Odds & Ends: DLux Review, Polishing Wipers, & Undercoating

[swanicyouth]

Recently I decided to take advantage of AG's VIP sale on CarPro DLux.

The kit comes with a small bottle of DLux, 4 small suede cloths, and a foam block. The cost is $40, $30 on sale. This ain't cheap for what appears to be 2 oz of liquid. So, I'm hoping this stuff works as well as other CarPro stuff I've tried.

The vehicle I'm going to be working with is my 01 Pathfinder. The car is 13 years old and has over 106,000 miles on it. It's not perfect by any means, but when you compare it to similar vehicles of this age its pretty darn nice IMO. The trim on it is in surprisingly good shape after 13 years of UV bombardment. I'm looking for something that will give some of the trim pieces a little gloss, they don't really need restoration.

I've tried some of these "restoration" products, but never a "coating" type of trim product. Most of them look good enough, but don't last too long. The areas I want to use this on aren't faded neglected trim, but trim that's in not to bad shape (for it's age). Basically, I just wanted to add a little protection and a little shine that lasts several washes.

Usually, after I wash my car, I break out the trim dressing and spend several minutes "dressing" the trim. This isn't too big of a deal, but it does take time. The area I hate doing is the wiper cowl. There are two reasons:

1. Wipers are always in the way and I have to move them back and forth.

2. Its very hard for me to dress this area and not get some dressing on the windshield, the hood, or the wipers.

While I was at it, I thought I'd pull the wipers, polish them, and coat them with DLux as well. The product seems to be primarily designed for use on plastic "trim", but it mentions it can be used on wheels also. The wipers weren't in too bad shape, but I believe improvement likely would be possible.

First, I would start with the wiper arms themselves. I could try to polish the wiper arms on the car, but it would just be awkward. It just seemed to make sense to remove them. How do you take off splined wiper arms?

First, there usually is a plastic cap covering a fastening nut:

Remove that cap. Then there is a fastening nut underneath that. Remove that. Don't scratch or break anything.

Then, usually you can rock the arms back and forth and they will come off. These arms would not come off after trying that for a half hour. So, you need a puller:

The puller I got is actually a battery terminal puller. But it was only $10. The wiper arm puller was $30. The tape was applied so it didn't scratch the arm.

The wiper arms came up with a "pop". The kind of noise that made you look around to see if you broke something. Nothing broke.

Above you can see the condition of the wiper arms. They aren't too bad, but I tried polishing them by hand not too long ago on the car. The problem is, every 6 months or so they start to oxidize again and fade.

If your going to do this, you want to make sure you keep track of what arm goes on what side. The driver's side came stamped with a "D" on it.

Here is what the trim looked like. Here it has dressing on it that is about a week old. Its Meg's D4510. Cleaning it well was going to be important so the coating would stick.

But first I was going to work on cleaning up the wiper arms.

I polished the arms with a cone and a drill. I ended up using Poor Boy's Pro Polish

Arm on the left is polished. Right is not:

Then I cleaned them with Eraser and coated them with DLux:

What I thought of applying DLux:

So, the idea is to wrap the suede cloths around the foam applicator. This was completely useless here. Basically, I folded the cloth up in fours, put on a couple drops of DLux, and began spreading it out.

The directions are pretty simple(paraphrased): prep area so its free of wax or grease, shake well, put a few drops of DLux on the cloth, apply, and then even it out so it looks uniform. You are supposed to keep the newly protected surfaces away from water for the first 24 hours (or wipe off any water), as this may cause water spots. It was rather hot and sunny out (90 degrees) and it tells you not to work in direct sun, so this work was all done in the garage.

You can feel the product start to dry when you are spreading it out after a few minutes and the suede cloth begins to no longer feel like you are applying a coating, but more like you are rubbing it against something sticky or tacky - that's when you know to put more DLux on your applicator. It becomes completely dry to the touch in about 10 minutes.

This stuff not only protects trim, but it adds significant gloss. It adds as much gloss as a medium glossy dressing. However, you can use it on metals, like wheels. It doesn't really "flash", but stays wet looking like a dressing. Because of this, I find it slightly tricky to get it 100% even looking on metal. Its almost like your applying a non greasy dressing to metal.

It looks very good, only a hair uneven under the closest inspection. However, the improvement is pretty drastic. You only get a small bottle, but it only requires a few drops to do an area.

Next up was going to be the wiper cowl. This was going to be the hard part, as it was soaked with dressing. I planned on employing a bevy of cleaners to strip it:

I started with the Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner, since this stuff is meant to remove dressings:

The method I used was to work it in with the paint brush, then scrub it off with the towel. Then, hose it down.

