Iron Decon Comparison

[SWETM]

Thanks for the replies and info.Guess i got caught up watching some of these videos and the forum and was expecting a big result like the others say they got.I put the Mckees and the Sonax on my wifes car today and I got a litttle color on the wheels after a good wait and it was warmer today as well .I dont know if temp has a thing to do with it but that is all that was different besides the vehicle.I dont detail professionally and when you buy the good stuff it gets exspensive and you expect it to work ya know.
Thanks again guys for the replies.

What wheel cleaner do you use when cleaning wheels before?

On darker paints the color change effect is not so noticeble. And if your environment does not have that much of iron fallout you don't see much of it on paint.

[JKDesign]

I challenge anyone to find a video on youtube that has someone claying their wheels and shows an extreme level of contaminants on the clay. [and I mean that clay better be coated yellow/brown after just a small section of the wheel] Never in my life have I ever seen that happen, in real life or on the internet.

Didn't Larry from AMMO NYC do a video of just that?

Edit: Here is the video:



This is of course taking things to the extreme so take it as you will.

[PiPUK]

Whilst the forensic detailing video was interesting, the guy doing it is not a chemist and I recall several questionable bits of technical info.

The reality is that the purple compound you see is always the same, irrelevant of the product. Depending on the initial form of the active ingredient, the behaviour will differ. As example, iron-x will be far slower to dry out than an equivalently strong product using a different form. The vast majority use the very cheapest form of the active and are prone to this - it surprises me that every last review neglects to discuss this, especially when discussing a product which slowly dissolved a contaminant and thus where an increased contact time really matters.

Beyond the form of the active, the concentration varies dramatically. Iron-x, for example, has been right at the top end. You can go stronger but it would be labelled as toxic. I have seen products with only a quarter of the level of active and this can go a long way to explain some of the cheaper products. Consider that the key active is probably responsible for 80% of the material cost and you can see why some cut the levels. In reality, you could dilute iron-x and other strong products, perhaps more than 50% and still be stronger than he cheaper options. I bet they won’t seem such bargains now!

Then we have the ‘other’ bits. This will be more pertinent to wheel cleaning than fallout. A wheel cleaner has to actually clean, as well as jus dissolve iron, because wheel soil is much more than brake dust! So this always needs kept in mind.

We then have to consider how strong you actually need the product to be. In our experience, most applications don’t need the maximum strength possible. If you want the absolute best job, more is probably better but you loose less than you might think when dropping the strength. This is especially the case with wheel cleaning. Many people just spray it onto a filthy wheel - this is a bit like settling a $20 bill on fire. The same people focus on the speed and degree of colour change to assess product quality. With so much iron about, you can get away with less active and still get a massive bleed. Annoyingly, some better formulated products will come out worse in this test because they don’t run about everywhere and can thus appear to work more slowly and make less of a purple mess. So you don’t need a great product, especially for mass market. Even with fallout removal, if the contamination isn’t extreme, you don’t need the massive strength.

Personally, I think that 90% of the products I see could have their performance easily boosted. Most dry out faster than they need and many fail to get a consistency which makes it easy to get an even spread, without excessive dripping. If I were choosing, I’d be wanting to get a product which sprays and clings and which gives you as long a working time as possible. At this point you have given the active ingredient the least work to do and maximised your chances of a good result.

[Eldorado2k]

Didn't Larry from AMMO NYC do a video of just that?

Edit: Here is the video:



This is of course taking things to the extreme so take it as you will.

Notice how even on a wheel that dirty, he said that most of the contaminants will be on the inside barrels and didn’t even bother to show the clay after going over the face, because there more than likely wasn’t anything to show. [hence my point of there never being any noticeable contaminants on the wheels]

Then when he did show the clay after going over the barrels, he was claying over a barrel that was still visibly dirty, so it’s no surprise his claybar picked up a bunch of gunk and turned black.

If he would’ve used a better wheel cleaner to begin with, the barrels would’ve been clean before using the claybar and you more than likely wouldn’t have seen anywhere near that amount of gunk [not contaminants] on the claybar.

If you use a better wheel cleaner, for example Brown Royal, you can knock it out in 1 shot.

Before:



After: And you don’t even need a claybar.

