ACELRNT

After I saw a recent "Best Wax" post, I had to have the ZAINO!
I bought the glass cleaner, plastic cleaner and polish wax.
Eckler's sells it with online convenience.

You will NOT see it win any concourse prizes.

The extreme shine after waxing looks more like a plastic coating on top of the clear coat. It reminds me of the NuFinish look. Too artificial. In the sun, the coating has faint, oily looking rainbows. The Glass Cleaner didn't do any better than Windex Clear. The Plastic Cleaner causes fingerprints to show when lightly touched. I stopped at a shop that does concourse level Porsches and all my painting. We had a good laugh. "Zaino probably looks good to those who haven't been doing it very long..." (Owners quote). I spent 10+ hours removing, polishing and waxing after using Zaino for 1 week. It sounded like the ultimate finish. It's only merit was ease of application and durability. I know it's durable, because it was damn hard to remove.

My last 8 sports cars have been BLACK. (85 928GTS, 88 Iroc, 91 ZR1, 94 F355, 96 WS6 T/A, 99 C5, 01 Z06, 03 Z06). I didn't catch on until my $$ ZR1. I went to car shows and talked to those who know paint. Many of those people forgot more about perfection than I will ever know.
I have every paint prep you can think of. The leftover Zaino wax will be used on the bottom of the boat. I restricted the craptacular NuFinish to the lawn chairs. I'm not sure which is worst.

If distortion free gloss and ultimate CLARITY are your primary concern, durability will suffer. Dark paint and polymer based protectants will never give award winning results. Paint prep and conditioning will need to be done about every 60 - 90 days using a true wax. A random orbital polisher will yield the best results. Porter-Cable makes an awesome polisher. I use the 7424 model with a variety of pads and bonnets. Subsequently, items listed are for use with an electric polisher. I do the hood, roof and deck lid final wax by hand, so solid waxes are listed.

Best Swirl removers - Meguiar's 2.0, Meguiar's #9, 3M Perfect-It
Best Cleanser - Zymol HD Cleanser
Best Polish - Menzerna Final Polish
Best Gloss Polish - Blackfire Gloss Enhancing Polish
Best Waxes (Solid)- Zymol Fantasy C5, Pinnacle Souveran, Zymol 'Carbon'
Best Wax (Liquid) - Medallion Premium (Better durability than solid wax, less shine), Meguiar's HiTech #26
Best Cleaner/Wax - Meguiar's #6 Cleaner Wax (Good step-saver alternative)

I have found an awesome website for paint prep. It is packed with tips and information. If you want to know the full paint prep process. They sell online everything I use except Zymol.
I don't have any affiliation with this company, but I am a customer.
www.properautocare.com

For Zymol Fantasy C5...
www.superiorcarcare.net

silverz06vette

All the fish will see your best shine. :rofl:

IT L GO

:nopity :bs : :U

jschindler

[quote]It's only merit was ease of application and durability. I know it's durable, because it was damn hard to remove[quote]

What's wrong with that? It's obvious by your post that you really aren't looking for opinions on the best wax, you are just using this as an opportunity to show us all what an expert you are, and how much you dislike Zaino.

I've been waxing cars probably since before you were born. I know that if you are showing your car under certain light conditions, there might be a difference in how some waxes look on the car. But to most of us, we can't tell a difference between any of the waxes in appearace. So durability and ease of use are very important to us.

I won't claim Zaino to be the best, but I will claim it to be the best I have used for what I want it to do.

ZO6Les

:yesnod: :bs :U

Dope

Interesting.

It is my personal opinion, that if you took 10 cars, prepped and painted them all the same, and used 10 different popular waxes on them, 98% of the population would not be able to tell the difference. Therefore, Zaino's FAR superior durability and ease of application clearly puts it head and shoulders above the rest.

I like having my car still shine 6 months later, my cars are daily drivers, not show queens :)

Dope

Racer

Concourse shows are for trailer/garage queens for the most part. :smash: :smash:
In my opinion, Zaino is not the best Overall, but it is right up there for sure. :thumbs: :cool: :cheers:

smook

I use Mother's on my Z06 ! (yellow). Very happy!
But I did buy Zanio and still have NOT used it.
I've seen Zanio'ed vettes at shows and cannot tell the difference from my wax job on my car!

Anyone want to buy my Zanio ? (un-used... btw been waxing a long time on many vettes... I don't see a need for Zanio!)

Signed, Bill (afraid to use Zanio!!)

mqqn

Hi ACELRNT -

Although Zaino is the overwhelming (most vocalized?) choice of the owners here on Troy's forum - I am with you on the nu-finsh analogy - and this is my opinion and I am entitled to it regardless.

My choice of wax (as opposed to polish...) is Malm's (www.malms.com).

I have been using this for over ten years. This wax makes the paint pop - and it is the very best I have ever used on darker colors - period (I have had some black cars and Harleys).

