Review: Sonus Trim and Motor Kote

I recently picked up Sonus Trim and Motor Kote (which can be found here) as an accessory to dressing my engine bay.  It can be quite difficult to get applicators in tight spots and avoid leaning all over your front bumper, Sonus' offering counters this by offering a spray dressing.  The directions are as follows

• Thoroughly clean your engine bay
• Lightly spray your engine bay
• Wait 15-20 minutes before applying your second coat
• Wait one hour
• Remove any overspray while it's still wet

Here are some of the products used to clean my engine bay, I am not a fan of hosing my engine down.  I don't prefer to use heavy amounts of water because I don't want to worry about covering up delicate pieces of equipment, and this way I know everything that is touched and where the chemicals are going.  I think there is nothing wrong with using a foam gun with a degreaser solution and then hose it down, but I just don't prefer it.

The products here are assorted brushes, my non-paint safe microfiber towels, and Meguiar's D101 in an Adam's APC bottle due to the foaming sprayer which I think is great.  For APC I absolutely recommend going with foaming over liquid spray, it allows it to be much more clingy, remove dirt and grime, and stay attached to work on the media much longer.

You can see the status of my engine bay, dirty overall it has been a month or two since the last time I cleaned it.  Nothing too greasy but a solid layer of dust and dirt.

Here it is after cleaning it but before applying the spray, much cleaner but still very dull looking.

And now the final results and look, note this is pretty soon after the first application, roughly 2 hours so I expect it to dry up more and lose some of the gloss.

My overall thoughts are that a spray product has it's positives and negatives.  It spreads and levels exceptionally well, there are no clumps, I didn't notice any missed spots, and it allows much better coverage than would be possible with a foam applicator.  Now the downsides, there was quite a bit of overspray on the front bumper and it streaked very badly and took quite a few wipes to remove it all, I originally thought I missed the dilution on my ONR wash, but it turned out to be it.  This may be due to poor technique on my part, but I think it's very difficult to effectively spray the forward portion of the engine bay and not get some on the paint.  I did not leave it on to find if there would be any negative effects due to the directions saying to wipe it off while it's still damp.

I do like this product and think it's perfect for engine bays but I may look into just using plastic sheeting to cover up the front bumper to avoid overspray.

Thanks for reading and post any questions or comments below !

Review: Optimum Power-Clean

Well it's review day.  Here are the stack of products I'm hoping to complete.  Unfortunately after foaming the car a storm started to move in so I have to pause while it moves through.

And the assortment of brushes

Here's the test wheel, the process was completed for all 4 wheels and tires.

So for Power Clean I heavily spray the tires and use the Tuff Shine tire brush to clean it out.

I was able to get this picture in action.

And it working on the tire

You can see all the grime that has built up over the past couple weeks since I last cleaned my tires.

Overall my experience with this product so far is that it does what I wanted it to.  I will need to continue to use this but for the most part APC is used to clean tires for me primarily and it did it fantastic.  Easy to use, does not smell pungent, and easy to work with.  If I had to change something I would put a foaming sprayer on it as I feel it allows the suds to stick and dwell much longer.

Product Link

Optimum Power Clean

Thanks for reading and post any comments or questions below!

Review: 3D's APC Orange Degreaser

Note: This was in accordance with 3D's promotion.

3D APC - Orange Citrus Degreaser
Price: 22oz. - $6.99 (1 Gal - $14.99)

Packaging

I recently got this in and wanted to try it out on my engine bay cover that hadn't been cleaned in a few weeks and had a layer of grime and other bits that have been kicked up from the flooding that has overtaken NW Vegas.

Quick picture of what I am working with .

And a close up

After spraying it on, letting it dwell for 15-30 seconds or so then agitating with a Mother's Detail Brush I was left with this much dirt remaining on the microfiber after wiping it clean.

And the finished product

Overall the product did what is was supposed to do, it didn't blow me away but for the price it's definitely an economical option if you can pick it up locally.  Compared to other APC's that I have used such as Adam's or Meguiar's it was about equal in terms of performance, but it is biodegradable which is always good to see and I will keep it in mind when I run out of my current stock of APC.

Thanks for reading feel free to post up any questions or tips.