Product Review: Bilt Hamber Auto Balm

Yeah...tell Karl to move over! :lol:

BTW, is it supposed to look like mutant tapioca when you open the jar?

PJS - if that windshield sealer will beat Aquapel (not sure if you have it on the other shore), that'll be a third BH product I'll need to pick up!

 

Thank you. I will be sure to try it when I pick some up (soon, I'm already excited).

Make sure you test your product against Aquapel, it lasts for a very long time (for me at least). I think it is the best stuff out there so far. I don't need wipers with anything over 40mph.

 

The name rings a bell - have seen it mentioned before somewhere.
Just had a quick look via Google - yep, that's the one......:lol:
That's what's on the other half of the windscreen, marketed by another company, under an different guise, as Duxback!
Nifty application method, but I suspect the BH one will be easily the match of it - we'll see for sure.
That said though, it'd need to be better so as to justify the additional expense over the Aquapel, and make it worth bothering with, for you guys.
Equally, depending on what it costs to produce, and how it's packaged, it might be worth it still, even if you had to reapply 2-3 times a year.
I used the whole initial sample on half the screen, which I was informed recently was too much, so I'm wondering if this has a bearing on how well it's holding up, or it what couldn't bond to the screen was then just wasted?
So, this newer version, I'll decant into a small spray bottle, and use it that way this time.

Anyway, sorry for wandering way off track here - glad to see some of you are now experiencing the BH products, and hopefully Ken will be able to bring them in at a competitive price to let more of you explore their abilities.
They really are good guys and products, hence why I've been as vocal as I have on the various forums I frequent.

Mad one - yes it is meant to look like a firmish caramel blancmange, but if it "splits" and has liquid sloshing around, a good vigourous shake is all it needs to put it right again, preferably WITH the lid in place!!

 

Yep. Sort of a light beige color, and quite soft.

I'll try it regardless. If BH comes up with a glass treatment that lasts for months, I'll certainly give it a go. Their stuff all looks like great value for money.

 

Hey an update on my Vintage over the BH Auto Balm. Well I will go on record as saying I'm a little disappointed. I washed the BMW tonight and there seems to be some cloudy areas in the paint that you should be able to rub off and they just won't come off. I can't help but wonder if there was some problem with the wax over the Auto Balm like some had suggested might happen. You have to catch the paint in just the right light to really see it but its there. I have never seen this on my Jeep that has just AB on it and is still going strong after 5 months. I guess I'll be stripping this all off and either going with just the AB or with Blackfire Sealant followed by a new wax I have on the way.

 

Interesting development - not seen this with another Vintage'd vehicle, I take it?
Where are the areas on the bodywork? Flat sections or radius/edges?
Can you capture it with the camera?

 

Its on the flat surfaces and the worst on the trunk lid. Not sure if I can capture it with a camera or not but I'll try. I don't have quite the photography skill like a lot on here do. Man I wish I could take pics like some of them. Oh and no I have never seen this with any other car with Vintage.

 

Ruh roh...I hope you'll be able to remove that JL. Thx for the update.

 

JL, have you made any attempts to get this off your BMW? Just wondering what you used if you had, and if it worked.

The S2000 still looks great to me, but now I kind of want to go back to just having the AB on there straight.

 

Alright, another question, this one for PJS.

PJS, as you know, I too put Vintage over top of AB. After what you've said, and what JL has experienced, I think I want to go back to just straight AB.

How best to go about this? Do I need to strip everything off? Or would just putting AB on the car over top of the AB+Vintage stuff do the trick?

I figure I could clay the car, or polish it, but it doesn't really need either of those steps. So, I'm hoping maybe there's a shortcut of some sort.

Thanks!

