CarPro Essence - Review and Application Guide

[Lowiepete]

Hello Folks,

What Is It?

CarPro Essence (CPE) - a surface cleaning and priming potion.

What Does It Bring to the Table

CarPro Essence is a unique blend of nano-tech Quartz, high gloss durable
resins, and fine abrasives that are blended together at a microscopic level to
form something truly ground-breaking! CarPro Essence leaves an amazing high gloss
finish with semi-permanent fillers and protective capabilities all built in!

Paired with a cutting pad Essence is capable of unexpected cutting power, while
a soft gloss pad armed with Essence provides gloss we could only dream of until
now! But this is not simply a polish…

In less than the time you take to polish a car with conventional products, CarPro
Essence is capable of removing swirls, while building a thick ultra glossy resin
layer with semi-permanent durability of up to 12 months! Oh, and it wipes off
like a dream!




What Am I Using it On?

A neglected 2011 Mercedes C Class



The car is the farm workhorse at where I stay twice a year on holiday in Cumbria.
This car supercedes another C class that I maintained for several years. These
next two pictures show its level of outward neglect...





Clearly, this is going to be an "in at the deep end" challenge, both for myself
as I recover from a broken wrist that's impairing my motor function, and for the
test product.

What Do I Think Of It?

In a word, impressive! In my view, the introduction of the clay cloth was a step
change in car surface preparation, CPE and its counterparts are the next. Here's
why...

The idea of filling swirls was always seen as a kind of cheat, or a short-cut
from machining to turn your nose up at. This was probably compounded by the fact
that "filler heavy" potions, as they were known with an amount of disdain, were
notorious for failing fairly quickly and taking whatever they were topped with,
with them. A wax, known to last for months, would sometimes be compromised by the
filling potion within weeks!

While the correct wielding of a machine polisher, with proper choices of potion,
pad and speed, will always define the car detailer, the idea of a restorative
rather than abrasive method of paint correction has to be a welcome thing. To
remove swirls altogether requires levelling (that's removal) of paint, and there
is a finite number of times you can do this without compromising your lacquer.

The fact that you can now progressively build a smoother and smoother surface is
also very attractive and if you're a water behaviour fanatic, all your dreams
will come true!

Chemical Wizardry

The potion contains a mix of chemicals that help tease out the ingrained dirt.
Note: this is the stuff that's still left ingrained in your paint even after a
clay cloth treatment. It also contains nano-fine SiO2; in other words very, very
finely ground-up pieces of glass. To begin with, the glass acts as an abrasive,
teasing out the loosened dirt, which is then encapsulated to prevent the
polishing process from turning into scratching.

As if that wasn't enough, the reason that you need to work it with a firm pad is
that the glass particles eventually bond to each other and to the paint to form
a hard protective surface. With a sacrificial layer of wax or sealant over it,
this layer will last a good while, probably 12 months or longer.

There is a word of warning needed. All the dirt and surplus glass dries into
something that should be treated with care. I'll come back to this.

What the product will also achieve is some swirl filling. Understanding just how
thin swirls actually are helps you to get your head around how this is achieved.
By changing the pad from firm to soft, you can also restore the looks of hard
plastics and give glass a smoothness that will help your window winders no end.

The Cleaning Process

Most of the 2nd day of this detail was spent in applying CPE, or should I say,
working it in. Although one of its competitors is named as a lotion, you only
ever apply it like a lotion to hard plastics, and to glass as a follow up, after
giving it a good working in. Obviously, with my gammy hands, I don't work with a
machine, but that doesn't mean I couldn't get the best from this potion.

You will need a firm foam pad for application. I used a waffle based white pad
that was soaked for several minutes in some fairly warm soapy water as its primer.
This to help soften the pad a little and to provide lubrication. 2 capfuls of ONR
in 4 litres of water is fine. Less is more of the potion itself, so you should
avoid CPE being the pad primer.

You need no more than three split-pea sized drops on the pad. Let me emphasise
this, if you apply too much, you _will_ work against yourself! You can work in
circles or straight lines, whichever takes your fancy, however, there is an
achievement point that you need to aim toward for success. Limit your working
area to about 2 feet squared, concentrating your efforts in that area.

