Turtle Wax Ice Review

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CRX-YEM

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Turtle Wax Ice

I'd like to thank Melissa Tramantano , media coordinator of Turtle Wax, for the opportunity to review their new Turtle Wax ICE products.
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"Turtle Wax® ICE™ Car Wash is formulated with a blend of surfactants and special paint conditioners that gently wash away dirt, road grime and dust leaving behind an incredible sparkling shine"

"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."

"Turtle Wax® ICE™ is a clear wax formulated with completely new technology that blends silicone and hydrocarbon polymers to provide extraordinary shine and durability."


Now that the summer driving months are dying down and some of us are putting away our cars for the winter, it's still not to late to pick up this great product. I really like the packaging of these products, as they all came with their own applicator pads. The microfiber cloths area nice product as well. I am very pleased with the results when compared to the Meguiar's Brand and Blue Coral products I usually use.

To begin we will need one filthy Honda, which I can provide since I've been neglecting the CRX for a while in the detailing department.

Dirty Hood Close up
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Dirty Roof Close up
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Those rims are actually not bronze, that would be caked on brake dust.
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Bug / Bird Crap it's been there a while
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As usual, I started my car wash with a nice rinse. I followed the directions on the Turtle Wax Ice car wash and created a nice sudsy wash.
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This car wash is great. It stayed nice and foamy the whole time. It cleans very well too. The finish was nice after the wash, and it removed virtually all the nasty built up road grime. It also removed most of the tar and bug remnants. I was impressed with how well it cut through the brake dust on my rims. I usually have to spray them down with rim cleaner, like F21 wheel cleaner (another great turtle wax product), to aid in the cleaning of the rims. This time that was not necessary. Although it worked quite well I did have to follow up with rim cleaner to really get the rims as clean as I like them to be.

The next step was to use the ICE Liquid Clay Bar to clean the bug and tar bits that the car wash wasn't able to fully remove. Turtle Wax claims that it will, easily removes minor scratches, swirls marks, tree sap, paint overspray and embedded dirt and stains that ordinary detailing clays leave behind. It also creates a smooth as glass finish on all paintwork, fiberglass and metal surfaces, and it does not contain harsh abrasives that can scratch or scuff your finish.

I followed the directions and began doing this by hand on small sections of my car at a time. I was impressed with how well it removed the bug splatter that was above my headlight. This product is a lot easier to use than a traditional hard clay bar, but it still required a good amount of elbow grease to remove the bug residue.

Close up of headlight where the bug was. As you can see the finish on the hood has now been brought back to a brilliant shine even before I applied the Turtle Wax ICE synthetic polish. It has also removed a lot of the surface contaminant that can be seen in the previous picture above.

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After I spent a little time on the hood, I got out my 6" orbital buffer with a new terrycloth bonnet, and began to apply the Turtle Wax ICE Liquid Clay Bar on small section at a time. The difference this time was that it took much less effort. Both ways that I applied the product left a haze that is similar to a classic paste wax. It simply needs to be rinsed-off before applying the ICE Polish.

However, in my experience, it didn't just rinse off. I had to wash the car again to really remove the haze. Overall the Liquid Clay Bar does a wonderful job, although a traditional clay bar leaves the paint surface feeling a little smoother.

I was able to do my entire car in about 30 minutes; a fraction of the time it would take with a traditional clay bar.

Finally, after drying the car with an absorber and washing the clay bar residue off I was ready to use the Turtle Wax ICE polish. I opted to use the liquid version versus the paste that was provided. Again, the polish came with its own applicator. The product claims that it will not leave a white residue like an ordinary carnauba wax typically does, so I made sure to wax/polish all exterior surfaces including my tail lights, headlights, black trim and gaskets around the windows. I followed the directions shaking well and applying a thin layer over the entire car. Unlike traditional waxes, you can actually easily apply Turtle Wax ICE polish to the entire car and let it dry to a haze. That process only took about 2-3 minutes, as I was applying it in direct sunlight on a hot sunny day. After I waxed the car, I thought about my rims and the high concentration of brake dust. The rims are clear coated and have a polished aluminum lip. The polish says it can be used on most exterior surfaces. This time I decided to used the paste version of the wax. I tested it on an interior portion of the rim, and the test went well I decided to wax all visible portions of my rims again letting the product dry to a haze.This is were the microfiber cloths really are effective and will pay for themselves in no time. I tried using a terrycloth towel , and I had difficulty removing the haze. Those same cloths usually work great on carnauba waxes. The terrycloth towels were also leaving lint behind. The microfiber cloths were like magic it lifted the haze off the car with little to no effort, and they helpproduce a brilliant shine. The microfiber cloths seem to be the secret ingredient to the ICE product line. I really was impressed with how well they worked.

