Review: Turtle Wax: ICE Liquid Clay Bar

[meissen]

Price: 17.99 at Murrays

First Impressions: Well, I'll say when I saw it at Murrays, I thought, "well, the Liquid Ice Polish is good, how well will this stuff work?" I bought it just for testing, and was intrigued with the description on the bottle. Here is Turtle Wax's description:

Liquid Clay Bar
Turtle Wax® ICE™ Liquid Clay Bar is a revolutionary new way to deep clean and restore your car's finish in a fraction of the time it takes with traditional clay bars. A unique triple layer formula consists of a scratch & swirl remover, cleaning agents and an exfoliant that work together to provide outstanding cleaning capabilities.
Product Benefits

• Easily removes minor scratches, swirls marks, tree sap, paint overspray and embedded dirt and stains that ordinary detailing clays leave behind.
• Creates smooth as glass finish on all paintwork, fiberglass and metal surfaces.
• Does not contain harsh abrasives that can scratch or scuff your finish

Use and Application: I shook the bottle up as directed and donned the nice handpad that it came with. The pad actually slides onto your hand over your fingers, and covers the palm of your hand. The liquid is VERY watery, and took some getting use to. The first few squirts of the liquid just ran right off the pad. The directions say to apply after rinsing dirt off. Does not mention whether it should be dry or wet, so I figured what the hey, regular claybar it's good for the paint to be wet and lubricated, I'll apply it while it's wet.

First, I applied it to my entire hood. I buffed it on and noticed that the hood did infact feel pretty slick. After I had covered the hood, I rinsed it off with the hose. I noticed immediately that the liquid clay bar had stripped the wax right off, as the water did not bead at all. It was actually kind of interesting to see. The water pooled in a solid sheet on my hood, which I don't think I've ever really seen it do so evenly before.

In any case, I continued on my journey applying it to the car. The last section I applied it to was my front driver's side fender, this is the side that was damaged. I started buffing it on and immediately noticed a huge difference. I buffed harder and the results were pretty impressive, atleast to me, and seemed to prove that the right ingredients are in the liquid to "claybar" or rub stuff out.

Here are a few "before" shots (sorry for the wet car..) of my fender:




Note all the scratches, the paint from the other car by the crackline, and between the crack and the edge of the fender there's like blotches of paint.

And now, the "after" shots of my fender:




And the rest of the car in the garage. The last few pics were just showing off how well the paint reflects when it's nice and clean.








Overall, a good "over the counter" product. It cut the time down spent "clay barring" quite a bit. Whether the results are truely comparable to a full claybar job... not sure, but it definitely did a nice job making the car look great.

[silver6_maro]

mmmm, maybe ill have to give it a shot!!!

And whos that crazy lookin guy you hired to take the pictures.....kinda scary

[GETGONE]

That's a HORRIBLE product! I mean it turns your car into a freaky carnival side show mirror when you look into it!



Oh wait...nevermind....that's how Brian normally looks. Carry on!

[silver6_maro]

[02redz28]

I'm gonna have to give it a whirl... I've been looking for a better alternative to an actual clay bar....

[SlipStreamZ28]

OH yeah I forgot your fenders cracked, Now I dont feel so bad about showing up with mine on sunday! Looks good though I definatly will give that a try. BTW in your opinion whick is better the turtle wax ice polish or meguires NXT?

[81DaytonaPaceCar]

Interesting...might have to give that one a shot...

[kammi10]

hmm new product ill have to try

[CHMLEON]

Cool...Thanks for the review B.

[meissen]

OH yeah I forgot your fenders cracked, Now I dont feel so bad about showing up with mine on sunday! Looks good though I definatly will give that a try. BTW in your opinion whick is better the turtle wax ice polish or meguires NXT?

I've used both a LOT, and I like Liquid Ice, but I do not know how long it really "lasts" on the car since it's really not like a wax. I love both, really... but I think I would use the Liquid Ice as a topper, as it doesn't have any abrasives in it. I'm not sure the pH of the liquid, though... I might test that using my fish tank pH tester and see if I can get a somewhat accurate reading out of it. If it's pH balanced, it won't strip the wax and should be nice for a topper.


Edit: I will admit, though, the ONLY time I have ever had anyone come up to me and comment on how shiny my paint looks was after I had finished applying Liquid Ice at a "car show" last year at Big Lots (Schoehnerr and M59). A lady that was there shopping walked across the parking lot and commented on how shiny my car looked and asked what I used. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before.

[SoulTerror]

That's a HORRIBLE product! I mean it turns your car into a freaky carnival side show mirror when you look into it!



Oh wait...nevermind....that's how Brian normally looks. Carry on!

[meissen]

Figured everyone would like that pic

[erk2581]

i know this thread is dead, so i just might make a new one, but i just used this stuff on my Piece and i'm pretty impressed, i used ICE Paste Wax a few weeks ago, which i also loved, but i decided to try this stuff out, i took a million pics i'll post as soon as they're done uploading...if you want pro. clay bar look, this might not be for you...but if you dont wana take the time, or spend the money...it for sure stripped all mine off and made my car look...well for back of a better word...CLEAN, just smooth, but not waxy smooth, i'll let the pics describe

[JAdair]

So does the clay bar stuff take the wax off of the car? And could you put wax on after using it

[kammi10]

yeah its supposed to take it off and then u re apply wax after,

what it does is get rid of all the road garbage thatu can;t see and smoothes it all out