After Tuff Shine's cleaner:

It looked and felt like all the dressing was removed, but I wasn't buying it. I knew if this failed, it was going to because all the old dressing was not removed. I followed TS's cleaner with a mix of LA Totally Awesome Degreaser and Meg's APC + 1:4. Same method. Hosed it off. Then, I hit it with Griot's paint prep. After that 70% IPA, and finally Eraser (hosed down between each except Eraser).

If there was any dressing left it was not detectable. I'm pretty sure this thing was "clean". I spent probably an hour and a half just on cleaning this trim piece. As, I wanted to only do this once and do it right.

Naked trim, no product on it:

I decided taping the area off was going to be mandatory, as I'm sure this stuff wouldn't be easy to get off the glass or my paint:

I applied the product again using a folded suede cloth provided. I noticed my first cloth become "hard" where the product was when it dried. I guess this is the product curing. I just used the same cloth as I wanted worried about marring the plastic.

After DLux applied:

As you can see, DLux added a nice gloss to the plastic. If it lasts, I'll be thrilled. If it doesn't last, I don't think anyone could accuse me of skimping on prep. I chose to apply it only to the visible areas, as the stuff is too expensive to apply it under the hood of a daily driver.

Next, went after a trim piece on the rear bumper. Same process.

Before cleaning:

During:

Clean with DLux applied:

continued.....

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[swanicyouth]

.....continued

Then I hit the plastic rear latch covers:

Before DLux:

After:

Then the side moldings (no before pics).

After DLux:

After that, roof rack rails. Same process.

50/50 DLux:

Dry DLux:

In between the cleanings and DLux application, I did a 2BM wash on the vehicle. I used a non "gloss-enhancing" shampoo - Dodo Juice's Basic of Bling Shampoo. After, I rinsed well and re-wiped it all down with IPA followed by Eraser as a safety measure.

So finally, everything was cleaned and dressed with DLux. I ended up using Meg's D4510 aerosol dressing on the fog light trim, mud flaps, and running boards. I may coat these areas with DLux in the future. But, these areas I chose to leave alone for now because they are so easy to dress, especially with an aerosol.

I reinstalled the wipers. I made sure not to scratch anything and to replace them in the resting position, where I knew the wiper transmission was.

Overall, I'm really impressed how the wiper area now looks. Everything looks new and glossy. It's not a "dramatic" restoration, as like I mentioned, I recently hand polished them with an AIO on the vehicle and the cowl had dressing on it. The goal here was to apply a protectant that would last, so I don't have to reapply it frequently for reasons stated. Also, I wanted to put something on the wiper arms to keep them from oxidizing every 6 months or so.

Prior to all this, I did the rear wiper. This was a dramatic difference, but I don't have a "before" picture. For some reason, I was able to polish the rear wiper arm to a higher gloss (on vehicle using a DA).

This arm has PowerLock on it:

The white spots on the wiper arm above that look like paint chips are actually reflections of my fluorescent overhead lights. I'm pretty impressed how this arm turned out and decided just to leave the PowerLock alone.

Here is the vehicle all washed an detailed. Tires weren't dressed, as they have Tuff Shine on them. Wheels were cleaned with CG's Sticky Wheel cleaner, and tires had one time around with a soft boars hair wheel brush with it as well. Vehicle wash foamed with Maxi Suds II, and washed via a 2BM using Dodo's Basic of Bling shampoo (2 oz per 4.5 gallons).

After I was done with the DLux, I went over the vehicle with Aquawax. I tried to use Wolf's "Quickie" Quick Detailer, but I found this product unusable. This is the first (and likely the last) Wolf's product for me, but that's another review. Other areas were dressed with D4510 as previously described. I made sure I was done with the DLux before I even touched the Aquawax or Meg's dressing, as one overlapped spray and my surface would be contaminated.

Finished:

Also, this vehicle recently had a recall by Nissan where they placed some reinforcements on the "frame" under the front wheel wells. It looks horrible when you look under the well wells or the wheel is turned, so I decided to pull all 4 wheels, clean up the wells very good, and undercoat them.

Products:

Looks pretty bad:

Clean, but still looks bad:

Rears had no work done, so they don't look too bad:

Under Coating wheel wells done:

Front:

Rear:

Back of wheels before:

Back of wheels after (black stuff is embedded brake dust, it just doesn't come off, period):

I tried PB's Spray and Rinse, Trix, strait mineral spirits, 70% IPA, APC, and Goo Gone. The black brake dust is so embedded (melted into) the paint it's close to impossible to remove. I just cleaned it up the best I could.

When jacking up the rear of the car on a slant, the possibility exists the front could want to roll. So, I found a good use for one of my broken handles for the Montana Boars Hair 10" Carwash Brush:

continued......