After wiping down the entire car the product is true to it's claim; there was not a single spot of white residue anywhere, not even on of the black plastic trim. I typically use a product called Mothers Back to Black to finish up the plastic trim, and bring back the vibrant black color of the trim, but in this case Turtle Wax ICE is all that is needed. It ended up saving me a lot of time that I spend detailing all the trim on my car.

The complete lineup of the Turtle Wax ICE products may not be the cheapest on the market but they do a wonderful job. They are extremely easy to use and apply. It has been a few weeks since I used the products and they seem to be working well. The car's surface doesn't have that familiar feeling of a traditional wax that is smooth to the touch like I'm used to. With Turtle Wax ICE the rain beads up nicely, my rims have been staying cleaner and seem to be repelling the brake dust that usually builds up very quickly. I was able to just spray off the brake dust just the other day rather than having to really scrub down the rims like I have in the past. The ICE product lineup has just replaced my Meguires kit.

In fact, I like the product so much, I offered to clean my wifes car the next day. Her car is a 2003 Honda Civic, which hasn't been abused by the UV rays of the sun as my CRX has. She has a few superficial scratches that the ICE clay bar removed, and the finish came out amazing. The Turtle Wax ICE products have brought back the brilliant crystal show room shine like the day we drove it home.

To conclude overall I am quite pleased with the Turtle Wax ICE product line. It's very easy to apply, doesn't leave any white powdery residue, and it's not prohibitively expensive. When I run out of the sample products that were supplied I would definitely buy this product.



The results of using Turtle Wax ICE product, a nice brilliant shine
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Nice and shiny close up of the roof after waxing
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Nicely polished Rims
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Some Pictures of the final outcome.
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To see a Complete Photo Gallery click here
 
so, i have some pretty obvious swirls in my clear coat and wishing them away isn't working; think this is the stuff?
 
i'm a noob to ur clay bar - but thanks to you i'm thinking about using the BlackFire Poly Clay II process/product and *then* the TW Ice stuff. - the guy i bought my CRX from had a decent paint job put on it but someone fuxxored the clear coat w/swirlies. nyeh...this should help. thanks, guys! PS this was a well written review, CRX-YEM, hope you got real paid! If not, you should ;)
 
Personally I like the stuff alot...It polishes just as shiny as meguiars three step wax kit does and it does seem to repel dirt better but after I used it religiously for about 3 months I noticed I had a small oxidation spot on my roof (an obvious place) so I'm not convinced it protects as well as other polishes or waxes
 
The ICE quick detailer kicks ass. Now that I've seen this I may swing to there wax.
 
so, i have some pretty obvious swirls in my clear coat and wishing them away isn't working; think this is the stuff?

Try Meguiar's Scratch X it works wonders on swirl marks. I went through a "touchless" car wash once that swirl marked my entire car, and it got all of the marks out of my clearcoat. You do need to follow it up with some kind of wax/sealer/protectant however as it will remove pretty much anything on your paint too..
 
I went and picked up the TW Ice Clay Bar, it took just over an hour to do my whole car, but I buffed it in pretty good. Didnt get a chance to take pics, but it turned out really good. Being a black car it shows any little dirt or scratch, but after using the clay bar it made it LOT more glossy and took a lot of the swirl mark out. I need to pick up the polish to finish it off, but I def. recommend the clay bar.
 
sweetness. my car's black too....it's a love/hate thing. soooo pretty when it is spotless. soooo shitty when it ain't. thanks for the advice guys!
 
Personally I like the stuff alot...It polishes just as shiny as meguiars three step wax kit does and it does seem to repel dirt better but after I used it religiously for about 3 months I noticed I had a small oxidation spot on my roof (an obvious place) so I'm not convinced it protects as well as other polishes or waxes

The ice works well for leaving a nice finish but it does not last. A lot of people use it for a quick detail because of the finish it leaves. I noticed that the rain stopped beading after a few rain showers. I have a dark blue truck and it worked well, check out the pics in automedia forum under pics of my truck. That was after using the turtle wax ice. I washed it recently and it did not look as good after the wash compared to other waxes I have used in the past on my black trucks. The ice works wonders on black plastic. I am rewaxing my truck in the next few weeks with something that will last longer for the winter.

The clay bar is alright. A traditional clay bar will work better. I used the ice clay bar on my girlfriends white civic. It worked alright but some marks were stubborn to get out and a few I left because I didn't want to ruin the paint by over rubbing the claybar. On other white cars I have claybared these marks would have came right out. On my truck it didn't work well on getting the swirl marks out. A traditional scratch and swirl mark remover worked much better.

Overall its an easy to use system that will make your car look good, but don't expect it to last 3 months. Its great for someone who is newer to detailing or just doesn't want to spend the time to detail. Remember that there are better products out there.
 
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