Do polishes and waxes expire?

Hi guys,

I bought some Poorboys/Klasse AIO/and P21S a while back from Detailed Image (3 years ago) and was wondering if I could still use them to detail my vehicle? they are stored in the garage and its been through some seasonal temperture changes (not sure if that affects the chemicals).

I've been following up on the detail forums and it seems to me that most of you have now switched to more premium products such as Merzerna SIP, 106FF etc (instead of poorboy) with Jet Seal (instead of Klasse) and so on.

My current vehicle is 996 Turbo. Color - Artic Silver.
Daily is a 2002 540i carbon black that has some major swrill/scratches

My question is:
is it worth it to get the Merzerna's or should I wait and try my poorboys on the cars? what are some of the differences between the two products?

I don't have those light-meters that detects the clear-coat depth...so I'm not sure if there's any other way to make sure not to harm the clear coat?

If anyone could help me out that'd be great.

Thanks so much.

You should be fine. I have had quite a bit of products laying around for a while that I use from time to time.
Try out what you have and see if you like the results.

Are you going to be doing this by hand?

no. I have a porter cable with 6" backing plate. I already have an orange and white pads lying around. I might give that a shot then when i have time and see what type of result I get. Last time I did it, I think i applied a little too much polish on the pads.... how much is necessary? just like 4-5 pea-sized dots around the edge? I think i applied the polish in a "X" formation across the surface of the pad. LOL that might be a little too excessive no?

Yea, apply a small amount (nickel size) onto your pad and you will be good to go. Porter Cable is good, but with a 6" pad you are not going to have great results. You really want to use a 4" orange pad on a Porter Cable to maximize the outcome of your detail. If you have very light swirls than the 6" pad will do.

oicic. maybe that's why I wasn't too impressed with the result the first time... I will take that into consideration. thanks so much! any other suggestions you may have as to a Silver car?

The products generally will remain in perfect condition for about 3 - 5 years, assuming they were not in really high or low temps. After that they may start to degrade to varying degrees. If in doubt the best way to test them is to try them out. If you shake the bottle and it's still very inconsistent looking it is obviously a bad sign, but I would still test it out. In short I think you'll be fine as I've used products over 5yrs old with no problems.

I'd say you are fine sticking with the PBW polishes but if you want to try the Menzerna ones you may notice a slight improvement. When using a PC on BMW's I've typically gotten better results with the Menzerna polishes.

With a PC it's almost impossible to budge the overall thickness of the clear coat, which is also why you can't burn the paint. In general you are totally fine to polish as much as you'd like until you start using a rotary.

Hope this helps!

Greg @ DI

If the polish mixes when shaken and doesn't stay separated, you are good to go.