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[swanicyouth]

......continued

Overall DLux works really well. The proof will be in how long it lasts. It goes on a bit uneven on metal, so I don't know if I would use it on wheels, as my go to for that is OptiCoat. However, it's only noticeable on the closest inspection. Corey at CarPro also seems to recommend regular CQuartz over DLux for wheels. I will update this thread with longevity information, beading pics, and my thoughts in general on the product. Here is a picture showing how much product I have left after coating these surfaces:

The product is said to last "up to" 1 year by CarPro. Also, they say its made out of "high grade organic silane" and contains over 50% pure silica. Silane is a inorganic molecule made up of a silicon atom in the center that's surrounded by hydrogen. It also can stand temperatures of over 800 degrees - not too shabby. The coating seems to form a covalent bond to the trim surface, where traditional products just sort of sit there.

A little research tells me this coating will stand up to most basic cleaners, except those that have high pHs (alkaline) - as that is the enemy of this type of coating. Another good thing about silica /silane coatings is once they are applied, as the product does wear off, reapplication is pretty simple. You don't need to "strip" the remnants of the previous coating. The new coating will bond to where the old coating has worn away. Stuff just has to be made clean.

When you take the cap off the bottle of DLux, it's not an open hole. There is a little plastic dispenser built into the thread area of the bottle. Turning the bottle upside down on the suede cloth and tapping it on the cloth releases a drop or two. You use this product in drops.

This dispenser becomes criterial when using the product IMO, because so little of the product goes so far. Without this little piece, I'm sure I would have used much more, too much actually. I found myself wanting the dispenser to dispense more at a time, but it's better a little less than too much - as, if you pour out to much or tip the bottle with the lid off there is no way to put product back in the bottle. So, it works very well.

I noticed the bottle itself was coated in DLux from handling it. If you look closely at the blue glass, you can see there is dried product on it (glass looks cloudy):

I wanted to see how hard it would be to remove from the bottle glass, since it has been sitting on the glass a day. So, I tried 70% IPA. I found the IPA removed the DLux, but it wasn't easy. It took a lot of pressure and back and forth scrubbing of the glass.

After (glass is clear blue):

Overall, this kind of confirms my basic thoughts on these type of products. They are "tough", but no where near permanent or miracle products. They are classified as "semi-permanent" (expected lifespan of 1 year). I know the product isn't meant for glass, but removing it wasn't impossible. I think I would be pleased if it remained glossy looking for 10 washes, as you do get enough product to re-apply many times. I would say I used about 1/8 of the bottle for this trim.

Let me quickly compare and contrast this product using MY experiences to other trim products I have used.

- Solution Finish: Also expensive, but also goes pretty far. The "glossy" look of SF fades after a few washes, but the "restore" part (black dye) lasts much much longer. SF may be a better choice for very badly faded trim. For trim slightly faded or in good shape I would go with DLux, as SF won't look like anything is on the trim after a few washes (but trim remains dark black).

-PB's Trim Restore and Black Wow: These are heavy silicone products. While they make badly faded trim look good, they just don't last long. When it rains they run and leave smear marks on your paint. The good points are they are cheap and don't require much prep.

These may be good if your pressed for time or money and have badly faded trim. Or, if you have badly faded trim and it's located in an easily accessible flat area with no paint or glass beneath it. I'm not sure if they provide any UV protection, but prepare to re-apply frequently.

-Tuff Shine Black Restore: this product looks good and leaves plastic black and glossy, albeit a bit patchy. I was really excited about this product. However it flakes off for me, as opposed to just fading off. When it starts flaking it looks horrible. IMO this product isn't really ready for market, as it just starts flaking off and looks bad. Very surprising after using their tire coating.

-Prima Infinity and Adam's Super VRT: these are polymer based traditional style dressings. They both look excellent. They both bead and shed water pretty well, unlike traditional water based dressings where the water just sits there. However the glossy look only lasts a wash or two, so be prepared to re-apply. These are 2 of the best "dressings" out there IMO. They both are similar and are very versatile, as you can used them on vinyl, plastic, rubber, and tires. A little bit costlier than the water based dressings, but only by a few dollars.

-PB's Bold n Bright and Optimum OptiBond: these are traditional water based dressings. They look very good, can be used on all the areas the polymer dressings can be used, but don't bead/sheet water like the polymer dressings do. They only last a wash for me. Again, you have to re-apply them after every wash for the best look. On a car with a lot of trim, that becomes pretty time consuming, especially if the trim is in a tricky area where it's easily transferred to paint (unless you have very steady hands). These are cheap and you get many many applications out of one bottle.

AND, if this thread isn't long enough, I took all these pictures using my new camera, a Sony WX150. Most of them are taken in the garage and the lighting wasn't too good. By the time I got outside the sun was going down.

