is how to machine apply a one-step cleaner/wax. That was 3 years ago.
So when this car arrived, after washing it as documented in this thread,
Jay Leno’s Garage Vehicle Wash - Review and How-to by Mike Phillips
The next thing I did was inspect the paint for swirls and scratches as documented in this thread,
SCANGRIP TV COMMERCIAL - SCANGRIP Swirl Finder Lights - Review with pictures by Mike Phillips
And as I documented, in the above thread, the Camaro was filled with swirls and scratches. So before using the Jay Leno Garage Hand Wax I first removed all the swirls and scratches using a brand new compound and polish being introduced to the market. These new compounds and polishes worked AWESOME and you'll see a review for them this week.
So after perfecting the finish.... I was then ready to test out the Jay Leno Garage Hand Wax. Here's a picture of a SCANGRIP Penmatch Light lighting up the paint to show that it's swirl free.
Perfect paint in new or like-new condition
The two most common procedures the majority of car owners perform to their car's to maintain their appearance is to wash them and wax them. Pretty straightforward stuff. If a person will do just these two things and do a good job plus use quality products, they can preserve the factory finish over the service life of the car or at least until they sell or trade the car in.
Exclusive distributor
Autogeek is the exclusive distributor of Jay Leno's Garage line of quality car care products. As such, I get to test out Jay's new line and tell you what I think.
Cleaner/Wax of Show Car Wax?
In the car wax world there are two general categories for car waxes.
Car waxes that clean the paint
These are called cleaner/waxes or AIOs. Note, lots of cleaner/waxes don't actually say "cleaner/wax" anywhere on the label or in the product description yet they can and will be a one-step cleaner/wax especially if the target market for the wax is Joe Consumer. The reason for this is because the average person drives a daily driver and the paint becomes stained over time as well as accumulates swirls, scratches, water spots and oxidation. A quality cleaner/wax will clean, polish and protect in one step and this means it will address "some" of these paint issues so after wipe-off the user will look at their car's paint and see a visual difference.
Car waxes that don't clean the paint
There's not specific name in our industry for these type of products but all of my working life, in my articles, videos, TV and my how-to books I designate these non-cleaning waxes as either,
Show Car Waxes
Finishing Waxes
Finishing Waxes
And the reason why is because they don't offer any cleaning ability, they can really only be used on paint that is either new, like in a brand new car or excellent condition, for example before using the product you washed, clayed, compounded and polished the paint so you have restored it to new or like new condition.
In reading the information about this product on the AG store and also the label copy on the product, it does not mention any ability to remove light defects like swirls, scratches, water spots or oxidation. And while I hate to assume, I went ahead and assumed that this product is a show car wax, that is it is NOT a cleaner/wax. And as such if you purchase this product you should know this ahead of time and use it on cars that have paint in excellent condition.
My tester car - 2013 Camaro Daily Driver
This car belongs to my wife's daughter. It is a daily driver and not really taken care of on a regular basis. In fact, I think I was the last person to detail this car and that's when I used it to showcase RUPES tools when I used this car in my RUPES how-to book on the section that covers how to use RUPES tools to do production detailing. That is how to machine apply a one-step cleaner/wax. That was 3 years ago.
So when this car arrived, after washing it as documented in this thread,
Jay Leno’s Garage Vehicle Wash - Review and How-to by Mike Phillips
The next thing I did was inspect the paint for swirls and scratches as documented in this thread,
SCANGRIP TV COMMERCIAL - SCANGRIP Swirl Finder Lights - Review with pictures by Mike Phillips
And as I documented, in the above thread, the Camaro was filled with swirls and scratches. So before using the Jay Leno Garage Hand Wax I first removed all the swirls and scratches using a brand new compound and polish being introduced to the market. These new compounds and polishes worked AWESOME and you'll see a review for them this week.
So after perfecting the finish.... I was then ready to test out the Jay Leno Garage Hand Wax. Here's a picture of a SCANGRIP Penmatch Light lighting up the paint to show that it's swirl free.
Perfect paint in new or like-new condition
