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 market from professional users to the consumer market through its newest and largest customer, Wal-Mart. Mart. Many in the auto, aircraft and boat detailing industries have even criticized Meguair’s recently because they feel this is a slap in the face to the loyal trader who has paid premium prices for quality products and can now see Meguiar’s branded ones on 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 done a step-by-step guide to different levels of rust, surfaces, and paints. Their Number 65 Flagship soap is excellent, as is their Gel Wash (Number 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 16oz 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 the surfaces after use of the product. Using in-line injection from a bucket of soapy water didn’t work very well. The product seemed very benign, so we don’t think a little soap in the water around the Marina would be a problem. As for their cleaners and polishes for the marine industry, we feel good about these products, but feel that once again we have paid too much for them. Although the “Star Brite” competition is also stiff on price points. 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 product line from the automotive industry. Maybe a few minor 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 to be 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 Sealing Wax or Diamond Shine products. We saw no reason to purchase this product for professional use other than to keep the brands you use consistent. We also found that these other solvent waxes did not 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 overwhelming, 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 that we use in the industry did not have, and that is that it seemed to bring some properties back to the fiberglass. Someone approached me today and asked what was the best wax to use on 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 waxes in the Meguiar’s line blew us away a bit, and we’re relatively hard to please. So this is a thumbs up for them. Their flagship premium wax seemed to be adequate, for 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 (Issue 56) seemed to work fine but we found it had silicone, polymer blend with Brazilian carnauba and the problem with this blend although the gloss was excellent is that in the 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 any problems. So this may not be the best for our team to use on the 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 good touch up product for a Boat Show account, we liked Quick Wax Marine Number 59, with a trigger spray and also the same product in an aerosol can. We also thought it was smart of Meguiar’s to custom label all of the car care products for their line of cans. Similar to the way 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 as well. Now the specialty cleaners for Meguiars Marine also had a deck and hull slip cleaner that worked well and the hard water spot remover was good enough for government work and valuable for other uses as well. The Meguiars Gold Teak Oil seemed to be above average in quality and the test site we did made us want to complete the entire boat deck so we are very optimistic about that product.
The All Metal Bright Works Polish was also very good and seemed better than the Never Dull product 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 product specifically for that need. It dissolved the fat, 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.
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 personalized guidance on what products to buy to help you properly clean your boat and wax it.
[http://www.meguiars.com/marinerx.cfm]
Which is a nifty value-added 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 are always interested to see what kind of things marketing or vendors and vendors do and what kind of strategies they employ. It’s interesting to see them try new things and then change them. Interactivity in web strategy is important and Meguiar’s seems to understand this very well and has obviously put a lot of money into 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 gloss black with the 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 they seem to be attacking it well, over time to maintain whatever market share they do get, 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 just a bit 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 the professional detailing product companies like Auto Magic, Pro, Beauty Shine, Stoner, etc. And we’re not discounting Meguiar’s flagship products like Meguiar’s Mirror Glaze or their excellent polishing compounds. But, again in the field of polishing compounds, we also prefer much 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 excited about the rest of Megiuar’s retail lineup. The new wipes are cool enough and they seem to have entered the market alongside other brands like Lexol for their leather cleaning wipes. Overall, we totally applaud the Meguiar’s line of marine products and feel comfortable with about six of the products, which our tea will likely use. These are the products that we felt worked favorably in our tests. We are tough on all of our suppliers. And to Meguiar’s credit, they are a tireless company when it comes to improving and listening to their customers. And we all know that good things come with age.