Great! This topic is finally taking off!

Interesting thing about the Turtlewax Zip Wax. It has been around for a long, long time! I only remember using it back in the mid-80's, (a buddy of mine used it religiously and I washed my car in his drive since he had the stuff out!! ) maybe once or twice and it did a nice job. It does have a loyal following, no doubt about that! It's been out for so long, it must be good then. If anyone has taken notice over the years, auto shampoos and soaps come and go like any other product on the market. Only the tried and true remain, as well as some cost effective soaps as I had mentioned in the earlier post. Zip Wax is definately one of the tried and true!

Jupiter- That was going to be one of my next products I was going to touch base on as well! I have used an unholy amount of different waxes as have many other people trying to find the "The Ultimate wax" so-to-speak! I have dabbled from no-name products (literally!!) from local dealerships to name brand (Boyd's comes to mind), one particular wax was from the Honda dealer I had a contract with for a few years. It came in a 5 gallon barrel with no name, from a local company, afterwards a sealent from a 55 gal drum was used. They were quite insistant that I use these products. Fine, I said. Worked nicely but wore off prematurely, as some dealerships detailing does.

I recently waxed the Santy 2 days ago with yet another wax (yes folks, I change brands every couple applications just to try something new and give it a personal rating!! Obsessive? Nooooo!!! ) and that was with Maguiar's Gold Class at the urging of a co-worker of mine who claims it was the best wax he's ever used??!! I've used it twice now and it has applied easily, and lasted for a few months (the more you wash like myself, the quicker the wax eventualy strips along with natural elements) so that was a decent period of time for me. I found that it didn't buff off quite the way I preferred with the orbital, rather leaving very fine web like swirls (kind of like X-mas tree lights peering thru a a clump of angel-hair that people liked to use on their trees long ago) and found myself buffing by hand afterwards to wipe these swirls away. All waxes do this to some degree, just some more noticeable than others, and what light your under. I like to use my wifes aunts garage with which with I installed a combination of shoplights and those reveal lights that came out a couple years ago to simulate natural daylight. You see every blemish then!! My Santy is 3 years old in August and I have plenty of them! But basically Gold Class is a decent product as well, just a little extra effort is involved for the end result I felt.

As for your question Jupiter - I wash the Santy a higher than normal amount than most people so that attributes to how many times I wax as well as other things, but over the years, I have always waxed my autos 3 to 4 times a year minimum. There was a period of time I would wax every 3 washes.....obsurd I know. Thats just how strong a bond I develop with my cars. A member of the family. Wierd...... ) I got that from my father!!

Obvoiusly you don't need to wax so many times!! But it doesn't hurt if you feel the need to, and in the long run, say 10+ years (which most of us may never have the Santy for that long) it pays off. If not for yourself, for the future owners. I have seen several of my previous vehicles many years later still looking nice. Clean gloss to the paint, no rust. Obsession pays of eventually!! I could go on forever but this is long enough!!! Sorry folks!! It's an addiction of mine!!