Car Pro Essence Reviewed! 6 Months of Testing by OCDetail

[Jsmooth]

You guys heard T pain say he's in love with a stripper? Well I'm in love with a filler! Traditionally this is a huge no no for any true correction work or so I thought. I'm pretty good friends with the guys at Car Pro and get to do a lot of product testing and give feed back. Playing with this at first I thought I was suppose to be testing a new finishing polish because I saw a squirrel when Corey(CarProUs) was telling me about and I didn't listen. My first pass with this I was completely blown away the amount of gloss I was seeing and how fast I was removing light haze and defects was way to good to be true. I immediately called Corey and in true elitist fashion asked "What is this sorcery!!! There is no way this isn't filling like crazy!Nooooo How dare you make a product that saves me time by falsifying results! I NEVER I mean WHO DO YOU THINK I AM!" Then Corey said "Joe I told you it fills, just unlike tradition fillers that wash off this is Cquartz fillers and you can coat right on top of it, or use it as a stand alone!". At this point I had to do more testing and let me tell over the next 6 months I put this stuff through all kinds of abuse, use, and scrutiny. Anyway its my name if the product does not live up to par, its my reputation if I use this and it I coat on top of it and the coat fails well.... Here is what I came up with. After 2 months I told Car Pro if I ever run out of this product they would see a grown man cry and ill tell you why.

This. By this I mean gloss an by gloss I mean I have never seen anything bring out paint work like this product. Anyone who has seen any of my post over the last
few years knows I am a hard core Black Fire Finishing polish guy. I use it day in and out and LOVE it. I tried every finishing polish there is and use a couple others on a regular basis but if I wanted to blind someone I knew It was Black Fire all day. Until Essence! And Essence does it way faster!

Nasty buffer halos here and some deep rids

Ta Da. I did this with Essence and megs MF finishing disc in one pass. Now for all my fellow elitist(Rasky Im talking to you) "Joe you didn't remove the defects you filled them, Your a hack!" Well Not in my professional opinion. After letting essence set up for 48 hours on a test panel, keep in mind this a coating there is cure time there. I used a ton of things to try to remove the fillers. Full strength APC, IPA, Eraser, Mineral spirits, Lacquer thinner. I stopped short of oven cleaner. My testing didn't stop there, While this is technically a coating it also has some abrasives in it. So I wanted to make sure that even if it was filling some the abrasives were enough to remove compounding haze. I did this test by polishing a section that I had short cycled flat top and a cutting disc on. Anyone who has done this knows your suppose to work that product and short cycling it you will turn paint gray with compound haze. To remove this haze with my normal BF finishing polish it took a full polishing cycle and even then under a my point light I could still see a very little bit of haze(I've never not seen this on any car ever, not that you can see it out side but to the trained eye it shows up no matter how much you polish under the bright point lights we use in the shop.). To test Essence ability I knew if I wiped the panel immediately after picking up the polisher I would kill the coating "fillers" because no cure time so immediately after my polishing cycle which with this profuct 1/5th the time of BF finishing I wiped 91% IPA and was pleasantly surprised to see most the Haze was actually gone. The BF Side was a little better but I kinda expected that. Now here's where I fell in love with this product. That very faint micro haze you can only see under the brightest of lights on jet black cars....

Is not there after essence. Which gives results and gloss I've never seen before. I wish I could capture on camera, but anyone doing this long enough knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Now the other questions I'm sure people will want to ask. Durability? Well We all know a couple other products with some "durable fillers" but not SIO2 fillers. So I wanted to do a side by side with Perfect Finish and see how many APC hits before the fillers were gone. 2 full strength apc wipe downs and I was able to remove PF fillers. I got to 8 before I gave up on cured essence. Ok Feeling better and better about this because the thought of fillers killing coating life is no bueno.

The pictures are to keep you entertained these are all polished with essence, Glossy eh? Back to it, so as a stand along right off the top essence is not very hyrophobic. The first thing I noticed about it but it does carry a lot of protective properties that you would expect with a coating. How long does last... I don't know but I know 6 months later, regular washing, no toppers on an employees cars its still there no problem.