This is important because after a while of working the product in, you'll reach
a "sweet-spot" where the feedback from the pad suddenly gets a bit smoother and
all the indications are that there's no point in going further. Note that if you
overload your pad, you will never achieve this! Indeed, you'll only question what
I'm talking about. Sweet-spot, what sweet-spot?

Allow the potion to dry, taking careful note over how much crud is still coming
out of the paint. From a safety point of view, I'd advocate wearing some form of
breathing mask whilst buffing, then discarding the towel straight into a bucket
of detergent sooner rather than later. After all, you can never have too many
clean MF towels. I'd avoid deep-pile towels for this job.

When you go to your next work area with the pad, don't just automatically load it
with more potion. In other words, do keep working the pad until the primer
indicates it is too dry. Overloading the pad with the working potion is far too
easily achieved! Also, before reloading, take the opportunity to inspect the pad
for dirt, giving it a good rinse out if needed.

Overall on this first go, I used around 60 to 70ml of potion on the whole car.
I'd expect to use much less next time. There is no short-cut to achieving a great
finish! However, this process is still very much quicker than brandishing a
machine. With 5 years worth of neglect to restore, I should not have been
surprised at the amount of dirt being gathered in the foam pad and indeed in the
buffing cloth.

PPE

This brings me to an aspect of working safely, the implications of which are
still not fully understood, yet should not be ignored. My feeling is that the
buffing-off cloths should be treated as possibly / probably hazardous. Avoiding
breathing in the dust from it would be the first priority. It's not just the
surplus nano-fine glass it has gathered, the age-old dirt particles could be
just as hazardous!

On this car, I was quite taken aback at just how much crud was still coming out
of the paint, even at this stage! I found myself regularly rinsing out the
foam applicator. Anyway, in my view, care with disposal of the buffing cloths
needs thought. I dunked mine into a small bucket of detergent, rather than
letting them be gathered with other towels.

If you're concerned about breathing in the dust, there is nothing to stop you
from using a lightly dampened MF cloth to gather up the crud first, throwing
that into your suds bucket straight away. Then follow up with a clean cloth,
again dampened with ONR, so the surface dries without water spots and you
don't create static.

The product itself is also hazardous to your hands, so nitrile gloves are
recommended. Wash off any product that lands on your skin.

The Finish

The colour of this latest car is just about as boring as it gets. So, trying to
bring it to life might be an ambition too far. What was really noticeable was how
smooth the cleaned surfaces felt. However, as is its wont in Cumbria, it will
just throw down buckets of rain at a moment's notice.

These 2 pictures show a very pleasing water behaviour, after the working in of
CPE on the horizontal surfaces. However, you might notice a subtle difference.
In the upper picture I used CPE straight after the clay cloth process, whereas
on the roof, I did give the surface a very light polishing first.





Seeing this the next morning, I decided all the horizontals would get a light
polishing. As for the vertical panels, there was much less crud to remove. This
next sequence of photographs I'll ask you to study carefully to see how easily
you can determine my progress...









I've added in this picture to try and show it's not a trick of the light.



CPE can be used to clean all automotive surfaces, but it has another side to it
that is almost its polar opposite. With a soft foam pad you can apply it to
hard plastics which helps restore their looks. Window rubbers can be properly
cleaned and treated and finally glass, give it a follow-up coating and the
smoothness will probably surprise you.



Does CPE Really Remove Swirls?

Ahh, the age-old question that I'm bound to answer. Working by hand, I can
confirm that they will be greatly reduced. The thing to say here is that the
processes here are restorative, which means that repeated uses, over time will
only help reduce them further, though that remark comes with a huge caveat. It'll
probably be your drying process when new swirls are created.

Considering how neglected this car was, I'll let you decide from these pictures
whether the work involved is worth the effort...





To my mind it is and I would not be without this type of product in my armoury.

Where Do I Buy It?
CarPro Essence is available in several sizes from 250ml upward direct from the Carpro Website
and other suppliers.

Regards,
Steve