The Malms will not leave white residue when dry, and it beads water like it is jumping off the car - I normally do not have to dry my cars after a spray wash because the water jumps off the car when I get up to speed.

Please give it a try and email or IM me with your opinion. Malms is a true show-finish product. I had my car down to BG at the last two Cruise In events, and my opinion was that our EB Z had a better looking shine than the Zaino cars (INCOMING!!!) :leaving:

I am not associated with Malms in any way, other than being a long time patron.

Please forgive me Zaino users, for I am a sinner - but I still love 'yall. :D

best regards

mqqn


edited because I CAN'T TYPE!!


[Modified by mqqn, 11:42 AM 8/2/2003]

w8d4it

Everytime I read "Zaino is not the holy grail" thread on this forum I am amazed because
1) the moderators usually don't all them to exist very long
2) the Zainheads absoultely cannot believe that some might not be satisfied with their product
3) the Zainheads beleive there is no better product than Zaino even though many or most have never tried anything else.
4) as a result of 3+4 above the Zainheads get very upset, even abusive
4) wax/polish is like relgion. If you like our wax then use. If you don't like it, other than providing polite basic informatoin, link a URL ling, stop trying to covert us.

Tom T.

I've got a black Z06. Used Zaino and got a blinding shine. However, to my eye, it didn't have the depth I was looking for...tried P21S and have been very happy with it. Bottom line: Find something that you like and use it regularly, and your car will look great for years. :smash:

TT

Z06ufgrad2002

I, like others have used many different types of waxes and polishes. I was skeptical of Zaino but, I did purchase some a few weeks ago and put three coats of it on my car a couple of weekends ago. Well I can say that by the 3 rd coat I actually felt like the whole car had a decent layer of polish on it. The stuff goes on so thin that you MUST put on multiple coats in order to really cover the car well. After 3 coats I dont' think it shines anymore than any other good quality wax. Now is the test of durability. We will see how that goes. Zaino doesn't seem to bead as well as a good wax does either. And with all the coats I had to put on of the Zaino, I definately have more swirl marks in my finish. :mad

Where to get a towel that won't leave swirl marks would be a better discussion IMO. Since tihe ones I used have only been used once for waxing my car but, that was with Meguiars Mirror Glaze Products.

Sorry Zaino brothers but, I was not THAT impressed with stuff. :crazy:

C7LOU

My last Z06 was black and the Zaino made it look very nice, but I don't necessarily think it made it look better than any other wax might. My new Z06 is red and the dealer I bought it from (who only sells Vettes) uses IBIZ exclusively and the car looks outstanding in any light, so I guess I'll stick with it when I need to wax again because it sure looks nice!! :D

Rookiedyn

Zaino to me always makes my finish seem oily. Someone mentioned that I may be using to much which makes sense. Regardless I am open to different products. I will have to watch this thread.

Dr.Ron

Zaino is VERY easy to use, and you use very little of it as well! Check my sig pics & tell me that car doesn't look awesome!!! :nono: :party:

LTC Z06

I have a Z06 :confused:

2002 Z06

There was a very good article in Corvette Fever about 2-3 years ago about caring for your Vette. It listed many of the top products for tires/wheels/dash paint and so on. And the big debate was wether it was the product used or the frequency in which you cleaned your Vette. I believed they concluded that as long as you keep up with your car care (wash once a week, polish/wax every 3-4 months) your car would look good regardless of the product used.

I personally use Finish First by Liqui-tech which is a synthetic polish/finish.
I have tried the Zaino and thru MY EXPERIENCE I like the Finish first better.

Also I don't understand why many of the forum owners who bought their Vettes new and garage keep it put wax instead of polish on their cars?

jschindler

Polish has abrasives in it (despite Zaino's claim to be a Polish - it is not). Polish has virtually no ability to last on a vehicle if it is a true polish. The purpose of a polish is to remove imperfection in the finish by actually taking off part of the surface to even it out with the marks that are actually into the surface of the paint. Hope this helps explain it.

Kale

Pinnacle is my fav.

Killrwheels

I would disagree with the 10 looking alike if prepped the same way. You would see some very clean and reflective paint (Zaino, Klasse) , some two dimensional paint (Nu-Finish, Liquid Glass), and some depth and 3-dimensional shading (Pinnacle, P21S) . You then need to pick your fav look because each is very different .

As for the P21S crowd, I would suggest you try Pinnacle. While P21S has an amazing bead when wet (high beeswax content ) , it does not look as nice as Pinnacle when detailed IMO. P21S cleaner is very good however, and can be used with Pinnacle versus the paintwork lotion. Also Pinnacle does not streak and comes off easier, like butter.

My vote is for Pinnacle Soveran and I have multuple bottles of products to backup my opinion, but in the end only my opinion.