The process I used was to upload the pictures to iPhoto, then I put them on my iPhone using iTunes. Once they were on the phone, I could work on this review anywhere. Maybe this could help someone who is thinking about something a little better than the cell phone camera.

While it's just a point and shoot camera, the pictures are much better than using a cell phone as a camera. Any photography noobs like me thinking of ditching the cell phone for something a little better, I think it's worth it for sure. There are a lot of cameras out there for < $200 that will give you significantly better pictures with little to no hassle.

Thanks for looking, that's all I got!

 

[Lost Highway]

Thanks for the review. I much prefer reviews that show some thought and thoroughness rather than just a string of photos. On the subject of photos yours look really good for a P&S, kudos.
Good job and much appreciated.

 

[SRConcepts]

Awesome review! :xyxthumbs: I've liked all the Carpro products I've tried so far, so I'm very curious to how this is going to hold up for you, as I'm looking for something like this for the gigantic cowl covers on my Trans Ams that always seem to fade out, so hopefully the DLux works out well for you.

 

[sproketser]

Wow , such great results with DLUX mate . I love it .

 

[swanicyouth]

Ok guys. Its been a couple days and its been raining a lot. Car stays outside. I thought I would show what the DLux is doing, and how it handles water like I promised.

First, here is a quick video I made with my camera of DLux and water beads. Hope it all works, as this is my first time doing this on a non-I device.

http://youtu.be/8kqh0ZnCaww

You can see, DLux beads water nicely, especially for a trim product. No signs of it washing away from the rain.

Here are some pics:

 

[psynx]

Ok guys. Its been a couple days and its been raining a lot. Car stays outside. I thought I would show what the DLux is doing, and how it handles water like I promised.

First, here is a quick video I made with my camera of DLux and water beads. Hope it all works, as this is my first time doing this on a non-I device.

MAH00390 - YouTube

You can see, DLux beads water nicely, especially for a trim product. No signs of it washing away from the rain.

Here are some pics:

looks like i found my answer for trim, i was disappointed with PERL, havent tried ultima tire and trim, and WG exterior trim sealant was disappointing as well, it was streaky on me and it got blochy had to re apply a second coat

 

[sproketser]

Thanx for the updates .

 

[swanicyouth]

Well... It's day 14 since I applied the DLux and the vehicle got its first wash today and a coating of DLux on another area (flog light trims). Let me say, DLux is holding up very well. I'm convinced this product "is it" for me. Once I get everything coated all my "dressings" will be of no use for trim for me.

Its holding up pretty much as good as day one. Also, its been raining on and off pretty heavy almost every day since I applied it. The thing is, even if doesn't last quite as long as its supposed to (and there is no sign of that), I am still amazed by how far this product goes. It literally only takes a drop or two to coat an area.

After I washed the car I shot a quick video showing how the water beads on DLux. The car was washed with Ultimate Paint Guard Wash and was still wet when it shot this:

http://youtu.be/KiQN5oUl3X0

You can see it beads like mad. If you recall, I coated the rear deck plastic, wiper cowl plastic, side moldings, roof rack rails, and wiper arms themselves

I took some photos as well...

Beads on the coated areas::

This is a center rubber/soft plastic moulding strip that sits in front of the roof rack. The center dark part has DLux on it, the lighter outside parts are seals:

Here is a piece of trim I left uncoated on purpose to use as my "control". I didn't want to do tape lines or similar, as I didn't want a half coated piece of plastic or trim.

Control (no DLux):

That (above 2 photos) is the little handle the opens the rear glass hatch

I decided to coat the trim around the fog lights with DLux. They just pull out, so I just did it off the car. They were dressed 2 weeks ago, so I used Tuff Shine Tire Cleaner, 1Z Plastic Reiniger, IPA, and Eraser to make sure all the old dressing was gone.

Cleaned prior to coating:

They don't look too bad above (and they aren't too bad), but look a little closer:

They definitely have room for darkening.

This is the foam paint brush I find works best to apply this coating to tight areas without getting it on other areas close by or smearing it with your hands:

These foam paint brushes come with removable foam ends. You get like 6 foam ends for $2. I have different foam ends for different products and store them with the product to keep track.

Here are the pieces after DLux was applied:

And back on the vehicle:

It took between 5 and 6 drops to coat BOTH these pieces with DLux. Yes, both.

So far is give Delux and 8 for looks and a 9 for ease of application. If the vial doesn't dry up on me (and the product keeps on lasting) I give it a 10 out of 10 for value. While traditional dressings are cheap, and a bottle lasts forever, the real benefit is in the time saved not having to dress these little pieces after each wash.

 

[sproketser]

Wow , nice thread again mate , love this product .