Prima Review

Well I spent a bit of time in the garage giving my S2000 a refresh using some of the new Prima products the Fed Ex man brought to me.

I only did a test panel with "Swirl" and "Amigo", but did the whole car with "Finish"

I still need a bit of time with "Swirl" to find the right combos and work time but I worked the panel after some testing with my PC set on "6" and a green pad, and it knocked down some of the RIDS quite a bit.

I did take me some time to figure out the "Finish". I found that it is really sensitive to the amount you put on the pad and the amount of time you work it. I used a blue pad with the PC on 6 and maybe a dime sized drop if that much, maybe more like a big pea, and I could cover a 2ft x 2ft area. I found you have to work it until it is almost clear in appearance. If you reach that point it wipes off very easily, don't and it takes a bit of effort to get off. I think it finishes down better then Menzerna 106FA which I have been using as my final pass before.

Amigo is really my new best friend. I applied it with a black pad with the PC set on 3 did a few passes over the test panel and wiped it off. Filled in a lot of the little RIDS to the point they weren't really noticeable and left a nice slick finish in which to apply the LSP.:thumb:

Tomorrow night I will be finishing the application of Amigo and applying Powerlock (won't have EPIC for bit more )

Overall I am pleased with Prima product line so far, got a bit of learning curve but I think I am almost over the hump. Its first real test for me will be this Saturday on a white Jeep Liberty.

Couple of photos while I was working...
As you can see the car is in good shape. It is well taken care off, regular washing, and LSP applications.


Couple of spots with some light RIDS



Test panel after a bit of "Swirl", "Finish", and "Amigo"



Panel with just "Finish"

 

awesome review

i used Finish on a white 4" CCS to clean up some scratches on my doors from people closing them, and i was surpised how much cut it had - more than 85RD in my experience

i had a deep scratch (well deep to me) on my lower rear sill and it cut that out after 2 passes

im really looking forward to using Swirl + Finish over the whole car when im due for a full correction

 

We get it dude, you like ceramiclear rated Menzerna stuff.

:deadhorse:

 

nice!

 

Great results, I think you will be surprised how swirl handles harder clears use with rotary or da

 

Yeah I will get as better feel Saturday. My S has no swirl in it so I had to judge how it cut on some of the RIDS that were in the paint. It did do a nice job with just a green pad, seem to knock them down quite a bit.

So far I like the Prima stuff, "Finish", "Amigo", "Banana Gloss", and "Slick" definitely have a place in my arsenal now, "Swirl", "Cut", and "Hydro" need to prove themselves still.

 

So has this stuff just recently hit the market? Or has this stuff just recently been discovered?

 

Been around since 06. Phil just is carrying it now. Hence the new discussions.

 

Im well aware that Phil has just started carrying by the 20 threads that have popped up about it.

I was just curious as to when Prima as a company started making/releasing products to the general public.

 

In 2006.

Boards get too 'product centric' if they are owned by a particular company/sponsor. So, in the case where Phil didn't carry Prima you never heard about it where now you are.

It's like going over to Autogeek's site and seeing everyone talk about Wolfgang stuff. You don't see that over here because Phil doesn't carry it.

*shrug*

 

Was this really necessary??

Roger expressed himself in a clear, concise, respectful manner...

I really don't get why someone that claims to have ZERO affiliation with a line takes such a personal stance for it... puzzling at best

 

I'm not tanking a personal stance on it. Use Prima, use Menzerna, use whatever. I use whatever I think will do the job at hand. Sometimes that's Menzerna, sometimes that's Meguiars, sometimes that's Optimum, sometimes it's another product.

This is the second time Roger has made some sort of snarky comment about the polishes. Hence, beating a dead horse.

 

Yeah I was going to make a comment on this but I figured I'd save the argument.

You'd think Roger made a personal attack against his company with that response.

 

Eh, well first it's not my company. I'm a systems admin first and foremost, and an enthusiastic/part time detailer second.

In general, I get irked when people come into someone's review thread and chime in on how "product xyz" is better.

Say you made a Swissvax Concorso review thread and someone came in and said "Dude, Zymol XYZ is better". Really? Why not just review Zymol XYZ and let other people figure out what they like better.

To me, in a review thread there's no need to interject what's "better", when someone's just trying to evaluate what they have on hand. It'd be nice to see Roger review the Prima polishes, just for the sake of hearing what he thinks of 'em. We know he likes Menz. (Who doesn't though?)

If this were a thread called Prima Finish VS Menz 106FF, then sure.. interject whatever the heck you like.

That's my own flaw though, how I feel a thread should go versus how they usually go. one of my many flaws as a human being.

 

I must be missing the part where Roger mentioned another brand (in this thread)....unless of course you are assuming that he's on Menzerna's bandwagon. Hell, he didn't even take a shot at Prima.

When a product is reviewed or tested Id like to see it tested at the harshest conditions...and it appears like thats all he was pointing out. It's a fact that soft clears correct easier than hard ones.

You don't see Car and Driver testing cars out at half throttle.

 

You have a good point there about different conditions ("Half Throttle" analogy is good). I still took it as Roger saying "yeah, ok.. but there's better stuff out there". (He's mentioned it before in the Prima voting thread)

If you want to see Prima used on harder clears you can always check out ShowCarDetailing and see Richard Lin's work. He uses Prima almost exclusively from what I can tell. (he does mention Meg's 105 on occasion)..

Unfortunately I didn't order "Cut" or "Finish", just Swirl and Amigo. And my personal cars are a brand new VW Jetta Sportwagen that doesnt' need polishing yet and a 03 Mazda Protege 5 that needs a LOT of polishing.

Though, the Mazda is likely to have soft paint too; not as soft as a Honda might have. Then again 75% of the car has been resprayed over the years from accidents, so it's anyones guess on how the paint will react. I'll post a review when I can do some test spots.

 

The bottom line is that everybody is going to ride the "nuts" of a certain company that appeals to them. That's why there are so many companies in every aspect of the business world.

The way I look at it is...each company produces a polish for each "step" of correcting a car. Compound, Polish, and Finishing polish. For someone to sit here and argue that one does better then the other is really pointless. There's too many variables effecting how a product performs each time. I look at it as the same way I look at the whole $80 wax vs the $300 wax.

That's just my take on this product war that the detailing community is experiencing.

 

I have used all of the Prima polishes on both hard and soft clears. It seems to work well on each but you have to adapt your technique a bit. I used it on a black Corvette a few weeks ago and was able to get pretty good correction done. Like mentioned earlier the polishes have a learning curve to them. You can probably also see more reviews on detailingworld.com. Prima has a decent presence in the UK too.

Using Cut is like using mild sand paper in a sense. If you ever feel the texture it is very very gritty. I have used it with a PC before and it definitely can pack a punch.

However, to stay objective, like most product lines you may find that Prima may not work as well on one car as Menzerna and vis versa. I have had several occaisions where 203 works much better than Swirl given different combos.

For instance I have Mazda which has softer paint and Prima worked well with it.

 

Well there's boutique and then there's outrageous, that's a whole other can of worms. Personally I've never spent more than $20 on a tub of wax, but then again I'm a sealant freak.

 

Exactly. I think its ridiculous to spend a ton of money on wax.

Is the customer going to notice a difference between Crystal Rock and AG HD? Doubtful...so all's you are really doing is raising your expense/overhead.

It can all be sumed up with a quote that I find myself using quite a bit. Don't call me out on plagarizing please...

"To each their own"