Mothers Wax Attack Polisher Test.

Recently I had an opportunity to get my hands on the 'Mothers Wax Attack' orbital polisher. I'd seen it in action a few times at car shows and was really quite keen to see just how useful it might be or whether it was, as I'd heard many indicate just a fancy (and possibly gimmicky) wax applicator.

The Mothers Wax Attack Kit

I was hoping to be objective and I really wanted to approach a test with an open mind. The Wax Attack was never designed to be a tool that is used everyday in a detailing situation or to be used as a serious paint correction tool so I didn't want my experiences with more commercially orientated tools to let me prejudge it.

I must be honest; the thought of using 'Mothers' products of any description felt a bit naughty, almost like an extramarital affair, considering the long term monogamous love of Meguiar's products that I've had. I reconciled it with myself with the realization that it's a product developed by the Kiwi Mothers team and it doesn't actually have a Mothers sticker on it Haha! so no cheating after all. (not that there's anything wrong with Mothers waxes and polishes of course it's just that well... )

I was also hoping to be able to determine whether it was a machine that I could recommend to my customers when they quiz me about ongoing Car Care. Many of my customers are real enthusiasts and once their cars have been given a Final Touch treatment they are keen to spend the odd weekend polishing, detailing and generally enjoying their vehicles to keep them in top condition.

The Wax Attack is designed for a home enthusiast, it's priced accordingly and it comes supplied ex Mothers in a kit format with some polishes and some nice soft pads that are very clearly designed for wax application only - so it's marketed as a wax applicator with things like speed, comfort, even application, ease of use etc... as selling points. All great aspects when it comes to applying/removing wax but the people I'd be recommending it to (if it ever came to that) would be wanting to do more than just wax their car with it. They'd want to know if they could polish out minor wash marring, micro scratches etc... so it was time to put it to the test...

First an appropriate vehicle had to be selected. We found a 3 year old Ford Territory with dark bronze coloured metallic paint that was just about to go back on a lease return. it had been well looked after but it had it's fair share of carwash scratches and micro-marring with a generally dull appearance without too many deep scratches. We felt that it was a pretty good example of a typical Kiwi everyday car.

Cobb-web effect and carwash scratches are quite evident under lights

The standard Mothers pads were never going to be firm enough to do anything other than gently caress the paintwork so we put them to one side for later when wax would be called for and opted for something with a bit more bite. We tested a 2 pad combo with a Meguiar’s 6" 7000 red cutting pad followed by a 6000 yellow polishing pad - both closer density pads than the Mothers pads and both readily available. Meguiar’s ScratchX was chosen as a scratch removal compound; I was tempted to try a heavier commercial product but thought that most consumers wouldn’t have access to it. ScratchX seems to be the ‘go to’ product for minor paint rectification for lots of Kiwi car enthusiasts.

We ran some masking tape down the centre of the bonnet and began the test, The Wax Attack is very easy to use, comfortable in your hand and easy to manage and powerful enough that you know it is working for you yet not so grunty that you feel that there is any danger of it causing damage. The orbital action is gentle enough that you could possibly polish all day without over polishing (not that I would recommend that of course). After a few passes with the polisher using the ScratchX and the red correcting pad we were keen to see some results. After peeling back the tape we were pleasantly surprised. There was already a distinct difference in the gloss and depth of colour and many of the small scratches had been removed.

Already you can see a distinct lift in colour depth

Quite a noticeable difference under lights

Getting back into it we worked the ScratchX thoroughly with both the cutting pad to give extra correction and the polishing pad to ensure we left a nice smooth even finish and we were quite pleased with the results. Not everything was removed but i would have been very surprised if it had. Meguiar's does have a product called Ultimate Compound that is more aggressive than ScratchX without being too intense and I couldn't help but wonder if it would have made an even greater difference to the scratches.

With a little time and effort we achieved a great result, with a significant lift in paint finish.

Considering the extent of the scratching the correction was quite remarkable.
I was a bit concerned that ScratchX might have just filled the scratches so I gave the panel (both sides) a good solvent wash with Wax & Grease Remover to remove any polish residues and the correction remained which was reassuring as the last thing we wanted was a temporary fix.

All in all excellent results without expecting total perfection. Most of the scratches worked out and we didn’t do anything that any enthusiast could do. Finally we used the gentle Mothers Pad to apply a nice coat of wax for the final step.

A great, result with a nice deep shine and very few remaining scratches.

While the last thing I want to do is cut myself out of business with regards to ongoing polishing I’ll definitely be recommending the Wax Attack to customers who want to spend the time maintaining their own paintwork. I wouldn't want to overwork it and wear it out too quickly as it was never designed for heavy duty correction but it has proven itself quite capable of performing minor correction

We'll have the Wax attack at Speedshow later this month so please ask us about it, we'll even give you a go and Mothers have indicated that they are happy to supply them as a machine only so we can build our own paint care kit around the Wax Attack to ensure that you get a safe easy to use polisher that will fulfill your needs without the cost of a full commercially capable tool.

With that in mind I think it's time to try the Mothers Powerball and Powercone for polishing 'difficult to get to' areas. Maybe I'll be impressed again?