Unimpressed with Optima's Elastrofoam

[svanderbilt]

The idea of claying a car without the need to reapply sealant/wax appealed to me. Especially when I have many layers of AIO, SG, Opti-Seal and P21s on already! Purchased the Ultima Elastrofoam Paint Cleansing system.



I frequently rinsed the block in a bowl of water with ONR and Meguiar's Gold Class. Used the supplied lubricant spray. When I was finished the bowl had dirt at the bottom and was lightly brown in color, but the paint didn't feel nearly as smooth as when I use Blackfire clay.



Might try the Sonus fine clay as it's supposed to be able to clean paint without removing LSPs.

 

[JSFM35X]

I had a simolar issue. I called Ultima and they had the chemist call me. He told me that the elastrofoam blocks that had a white chalky, Zebra stripe were defective (dried out) and he replaced mine. I had since clayed my car before the replacement showed up and it came out great. Call them up they have awesome customer service.



I have no re-tried the elastrofoam system.

 

[Hakko]

Interesting. I have the CG version, which looks identical, but costs half as much - they have their own lube, of course. I found it less than satisfactory for removing bonded contaminants. There were spots with visible bonded contaminants that I'd go over several times with the block without improvement; one or two passes with Meg's blue clay, and the stuff was gone.



I agree that it's better than nothing if you don't want to remove LSP, but it's not, IME, as good as clay.

 

[imported_Bence]

What does this *r* doing in the "elastRo" part of this word? A foam can be elastic, aka elastofoam (a flexible PU foam), but with that *r*...???

 

[Hakko]

Spell it funny and you get an instant trademark.

 

[imported_Bence]

...or it is soo good that it automatically qualifies to an instant star status - and that's the *astro* part of it...

 

[SpoiledMan]

Those blocks will clean the paint of a hammered car way faster than traditional clay. You will more than likely need to polish afterwards.

 

[porta]

I love the clay block, very effective.

 

[KnuckleBuckett]

I used the Ultima EF and found it confusing...used the wrong damned side...nice (moron). I tried it again a couple of times using the correct side, and really disliked the results. Also on occasion i would get nasty black streaks from the bar. They are a pain to get off. It was not for a lack of lube.



I found that in comparison to clay the bar had no redeeming qualities.



It's clay for me.