Wolfgang 3.0 Duo - Quickie test / long review

[budman3]

As many of you know, Wolfgang reformulated their swirl removers with help from Menzerna. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with Menzerna (PG, IP, FP, 106ff, 85u) but I have had better luck with some than others, especially with a PC or UDM. Meghan and the fine folks at Autogeek generously sent me some to sample out and I was able to do some quick testing this past weekend. The new Wolfgang 3.0 swirl removers come in the typical high quality Wolfgang bottles and don’t have any artificial smells to them. I could tell right off the bat that these are professional products in the Wolfgang bottle. Since the products are still new, I wasn’t 100% positive on how to use them and what techniques worked the best. Just a warning, the paint on the Jeep is very poor with clear coat cracking sporadically across the hood. You can see it in the pictures after the rotary and TSR3.0.

Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover 3.0:
The bottle said that this is a strong polish / compound that will remove a lot of defects yet finish out like a final polish. I can’t argue that point yet, a moderate amount of swirls were removed with no micro marring at all. It left a nice finish. I did use it with a rotary and UDM, hoping it would be more user friendly than Menzerna via UDM.

This first set of pictures is after using the swirl remover with a UDM and a 6” Lake Country CCS polishing pad. I did not know how much product to use and the first picture shows how much I used on the first panel to prime the pad. I did not use any water or pad conditioner ahead of time. Well to say the least, this was too much product. The polish spread very nicely and I worked it in for a very long time with light to no dusting. I never did get the polish to go translucent so I tried wiping it off and it was very difficult. It was obvious that I used too much product and I was paying the price. Even though I used too much product and it didn’t get broken down all of the way, there was no marring. Trying to find the right amount, I moved onto a new panel with less product and primed the pad with Pinnacle Pad Conditioner (3 pea sized dots). This worked better but was still slightly difficult to use. Here are the pictures:

Amount used on fresh pad:

Panel before:

After

Less product used on new panel:

Before:

After (noticed slightly more dusting this time around):

I have learned that Menzerna products work a lot better via rotary so I treated the Wolfgang polishes the same way. The TSR3.0 was used with a 6.5” Lake Country CCS polishing pad. I used a lot less to prime the pad this time around as well. To say the least, I am impressed after using it with the rotary. I used it on two sections of the hood (only one is pictured) and learned less is more with this polish. I will have to change out the Pinnacle Pad Conditioner for straight water for my next test session to see if that helps. Removal of the polish was a lot easier than with a UDM but it was still ‘grabby’.

Amount used on fresh pad:

Panel before (notice cracking):

After:

 

[budman3]

Wolfgang Finishing Glaze 3.0
I did the same sections above with the same machines but this time around with the Finishing Glaze on a 6.5” Lake Country CCS finishing pad. I was expecting this product to lightly polish and clean the paint, and add some gloss and or protection like typical glazes – not the case, this is purely a final polish. I don’t have anything to say about application or removal, everything worked nicely. I still prefer to use the rotary than UDM but the UDM was fairly effective (moreso than TSR3.0). What really surprised me was the amount of correction done by the Finishing Glaze with a finishing pad. I did not polish the front lip of the hood, which left me a perfect spot for 50/50 shots of the correctional abilities of this product.

I sectioned off the hood to see if I could tell any differences (which I did not except on the front lip):

Here is the FG3.0 on the UDM:

After the UDM and finishing pad 50/50:

After the rotary and finishing pad 50/50:

And the rest are pictures from the rotary side (which impressed me the most)

As you can tell the hood is pretty much shot and won't be fixed by anything short of a repaint. However there are definite results from these polishes. I was hoping they'd work easier with a PC or UDM but that's fine, I'll just be sure to use them with my Makita . And my disclaimer- these are my initial reactions to the polishes, they are not my final opinions since I have not used them enough to form any final thoughts. I will update when I get some more seat time with them . Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

 

[Stephan]

Great writeup and an excellent review...funny maybe its just me but I noticed a bigger difference in your pics with the glaze as opposed to the swirl remover.

 

[cwcad]

Nice documentation, Budman. I am not surprised that the rotary works better than a PC or the UDM. I guess we knew that before we started.

Less is more is a good thing. Means the product will last longer and do more.

I like to here about American made products!!

 

[budman3]

Great writeup and an excellent review...funny maybe its just me but I noticed a bigger difference in your pics with the glaze as opposed to the swirl remover.

The swirling and marring wasn't bad at all and I think the results would be more apparent if I weren't working on a damaged hood. But to say the least I am very very impressed with the 'glaze'. I wouldn't put the name glaze on it because it's still a final polish to me. I don't think I can say enough about it, I never expected the glaze to remove any marks with a finishing pad...

CW- true about the rotary. I was hoping that they would be more user friendly for anyone to use with any machine but just like Menzerna, techniques and experience are needed for the best results. At the time, using the swirl remover wasn't fun with the UDM, which isn't good because I want to have fun while detailing, I don't want it to be a chore.