Working with the Collinite Pre Wax Auto Cleaner (NO 390), I wanted to put it through less than ideal circumstances in use cases that were practical for what the product was intended. I was not looking to chase a deep scratch with this. It is meant as a less evasive, hopefully user friendly, light polish. It is marketed as a product that can bring you close to the protection step with minimal effort. I look at it as an exfoliation/oxidation removing, light swirl remover, moderate stain removal, moderate clay-bar marring removal polish. This should go into the enhancement category.
I tested it in the Florida midday summer heat. This is an over 10 year old car. There was staining from leaked gasoline baked into the clearcoat of the paint. I had already attempted conventional and more aggressive chemical cleaning. My next step was using this product.
I choose the most gentle non aggressive pad for application. 3 pea sized drops were used for the polishing session. 4, 2 by 2, section passes at a moderate speed with no pressure on the paint. Working area was a little greater than shoulder length apart.
The easy wipe off is what actually impressed me the most.
It was able to remove virtually all of the gasoline imprint. For good measure I went at the area a second time, with the same process, which removed all signs of staining with ease. There was also a significant bump in gloss. Wiping off excess product was no problem at all. I did use some Gyeon Prep, a polish removing panel prep, for good measure.
The one caution, is you need to avoid trim and rubber areas when using this polish. I also found some benefit in applying this product by hand with a foam applicator. I would definitely recommend this product for someone who has never touched a polisher, or in the beginner category, as is not looking to really invest a lot of time and resources into car care.
I mentioned before that there was a significant bump in gloss. I believe this should serve as a reminder of two important things with respect to polishing paint. People often forget, while focused on correcting what is more visible, that the deep reflections really come from proper refinement. This is where even a light polish can be a positive. Also in an obsession, often in one step, to chase swirls detailers can lose focus on proper refinement. A lot of detailers think of rotary holograms, but I can argue haze from a long throw polisher can often be just as bad or sometimes worse. There have been many stories about paint correction, likely with a standard dual action polisher, where a customer got the correction results they were looking for but were underwhelmed for reasons they could not articulate. Business owners would often respond to this by saying customers don’t care about paint like we do, and there is SOME truth to this. But I can also argue often in our fear of charging enough, we are losing our skillset in proper polishing forsake of efficiency.