I see this Black Hell cat, green one, and that 458 at least once a month. The Green was the first car I ever put coating on top of essence. It is daily driven lives out side and washed A LOT. No problems at all yet. No problems with coating everything looking great.

I want everyone to know, I totally get that this seems to good be true. Well from what I've seen I have enough faith to use it on my customers cars.. And lets just say I'm not the "cheap guy" in town so a failure or putting out bad results is not an option.

This pic is my daughter Emily. She was hanging out with dad and picked this car to sit in. Yup clearly my daughter! Now in conclusion before the pitchfork mob tries to tear apart everything I've said keep in mind nothing is a miracle product. There are limitations, there is a learning curve like anything else. I'm sure there will be some user error here and there and some paint that this just does not play nice with. But if you want to see some mega gloss you can use this as either a finishing polish, or if your not correcting and just want a one step that will save you a ton of time. Pick up a Megs finishing or cutting disc and have at it. I know that for my shop and my customer I will never run out of this stuff Its simply amazing and from a business stand point after 15 hours of compounding this saves another 4 hours of polishing by removing the big haze, and filling the little haze giving a shine that to my eyes I have never been able to achieve. Topped off with Finest, Cquartz, UK, Reload, Hydro.. HOLY LOTTA GLOSS BATMAN! Now on to the picture show, these are all raw DSLR pics of cars polished with essence. Some of them coated some of them not. Thanks for reading through!













And just for fun! This is a pic of me after finishing that black hell cat at 3am sending a thumbs up to Car Pro team. I had been at work 36 hours straight at this point and with out essence I would of been there another 10 hours. Junam strikes again * wink * at Avi.

I know that the biggest thing thats going to happen with this is application learning curve so by the end of the week I'll do my best to make a video showing everyone how I use it, and how we got best results.

Thanks for looking
Joseph Torbati
Bay Area OCDetail

[Jaretr1]

Great write up. Corey gave me a sample, now I am eager to try it out. Ugh, so many awesome products, so little time.

[MarkD51]

Man, the pics of these cars all looked like they'd be "blinding" in person. Almost needed to put my sunglasses on here looking at the pics!

Thanks for the great review, all the great pics, including the one of you almost smiling like Jim Varney (Ernest), and your little cutie pie daughter in the 458. :-)

http://p1.trrsf.com/image/fget/cf/60...ey301x226p.jpg

[silverfox]

I said years ago... Whoever can make a glaze (filling and leveling) that has the protection of a coating...won't be able to make the stuff fast enough. This sounds like what I was talking about plus it corrects too. Awesome sauce.

[refreshauto]

Now i cant wait to get mine. Should be here tomorrow

[RFrommann]

I want in on the goodstuff!

[Chris@AutoCleanse]

Great work buddy and also thanks for taking the time out your busy schedule to document and post pictures. Well done. Guess I will visit Corey and get some of the goods.

[MarkD51]

Will be quite interesting to read the reviews and opinions as more folks get this product in their hands.

To me, this sounds like the crème d la crème 1-step for not only a hobbyist, such is all I consider myself today at present, but also the professional detailer.

Not to lessen any professional's abilities and experience, but from Corey's comments also, sounds like a very foolproof product that does so much very well.

May not be the "do all" product, that possibly on really trashed vehicles, one might need a more aggressive product to correct severe swirling and RIDS, etc, then follow with this, thus a two-step correction possibly needed?

I'd say, if this product will last close to a year's time with protection, then Carpro has just hit one out of the park.

[MarkD51]

Will be interesting to see in the future, actual accounted shelf life. That what will be the actual shelf life, once the product is opened and continually used as time goes by? Not the shelf life of a product that has never been opened, and just sitting.

I'm assuming both to be one and the same, one year?

[Sicoupe]

Sounds like the go to product for sure, thanks for sharing