How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

[ethereal45]

I've read a few different numbers ranging from 10-100 with one tin. Granted, it obviously depends on the size of the car, but it's still a huge variable number among different members here.

I've been waxing only light colored cars, and it's difficult for me to see how thick the wax is actually going on. It's therefore hard to gauge how often I need to be dipping my pad back into the tin for more wax, and how much wax to pull out and apply each time.

[BlackScreaminMachine]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

What I can tell you is I tend to be heavy handed so I am sure I could get more if I used the same amount of disciple on every car, everytime.

I started with a Tin of NXT 2.0 last year and I ended up tossing it out this season as I had gotten some NXT 2.0 Liquid and went on with Ultimate Paste wax. I want to say I did about 20-30 cars with it and it had about another good 10-20 normal sized cars.

Like you said, many varibles. I am sure Stoops and company could get well over 100 average sized cars with out issue.

[JoeDirt]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

I've been on the same tin of M16 for about 3 years, and it's barely broken into. My thoughts are if someone is only getting 10 applications out of a tin, it's going on too thick.

[jfelbab]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

I've been using #16 for years. I typically got about 80 applications from a tin.

[dtuna42]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

Seriously? One tin, 80-100 applications? And by application, you mean entire car? I have definitely noticed a difference going from hand application to machine application - and I also noticed that I used less NXT 2.0 from a can than something like liquid cleaner wax (consumer), but I can't imagine it covering 80 cars. I am impressed...

[BlackScreaminMachine]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

Seriously? One tin, 80-100 applications? And by application, you mean entire car? I have definitely noticed a difference going from hand application to machine application - and I also noticed that I used less NXT 2.0 from a can than something like liquid cleaner wax (consumer), but I can't imagine it covering 80 cars. I am impressed...

With using a light-handed technique most times you end up going over the car twice. Since its light, it hazes quickly and wipes off quickly so as you wax around the first time, your ready to buff off at the stop point and then recoat/repeat and thats 2 applications per veh, you may get 40-50 vehicles or 80-100 applications.

[jfelbab]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

A little more detail...

Typically I'd apply M16 with my pc and a finishing pad at speed 2 or 3. I'd spread some wax to the pad with an old butter knife, a trick I learned from Mike Phillips. (Thanks Mike, but my wife is still looking for that butter knife, GRIN) I'd pretty much do a third of a car with the first spreading of wax on the pad, and once the pad got saturated, I could usually do the rest of the vehicle. Typically I'd wax two vehicles at a time and the second used significantly less wax than the first as the pad got loaded up with product. This wax spreads readily as the pad slightly warms the wax.

I didn't do two applications per vehicle as I got good coverage with the pc and IME this wax won't layer over itself, so I believe a second coat would just remove the first. These days I mostly use M21 on my own vehicles and use #16 as a topper. I hand apply #16 over the sealant after it has cured, and gently apply one very thin coat with a foam pad so as not to disturb the sealant.

In my experience, I get better protection against acid rain and bird droppings from the carnauba than the sealant alone. M16 will layer over a cured sealant so I ultimately get longer lasting and more durable protection with this method. To my eye, I also like the deeper look the combo gives to that of the sealant alone, especially on medium and darker colors.

Lastly, for those of us living in the snow belt, I've found the M21/M16 combo, to deliver remarkably good winter protection.


Message to Meguiar's: Please consider bringing this product back to the US. Make the necessary VOC adjustment and this product could possibly make you a good deal of money. I've seen this product sell for over $50 a tin recently.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

Message to Meguiar's: Please consider bringing this product back to the US. Make the necessary VOC adjustment and this product could possibly make you a good deal of money. I've seen this product sell for over $50 a tin recently.

If only it were so easy. As VOC regs have changed and the industry has been forced to adapt, we've had to cancel some products (like M16) since we just could not duplicate their performance while holding costs in line. Sure, a very, very low VOC product can be made, but the user experience often changes and the raw material costs tend to go way, way up. We doubt you'd think the same of M16 if we made these necessary changes, called it M16 2.0 and gave you a product that wasn't anywhere near as easy to use and cost $40 a tin (that price is just a guestimate, not based on any real world cost analysis!).

[BillE]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

A comment only about VOC's...

After just completing a 7000 mile road trip (my butt IS sore!)...I'd venture to guess that you could open each and every tin of '16' in the world, it wouldn't make a hill of bean to some of the **** that I've seen spewing outa back of some vehicles.

Hijack over...

Bill

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How many cars can you do with 1 tin of wax?

As a service to everyone here on MOL I had this thread in mind when I waxed my car over the weekend. Thanks to stamps.com I have a little postal scale in the garage, so I weighed a can of Ultimate Wax paste before I started and again when done. I lost 0.2 gram of product by applying with a 4" finishing pad via DA. When waxing my wife's car the next morning I checked it again, and got the same result. Now, neither of these were particularly large cars so it's possible that you might use a bit more on, say, an S Class Mercedes or a Cadillac Escalade.

A little (very basic) math shows that 0.2 gram usage for one car means 5 cars covered from a single ounce, and therefore 55 cars from the full 11 ounce fill in the can.

Again, this was with Ultimate Wax, which is a fairly soft paste when compared to something like M16. Could M16 be stretched further than 55 cars? I'll have to test that one in a week or two. Stay tuned.