Meguiars RV and marine boat cleaners and waxes; Test results
One of the most famous and popular brands in the wax industry is Meguiar’s. Meguiar’s has stood the test of time as a brand. Some of its aftermarket competitors, as well as larger users of the product, have complained that Meguiar’s has turned its back on the professional user market for the consumer market through its newest and largest client, Wal-Mart. Mart. Many in the auto, aircraft and boat detailing industries have even been critical of Meguair’s recently because they feel this is a slap in the face to the loyal operator who has paid premium prices for quality products and can now see those branded Meguiar’s on the shelves.
We tested Meguiars’ RV and Boat product lines. What we like about Meguiar’s line of boat and RV detailing products is that they have made a step-by-step guide for different levels of oxidation, surfaces, and paints. Their Flagship Soap Number 65 is excellent, as is their Gel Wash (Issue 54) made for all gel coat surfaces. We felt that for a professional boat cleaning business these products were a bit pricey and we admit they work well but are too expensive for a small 16 ounce bottle. Unless you buy it online, you’ll find the price outrageous at local marinas and boat shops, like the Marine West chain.
We enjoy the laminating action on surfaces after use of the product. Inline injection use of a bucket of soapy water didn’t work very well. The product seemed very benign, so we don’t think a bit of soap in the water around the Marina is a problem. As for their cleaners and polishes for the marine industry, we felt good about these products, but felt that once again we had paid too much for them. Although “Star Brite” competition is tough on price points as well. I guess assuming boat owners will be willing to pay more since it’s for a boat. We didn’t see much of a difference between these products from the marine industries and Meguiar’s line of products from the automotive industry. Maybe a few small ingredient changes for UV gel coat protection and some fancy repackaging, but you’ll have to be the judge on that.
Meguiar’s Color Restorer seems fine in that it is able to remove minor marks and scuffs, but we also found that a polymer solvent wax did the same thing, eg Auto Magic’s Sealer Wax or Diamond Shine products. We saw no reason to buy this product for professional use other than to keep the brands you use consistent. We also found that these other solvent-based waxes didn’t damage anything and actually worked better than Color Restorer (Issue 44) and the next product Oxidation Remover (Issue 49). Meguiar’s One Step Compound (Issue 67) isn’t too impressive, but we don’t like compounds anyway and the product is hard to use, thick and overpowering, although the results were decent, it did most of what you’d expect . That too. It seemed to have another property that most of the products we use in the industry did not have and that is that it seemed to give back some properties to the fiberglass. Someone approached me today and asked what was the best wax to use for an RV and fiberglass area. A lot has to do with the decals, the surface, the paint and the level of oxidation. This same premise applies to boats, jet skis and yachts. The crayons in the Meguiar’s line blew us away a bit, and we’re relatively hard to please. So this is a nod for them. Their premium flagship wax seemed to be adequate, in ease of use we give it a 5 on a scale of 1-10. It is said to last a long time, but on a saltwater boat we wonder what that means. Meguiar’s Pure Boat Wax (Number 56) seemed to work well but we found it had silicone, a Brazilian carnauba polymer blend and the problem with this blend, although the gloss was excellent, is that in polyurethane there are problems with some silicones and with Imron. there are problems with carnauba waxes. So if you take this special boat wax and apply it to RVs with custom paints, we have to wonder if we can cause trouble. So this may not be the best for our team to use on trucks, but certainly good enough for the average citizen with a boat. When the average person washes their RV there are definite problems, read this article
Now for a nice touch up product for a Boat Show account, we liked the Quick Wax Marine Number 59, with a trigger spray and also the same product in an aerosol can. We also think it was smart of Meguiar’s to custom label all car care products for their line of bottles. Similar to how Zep Chemicals often changes the labels on their products to be conveniently ready for another cleaning use. MSDS
http://www.msdssearch.com/
of course, exactly the same because they have the same content and ingredients and the same instructions too. Now the special cleaners for Meguiars Marine also had a deck and hull anti slip cleaner that worked well and the hard water stain remover was good enough for government work and is valuable for other uses as well. Meguiars Gold Teak Oil seemed to be above average in quality and the test spot we did made us want to complete the entire deck of the boat, so we are very bullish on that product.
The All Metal Shiny Work Polish was also very good and seemed better than Never Dull for shine and better than Mother’s Aluminum Polish for ease of use. When we tried Meguiars Bilge Cleaner we laughed because it seems a bit of a stretch to make a specific product for that need. It dissolved the grease, but so does Simple Green for a lot less money. Here’s a page on the Meguiar’s website where you can order the most popular seafood products.
http://www.meguiars.com/store_meguiars/search_results.cfm
Also, if you are a private boat owner, you can go to Meguiar’s website and they can give you a personalized guide on what products to buy to help you get your boat properly cleaned and waxed.
[http://www.meguiars.com/marinerx.cfm]
Which is a nifty value-add service for the online B2C retail part of your business strategy, but it seems to me that if they’re going to sell their products like Wal-Mart, why pay $30.00 for the Boat kit, $12.00 for the soap, all those cleaners and then shipping? We’re always interested in seeing what kind of marketing stuff or vendors and vendors do and what kind of strategies they employ. It’s interesting to watch them try new things and then change them. Interactivity in the web strategy is important and Meguiar’s seems to understand this very well and has obviously invested a lot of money in their website. At this year’s 2004 SEMA Show we noticed they had the same truck on display as our Blitz Mobile on the corner of Convention Center Drive. Their unit was glossy black with Meguiar’s paint scheme and as always they had beautiful displays with information on their new cleaning products as well as a reintroduction of their marine line.
Overall Meguiar’s marine line is definitely a complete and a player in the market and it looks like they are attacking it well, over time to maintain whatever market share they achieve they will need to improve some of their products. However, with their brand recognition in the car care industry, which has significant competition, they should be able to carry this strong image into the future with the marine industry. StarBrite products sell pretty well and tend to outsell Meguiar’s by only a little now, originally they were about the only game in town. But we’re seeing the Meguiar’s line fight for market share. What we found is that you can’t always find a full line of StarBrite products at your local marina, as most companies don’t carry the full line and aren’t willing to carry the full Meguiar’s line either. So there are already problems. Wal-Mart sells Meguiar’s RV waxes and boat waxes and other automotive products in the Meguiar’s line. We believe that the best products for efficiency and ease of use definitely come from professional detailing companies like Auto Magic, Pro, Beauty Shine, Stoner, etc. And we’re not discounting Meguiar’s core products like Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze or their excellent polishing compounds. But, again in the field of polishing compounds, we also prefer a lot of what 3M has to offer:
[http://www.3m.com.br/us/auto_marine_aero/]
and they also have a Marine Line of excellent products. But so far we’re not too enthusiastic about the rest of Megiuar’s retail lineup. The new wipes are cool enough and seem to have entered the market alongside other brands like Lexol for their leather cleaning wipes. Overall, we totally applaud Meguiar’s line of seafood products and are comfortable with about six of the products, which will likely use our tea. These are the products that we felt performed favorably in our tests. We are tough on all of our vendors. And to Meguiar’s credit, they are a company that is relentless when it comes to improving and listening to their customers. And we all know that good things come with age.
