Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

I have a long list of car cleaning products to keep my MINI detailed in the summer, but there is one thing that I can’t seem to keep looking good: the plastic fender trim. After about a year, the trim starts looking worse and worse, holding dirt and wax residue in its texture. I have tried a number of products to keep it looking good but they never seem to last more than a few days. The forums have even had long discussions such as this one on NAM on products to use but don’t really come to a great conclusion.

So I decided to take things into my own hands and rounded up all my trim cleaning products, including some new ones I picked up over the winter, and applied them next to each other. The goal of this test is not to see how they look immediately after applying, but how long they last, and their resistance to rain. So after a wash, I taped off eight sections of a fender, and applied each product. (click photos for larger)

The products applied, in order, are:
Sonus Trim & Motor Kote
Vinylex
Aerospace 303 Protectant
Sonus Tire & Bumper Dressing Gel
AutoGlym Bumper Care
Planters Peanut Oil
Armor-All Protectant
Zaino Z16 Perfect Tire Gloss

Then after a few days (mostly sunny, with one short drizzle), I took this photo:

The Motor Kote and Armor-All were nonexistant. The AutoGlym did not look so good, some areas seemed even whiter than normal. The peanut oil was covered in dust and dirt that stuck to its oily surface. Vinylex ran a little in the drizzle but looked pretty good. The 303 looked almost as good as the best two, the Sonus and Zaino.

But then the true test: We had two days with plenty of rain. Though it never rained hard, nor did I drive in much more than a drizzle, clearly it was enough:

Except for the vertical edge, all products were almost completely washed off, except for the peanut oil. Clearly, everything else is water based.

But I don’t want to say the peanut oil is the winner. It is a mess to apply. The plastic looks way too oily. And it attracts dirt. So, sadly I’m going to have to try even more products. If you know of others, especially any that can survive the rain, please mention them and I may try them in the future.

Spring has finally arrived in New England and so begins my several-week process of cleaning the car and detailing it to its super clean summer condition. The first step is to wash the car, of course. Afterwards I fill in the hundreds of paint chips and scratches that accumulated over the last year with touch-up paint. If you’ve used the standard paint in a white out-like bottle, you know it is impossible to apply a small enough amount with the brush in the cap.

Last winter I found a company online that makes touch-up paint in all colors in the form of a paint pen. PaintScratch has an easy to use web site that allows you to pick your specific color and place an order. The pens are similar to Sharpies but use real automotive paint. And like real paint you have a pen for the base color and another for the clearcoat. Because they have a nice beveled tip you can easily apply just the corner into a thin scratch, and paint will not blob in holes from chips.

This is where I stop for the week, because I like to give the paint a week to cure before any wax or polish is applied to it. So in a week or two will be the true detailing process that often takes me six hours, including polish, claybar, and the initial several layers of Zaino.

I have also begun another comparison test, this time of all the products I have for cleaning up the textured black plastic fender trim. It looks great when new, but over time the plastic loses its oils and the texture holds in dirt and wax residue. NAM has had a good discussion on the topic. Most products I’ve used don’t last much longer than a week, so I have some new ones along with the previous products (and of course the popular home remedy, Planter’s Peanut Oil!) and we’ll see in a few weeks which one wins.

Additionally, I have updated my car care page with some of the new products I am using this year, as well as fixed some outdated links. Remember that page for quick reference of all the cleaning products I currently use.

As you should be familiar with my Car Care page, I have a long list of cleaning products and I’m always in search of improvements. Many cleaning products have a wide range of qualities and prices, for example cheap waxes you can get in any store, better waxes, and high-end polymers like the Zaino I use. But there was one product I had never seen a competitor for: RainX.

I have used Rain-X Glass Treatment since I first got my license and it really works as advertised. Rain flies off your windshield at highway speeds and you almost don’t even need your wipers. It is especially useful with the MINI’s steeply sloped windshield, where it doesn’t even need to be raining very hard before your view is completely blinded. RainX is cheap and available everywhere. But, it doesn’t last long. You don’t notice it disappearing but it seems to work noticeably for only the first few days after applying.

A few months ago I started to search for an alternative to RainX and found PPG Aquapel. It does the exact same thing, but advertises that it lasts six months! The very few forum discussions I found seemed to support the claim as well, so I certainly had to try it. But Aquapel is very hard to find, and can be expensive. So I decided to do a true head-to-head between the two products not only for myself but for you too. I applied Aquapel to the driver’s half of my windshield and RainX to the passenger half. I left a small strip in the middle untreated so I could compare just how much either were doing over no treatment. Then, whenever it rained and I had the chance, I took video.

Of course with my luck as soon as I started this experiment, we barely had any rain; in fact we had the second driest March in history! Furthermore it is hard to see the effects through the eyes of the video camera as much as the human eye. But the difference is still obvious. Aquapel outlasted the RainX and to this day continues to perform as it well as it did on day one. RainX quickly became less and less effective. On closer examination, the RainX actually is still working in the upper passenger-side corner. This shows that it’s not so much time or weather that hurts RainX but the wear of the wipers themselves. Aquapel however is not affected by wiper use.

The above photo, taken after washing the car on Day 72, shows the water beading well on the Aquapel side. Aquapel prevents the water’s surface tension from sticking and small beads of water result. The top corner of the Rain-X side does as well, but the left wiper has clearly worn off the Rain-X and the water adheres to the glass resulting in a film of water.

RainX is a liquid in a bottle that you apply with paper towels and buff off similar to car wax and is a really a 4-step application process. Aquapel only comes in single-use applicators that you crack like a glow stick, rub on, and buff off. I easily applied Aquapel to the the front and rear windshield and mirrors, and if I was more conservative might also have had enough for the side windows as well. But because both products need high wind speeds (traveling at least 40mph), they are really only effective on the windshield. They do also claim to make snow and ice harder to stick.

A single application of Aquapel costs about as much as an entire bottle of RainX, however if you applied RainX every week or two the Aquapel would still last much longer than the bottle. Aquapel is the clear winner in my book. You probably won’t find Aquapel in stores, but it is available from The Tire Rack and Amazon.com, or bulk on eBay.

Update: After eight months, the Aquapel was still going strong. read