Cost: approx £10 – £15 for 16oz bottle.
Date of Review: 28/02/2018
The Sales Pitch from Chemical Guys:
Why Buy This Product?
- Long lasting tire and trim dressing
- Restores and protects sun-faded trim
- Absorbs quickly and finishes with a dry-to-the-touch feel
- Perfect for faded bumpers, fender flares, door trim, mirrors, window moldings, rocker panels, tires, louvers, and more!
- Highly-refined oil-based dressing penetrates deep to restore from within
- Super-high-shine dressing for bright wet look
- Sling-free formula sticks to tires, not your paintwork!
- Make tires and trim look like new
- Also available in 4 ounce size
How It Works
Chemical Guys New Look Tire and Trim Gel restores faded trim and tires with factory fresh, wet-black shine. The premium oil-based trim dressing restores and shields plastic, rubber, and vinyl surfaces with superior protection against dirt, water, and harmful UV rays. Exposure to the elements fades, discolors, and cracks plastic, rubber, and vinyl trim pieces. New Look Tire and Trim Gel penetrates deep, nourishes, moisturizes, and restores dried-out and faded trim to perfect shine. Use New Look Tire and Trim Gel on faded bumpers, fender flares, door trim, weatherstripping, mirrors, window moldings, windshield cowls, rocker panels, tires, louvers, and more. The premium dressing is formulated with special waterproofing agents to help it last through multiple washes. Chemical Guys New Look Tire and Trim Gel maximizes deep-black shine with protection that lasts.
Source: https://www.chemicalguys.com/Tire_and_Trim_Gel_16_oz_p/tvd_108_16.htm
What You Get:
A Squeezey bottle of liquid and a flip top cap.
Product Description:
This product doesn’t look like much as it’s a clear product. Flip the cap open and squeeze and not a lot happens. The thick gel really is a gel and watery compound.
After a wax or spray on wax unless you mask the areas off then there will be an over rub or over spray. Those white marks are so annoying on plastic. Also the black trims, bumpers, tyres, hoses, door rubbers start to look old and go grey. This product claims to restore it all back to the OEM finish you got with the car. That is some claim, but does it do it?
Instructions:
Application:
You can use a sponge, a pad or microfiber cloth to apply the product. I found that the product is thick and it’s best to spread it about on the applicator rather than one blob.
Once I had it on the pad I found spreading it was little difficult due to the viscosity of the product. A large blob didn’t seem to go far and found that I had to drag it over the parts I wanted to coat with it. Smaller dabs on the pad spread around a little made the process a lot nicer and more manageable. The consistency is ike a smooth jam is the only thing I can think off right now. I had previously used the Chemical Guys InstaWax+ via a spray and managed to get it over my black plastic trim under the windscreen. Not that I was too careful as I knew this product was going to be reviewed after the waxing. The other parts of the trim i used it on was the black plastic housing for the low down fog lights, the lip at the bottom of the front valance and the trim within the rear bumper. All had been coated with wax at some point and had gone really gray as a result of repeated applications of wax.
So, the process is really simple, make sure what you want to apply the product to is clean and dry, and then just rub it onto the surface with your chosen method of application. Supremely simple in fact.
Removing:
To remove the product just wipe over with a micro cloth. I was expecting the surface to be tacky and bits of fluff stick everywhere considering the drag of the product when applying it. But i was wrong. It dries pretty quickly and buffs straight off like a quick detailer would. Effortless and almost doesn’t need the buff off. That makes up for the slight amount of work to apply the gel to the surface.
The pictures here I had deliberately half treated the areas so that you can see the difference. These door trims were a little gray looking and I treated the right hand side and with a little spread over the left side. As you can see, instantly noticeable.
The next test was the bottom lip of the front valance. This picks up all the weather from the road, salt and grime from the winter etc. This part of the trim had been like it for three years or so with regualar wax being applied after washing. Again the instant difference.
The front fog lamps were again in the thick of the road grim and bit of waxing. The right hand side being the treated section. Instant difference.
Next was a window quarter blank, this wasn’t too bad but looked new once done.
The rear bumper has an inset plastic trim around it and gets a coating of wax every time. This I thought would be the real test.
The result was quite obvious after being properly applied and buffed off.
The front cowl below the windscreen was a large area but came up very well.
Before
After, notice I even wiped it on the black metal windscreen wiper arms and they came up black as well, which I wasn’t expecting.
Results:
Brilliant in a word. The water beads of the plastic just like it had been waxed. It has stayed black for a couple of months now. I suspect that regular application will build up the coating to last even longer. I’m impressed.
Rating: 9 out 10
Why not the top mark? Well I think that the gel could have been a made a little more runny to ease the application. Perhaps there is a reason for the thickness, if there is then this product deserves the top marks. It has made the difference and lives up to its claims.
Ease of use –
Very simple process to apply and buff off to get the results. Although the technic to apply the gel takes a little trial and error. But you soon get the hang of it.
Finish –
Immediate and very obvious, dry to the touch and looks like new, honestly.
Conclusion:
I didn’t think that the trim would come back black, but it did. It was so easy to get the results considering just how little you have to actually do to get there. Other products have similar claims and have sort of made a back to black but soon fades away. This goes black and stays black!
Would I recommend it? Oh Yes.
Would I buy it again? Without a doubt, this will now be a standard part of my detail kit.
The comparison to this product is the Auto Finesse ‘Revive’ which is a similarly priced product. the link can be found here or cut this link below to your browser.