[SWETM]

Whilst the forensic detailing video was interesting, the guy doing it is not a chemist and I recall several questionable bits of technical info.

The reality is that the purple compound you see is always the same, irrelevant of the product. Depending on the initial form of the active ingredient, the behaviour will differ. As example, iron-x will be far slower to dry out than an equivalently strong product using a different form. The vast majority use the very cheapest form of the active and are prone to this - it surprises me that every last review neglects to discuss this, especially when discussing a product which slowly dissolved a contaminant and thus where an increased contact time really matters.

Beyond the form of the active, the concentration varies dramatically. Iron-x, for example, has been right at the top end. You can go stronger but it would be labelled as toxic. I have seen products with only a quarter of the level of active and this can go a long way to explain some of the cheaper products. Consider that the key active is probably responsible for 80% of the material cost and you can see why some cut the levels. In reality, you could dilute iron-x and other strong products, perhaps more than 50% and still be stronger than he cheaper options. I bet they won’t seem such bargains now!

Then we have the ‘other’ bits. This will be more pertinent to wheel cleaning than fallout. A wheel cleaner has to actually clean, as well as jus dissolve iron, because wheel soil is much more than brake dust! So this always needs kept in mind.

We then have to consider how strong you actually need the product to be. In our experience, most applications don’t need the maximum strength possible. If you want the absolute best job, more is probably better but you loose less than you might think when dropping the strength. This is especially the case with wheel cleaning. Many people just spray it onto a filthy wheel - this is a bit like settling a $20 bill on fire. The same people focus on the speed and degree of colour change to assess product quality. With so much iron about, you can get away with less active and still get a massive bleed. Annoyingly, some better formulated products will come out worse in this test because they don’t run about everywhere and can thus appear to work more slowly and make less of a purple mess. So you don’t need a great product, especially for mass market. Even with fallout removal, if the contamination isn’t extreme, you don’t need the massive strength.

Personally, I think that 90% of the products I see could have their performance easily boosted. Most dry out faster than they need and many fail to get a consistency which makes it easy to get an even spread, without excessive dripping. If I were choosing, I’d be wanting to get a product which sprays and clings and which gives you as long a working time as possible. At this point you have given the active ingredient the least work to do and maximised your chances of a good result.

Is the bleeding chemical not the chemical that does the desolveing part of the oxidized iron particals? But it's another chemical that does the desolveing part of the oxidized iron particals?

I'm agree with you that it's the clinging part that is the most effective part. And sure it's has to be some kind of minimum active chemical that has the ability to desolve the oxidized iron particals during it's clinging time.

When it's comes to the bleeding wheel cleaners how effective would they be at desolve iron particals on the cars paint in general? In comparison to iron removers.

[PiPUK]

Is the bleeding chemical not the chemical that does the desolveing part of the oxidized iron particals? But it's another chemical that does the desolveing part of the oxidized iron particals?

I'm agree with you that it's the clinging part that is the most effective part. And sure it's has to be some kind of minimum active chemical that has the ability to desolve the oxidized iron particals during it's clinging time.

When it's comes to the bleeding wheel cleaners how effective would they be at desolve iron particals on the cars paint in general? In comparison to iron removers.

The thioglycolate ions in the products bind on to the iron, which is otherwise insoluble in water, and form a complex which is water soluble (and happens to be purple). So this does the dissolving and the colour change, if there is no iron or none dissolved, there is no colour change and likewise, if there is no colour change, there has been no iron dissolved.

Wheel cleaners vs Fallout removers. As before, the basics are the same. The actual differences are not going to be something you can predict for sure. I would hazard that a fallout remover is a specialised product, so someone like meguiars would favour having a wheel cleaner as it will appeal to the mass market. Doesn't mean it is a worse performer. I would suspect that the wheel cleaners will often (not always) be less concentrated and they should have other things in there to clean better. Of course that is ideal world situation - I know our primary fallout remover gets sold both as wheel cleaner and fallout, depending on the particular brand and their marketing strategies.

[AKT]

Quick question; are products like these safe to be used on ALL exterior surfaces? Most are in spray form so i think overspray unto glass and trims is inevitable

[DetailZeus]

Whilst the forensic detailing video was interesting, the guy doing it is not a chemist and I recall several questionable bits of technical info.

