Announcement

**Mike Phillips** · Jan 2, 2009, 09:05 AM

Re: I'm raising the flag on 'One Step Ultimate Compound'...

Seeing how this is your first post to our forum, welcome to Meguiar's Online!

As to your question, at this time the best thing to do would be to send it to Customer Care via an online forum.

Contact Meguiar's

**akimel** · Jan 2, 2009, 01:29 PM

Re: I'm raising the flag on 'One Step Ultimate Compound'...

Originally posted by Blade_1 View Post

I just saw the Meguiar's video for the product, that removes the 'heavier-than-swirl' scratches.

Is there a chance of seeing what the paint looks like after a little soap and water wipedown? Instead of a dry wipe with the 'Supreme Shine Microfiber'???

I venture that this product, like most other rubbing and polishing compounds, that I have tried in the last 6 weeks on a black vette, has waxes and oils in it which remain EVEN AFTER A WATER RINSE, much less a dry wipe.

It's a commercial, so of course it is going to show the product at its absolute best. The commercial is not declaring that Ultimate Compound will remove all scratches nor is it declaring that the finish will always be LSP-ready. I imagine that in some cases that the application of a finishing polish (SwirlX? M205?) will be desirable. Who knows? Every car is different.

I presume your concern is that the UC's polishing oils ("fillers"--oils that a dry wipe might not remove) will hide defects that were not corrected by the compound. That is of course a possibility. Only an IPA or chemical cleaner wipedown (not soap and water) would reveal the true condition of the paint surface. Unfortunately, few members of MOL have any experience with Ultimate Compound, as it has only just been released. No doubt reviews will be forthcoming in the next two months. In the meantime, you might want to check out the various reviews of M105, which is a professional cousin of UC.

Perhaps you'd like to get yourself a bottle of the stuff and do a review for us.

Do a test-spot, wipe it down with a 50/50 IPA-water solution, and let us know what you see.

What are the chemical constituents of these 'One-Step' products? Any waxes? Oils?

Meguiar's has a longstanding policy of not revealing the proprietary formula of their polishes and waxes. That may be frustrating to us consumers, but the policy makes excellent business sense. The one thing we do know is that Ultimate Compound is based on Meguiar's new super micro-abrasive technology. But it is a compound, and it is designed to remove, not hide, scratches and defects. But I willl imagine that various kinds of oils are present in the compound. As Mike Phillips's wrote on a different thread about ScratchX:

Some people confuse filling with lubricating, they forget that polishing paint is about creating beauty, in the case of a paint cleaner like ScratchX or Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner, these products are typically used to remove defects, (things that make the paint ugly), in an effort to restore a more perfect surface which results in beauty, that is clarity, gloss and shine.

You can’t just take some sand and rub it on a clear coat finish and remove a defect and leave behind a clear glossy surface, the sand will remove whatever the original defect was but will leave behind its own scratches.

The point is, removing defects out of clear coat paints is more complex than some people understand, it requires it’s own unique type of cleaning agents to carefully remove small particles of paint as that’s how you remove a below surface defect is you remove particles of paint surrounding a defect in an effort to level the upper most portion of the surface with the lowest depth of the defect you’re trying to remove without instilling additional scratches. ...

ScratchX is designed and formulated to remove below surface defects, a part of this complex process requires that the surface be lubricated while the cleaning agents are being rubbed against the paint, the ingredients that lubricate the surface can also act to mask or fill minor imperfections. This is not the purpose of these ingredients but rather a side-effect as there’s no way to abrade a surface and create beauty without also lubricating it at the same time, at least we’ve never seen anyone do this in our over 100 year history of creating show winning beautiful finishes.

Mike's analysis applies equally, I would think, to new products like Ultimate Compound and SwirlX. But we will just have to wait on the reviews. I too am anxious to hear what our MOL experts think about these products.

Cheers,
Al

**Mike Phillips** · Jan 2, 2009, 01:46 PM

Re: I'm raising the flag on 'One Step Ultimate Compound'...

Just to note, most Meguiar's employees are off until next week. Instead of addressing any questions posted at this time I've opted to wait until next week when our Director of Training and the Product Manager for Consumer Paint Care Products returns.

It's our goal to provide accurate information to our customers but please remember, as posted in our news and announcement forum, except for our Customer Hotline, the rest of Meguiar's is off for the holidays until next Monday.

We do appreciate all the excitement and interest in our new products and as a person that has the opportunity to show first hand how great our new products work I can assure you Ultimate Compound and the new ScratchX 2.0 are going to blow you away just like M105 and M205 are doing.

While I've already addressed the question of whether Ultimate Compound is the same product as M105 numerous times now on this forum, (it's not the same formula, it's probably similar but remember one is for the Professional Trade for use with a rotary buffer and one is for hand and DA use), our new abrasive technology does in fact remove defects, not just fill them in but of course this assumes the person using them uses them correctly.

A great example of this is when we demonstrated M105 being used to remove a bird dropping etching in front of about 20 people LIVE

Pretty hard to fake that kind of demonstration.

The below is taken from this thread,

How To Remove a Bird Dropping Etching by Hand using M105 Ultra Cut Compound

Below is the real-world pictures captured at a recent Saturday Class here at Meguiar's where we used M105 Ultra Cut Compound to quickly and easily remove the etching left by a bird dropping. There were two very blatant etchings on the hood of this Chrysler and as part of a demonstration on technique, we demonstrated both ScratchX and M105. The results were that both product worked but the M105 worked faster with less work and produced better results.

Here are the products we used,

M105 Ultra Cut Compound
ScratchX
Soft Foam Applicator Pads
Supreme Shine Microfiber Polishing Cloths

Taken from this thread...
Open Class - Pictures & Comments - June 28th, 2008

Here's some before & after pictures of two bird dropping etchings we removed by HAND

The first one we removed by hand using M105 Ultra Cut Compound, the second one we removed by hand using ScratchX.

The results were both amazing but what most people found interesting was the M105 removed 99.9% of the defect with one application while ScratchX removed about 95% of the defect with 3 applications.

ScratchX also required more "Passion behind the pad" for each application while M105 required some passion to engage the product with the paint but nowhere near as much pressure or as much time.

First we'll frame up the shot so you can see the car and where the bird dropping etchings were. The etching being pointed to is the one we removed using M105 and just to the left of that spot is the bird dropping etching we removed using ScratchX

Except for the first picture, all the rest are original photos, no touch-up work at all was done to them. Some were cropped and resized but that's just so they will fit on your monitor.

The finish overall is swirled-out but Bob's going to put his new learned skills and knowledge to work to restore a show car finish for his wife!

M105 Before

M105 After

ScratchX Before

ScratchX After

Both work if you work them but it was very apparent that for removing below surface defects by hand M105 Ultra Cut Compound was the hands-down winner.

**Mike Phillips** · Jan 2, 2009, 01:51 PM

Re: I'm raising the flag on 'One Step Ultimate Compound'...

Because I'm afraid this thread may go south, I'm going to close it until next week.

Again, every year during the holidays Meguiar's closes it's offices to give the employees a well-deserved break. This forum goes 24 hours a day, 7-days a week but that doesn't mean there are people and resources available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

So there's no earth shattering emergency about the issues that Blade_1 has brought up in their first post to our forum and in fact we look at it as an excellent opportunity to get present the facts.

Thank you everyone for your patience and please enjoy the rest of today, (Friday), and the weekend as we wrap up the holiday break.