--Karl

 

Ah, if only you were over here - the answer would be slightly more straightforward.
In this instance, although caveated with not having the pleasure of using Zymöl waxes, I'd have said get and use their Surfex HD at 5-6% strength, and spray that over the paintwork, leaving for 2-3 mins, before rinsing off thoroughly.
At that level, it's sufficiently strong enough to strip most waxes, but AB can hack 8-10% strength before the film is compromised - Collinite's detergency resistance may be one that 4-5% doesn't apply to.
Alas, without that, and not using any other APC-type products, which are caustic - most, if not all - then the solution is more complicated if you want to only remove the wax layer(s).
Probably just easier to strip the lot back to the bare paintwork, and reapply your twin layer of AB 30-60 mins apart, and that'll be you.

 

In this instance, although caveated with not having the pleasure of using Zymöl waxes, I'd have said get and use their Surfex HD at 5-6% strength, and spray that over the paintwork, leaving for 2-3 mins, before rinsing off thoroughly.

Just your luck, I've got some Surfex coming as well!!

 

Thanks PJS. I was hoping maybe just putting some AB over top of my current "mess" would reset everything, but I guess not. I'm not experiencing the cloudiness problem JL has seen...but my car is silver, not black. Could be that I just can't see it.

Anyway, I went ahead and clayed the car before dinner, so that should do the trick. Took all of fifteen minutes using the BH clay plus water...man I love that stuff. Now I'm off to put some AB back on it.

 

Well, the saga continues, and JL is right.

When I went out to the garage to put down a layer of AB, I noticed these spots of cloudiness on the hood. And for the life of me, I couldn't get them off. So I went through my clay, and tried some Majestic Solutions clay, which is reasonably aggressive stuff. At least, compared to Bilt-Hamber soft, the MS stuff is more aggressive. Still nothing.

So, I ended up polishing the car with 85RD. And now it's finally cleared back up.

Moral of the story: don't top Auto Balm.

 

Well at least I know that my theory was correct and I'm sure glad that's all it was. A non compatability between two products I can deal with, cloudy paint that won't clean up I couldn't. I have plans on re-polishing the bimmer this weekend.

 

You shouldn't need to go real hard. All I did was one pass with 85RD and a blue 3M UK finishing pad, and it's all gone. I guess this is the way of things when people experiment...you win some, you lose some.

 

Glad you were able to clear it up Karl. I think it's going to rain through the rest of pollen season for me, which is putting a damper (pun intended) on my plans to use Auto Balm before some correction and the switch to the 'nubas over JS109.

 

I tried AB this past weekend on a customer's car, and man nobody was playin, this stuff is impossible to get off if left too long...i waited maybe 5 seconds and then wiped off..seemed to get slicker as the day went on ( i did the interior last) has anyone else experienced this?

 

Yeah, me too. I must have just missed the cloudy spots on first viewing. They were very, very hard to pick up on this dark silver.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled product review thread...

MO, to tell you the truth, I'm half wondering if I even need any of the other LSPs in my collection anymore. Auto Balm looks great, is economical, lasts for months, is easy to work with once you get the hang of it, and fills swirls when needed.

I'm guessing you were applying an area that was a bit too large. That's gotten me occasionally as well. Don't give up on the stuff though J, really. Small areas, buff off immediately. Once you "get it right" on part of a vehicle, you'll say to yourself, "a-ha! That's how it works." And then it's really, really easy. I can protect a whole car in probably 10-15 minutes with this stuff. It feels like cheating!

Apart from the difficulty in removing, J, how did you like it? How did the customer like it?

For what it's worth, I've discovered that if I leave it on too long, or miss a spot of buffing, the best way to get it off is to go back over it with a little more Auto Balm. Sort of like what PJS describes in this quote, found elsewhere on this thread:

 

I was afraid one of you three was going to say that. After reading all the tips on application method and sealing 3 out of my 4 wheels with AB as well as the rear wheel hubs, I'm more than half wondering the same thing.

The less than half part of me that isn't wondering noticed that it darkened my wheels compared to the one Autobahn sealed wheel. I'll need to do a side by side comparo to see which look I prefer on my actual car's paint.

This is absolutely the LSP I'll be using for my parents' cars in the future, especially since my mother keeps letting the dealership wash her IS250 and I notice more swirls every time I inspect the paint after one of her visits.