The reality is that the purple compound you see is always the same, irrelevant of the product. Depending on the initial form of the active ingredient, the behaviour will differ. As example, iron-x will be far slower to dry out than an equivalently strong product using a different form. The vast majority use the very cheapest form of the active and are prone to this - it surprises me that every last review neglects to discuss this, especially when discussing a product which slowly dissolved a contaminant and thus where an increased contact time really matters.

Beyond the form of the active, the concentration varies dramatically. Iron-x, for example, has been right at the top end. You can go stronger but it would be labelled as toxic. I have seen products with only a quarter of the level of active and this can go a long way to explain some of the cheaper products. Consider that the key active is probably responsible for 80% of the material cost and you can see why some cut the levels. In reality, you could dilute iron-x and other strong products, perhaps more than 50% and still be stronger than he cheaper options. I bet they won’t seem such bargains now!

Then we have the ‘other’ bits. This will be more pertinent to wheel cleaning than fallout. A wheel cleaner has to actually clean, as well as jus dissolve iron, because wheel soil is much more than brake dust! So this always needs kept in mind.

We then have to consider how strong you actually need the product to be. In our experience, most applications don’t need the maximum strength possible. If you want the absolute best job, more is probably better but you loose less than you might think when dropping the strength. This is especially the case with wheel cleaning. Many people just spray it onto a filthy wheel - this is a bit like settling a $20 bill on fire. The same people focus on the speed and degree of colour change to assess product quality. With so much iron about, you can get away with less active and still get a massive bleed. Annoyingly, some better formulated products will come out worse in this test because they don’t run about everywhere and can thus appear to work more slowly and make less of a purple mess. So you don’t need a great product, especially for mass market. Even with fallout removal, if the contamination isn’t extreme, you don’t need the massive strength.

Personally, I think that 90% of the products I see could have their performance easily boosted. Most dry out faster than they need and many fail to get a consistency which makes it easy to get an even spread, without excessive dripping. If I were choosing, I’d be wanting to get a product which sprays and clings and which gives you as long a working time as possible. At this point you have given the active ingredient the least work to do and maximised your chances of a good result.

Let me see if I follow this here: Initial pressure rinse to remove loose dirt/iron. This way you're not wasting your expensive fallout remover on iron that otherwise would have washed off with water. Next for your dedicated iron remover, you want a product that clings, dwells, and does not dry out quickly. Dwell time can help offset the need for the highest active concentration with the caveat you may not see watery purple runs immediately going everywhere. I think I have an image in my head now. Finally, if your product is a color-changing wheel cleaner it should also have degreaser/apc-like chemicals that help clean grease/oils along with the iron. Am I close?

[DBAILEY]

Chemical Guys Iron Decon does not work well for me.

Damn. I just bought a gallon of the CG for $54 with that 30% sale they just had. Thought I got a bargain too.

I am in agreement that to use one of these as a wheel cleaner it needs to have additional cleaners. Otherwise you should clean the wheels with a degreaser or APC first, then the iron remover.

I've been using DUB wheel cleaner for about 1.5 years now. You can't beat it when it goes on sale for $5 a bottle at AA and AZ. I scoop up as many as I can when it is on sale. Have about 20+ bottles on the shelf right now. I bought several 1bottles of IronX paste when they were on BOGO one time. I take the 22oz bottle of DUB and decant it into a 24oz sprayer and then add 1oz of IronX paste and shake well.. Makes the DUB stronger and greatly increases dwell time. Easily as good as Sonax FE and you could easily add more IronX paste to make it as strong as FE+. Even with additional cost adding the IronX (somewhere about $0.50-0.80), at $5 a bottle is still the cheapest price per gallon out there.

I agree that clinging and dwell factor is critical for these products. When using these products on the paint I will put the hose sprayer on mist and ever so lightly mist the panels every minute or so to keep it wet so it can dwell longer.

[Tempest45]

I've used Optimum Ferrex a couple of times now and am very impressed. Reaction is very obvious and fast. Clings well.

Also removes or degrades sealants, and there was almost nothing picked up by a clay mitt. Some smell but not bad.