Cost: £25.00 / 500ml
Date of Review: 9th May 2020
The Sales Pitch from Mitchell & King:
Brand New Product For Summer!
Get your exhaust pipe shining and your brightwork sparkling.
Metal is our brand new metal polish, which not only cleanses your metal and brightwork, it also protects it from further tarnishing.
Comes in a super 500ml size, which is a perfect fit for your palm.
Use steel wool if a microfibre cloth isn’t “cutting” it.
Source: https://www.mitchellandking.com/products/smart-metal-polish?_pos=1&_sid=dea451cb3&_ss=r
What You Get:
This is 500ml so a generous amount for the money. A standard plastic pot with a screw on top. Nothing out of the ordinary to look at.
Product Description:
An all purpose metal and brightwork paste cleaner.
Instructions:
Use a cloth to apply to the metal and rub until clean. Buff to a shine. If the cloth is not cleaning enough use a fine wire wool to help out as stated in the sales wording.
The smell is more natural from the ingrediants used and not artificially scented.
Application & Removal:
The paste is smooth and fairly thick and doesn’t fall of rhe cloth or soak in. The application is easy and soon brings results. The exhast tips here don’t look to bad to be honest, but I thought I would try them to see what happens.
After a single application with just a microfiber cloth the results were immediate. The exhaust started to shine, I even stuck a rag up the pipe to see if I could remove some of the soot, which it did surprisingly. The microfiber was dead at this point now. As you wouod expect.
While I was laying under the the rear valance I reached under to clean a little more. The exhaust now started to have a shine to it. On the left pic below the application half done, on the right after the polish was removed and a little buff. This was achieved without wire wool and just a cloth and a quick once over. I wasn’t even trying that hard.
The next part I thought to try was my polished stainless steel fuel tank. This takes a little lookijg after due to being near the road and underneath. The outside edges were a little dull, but there was still some shine there.
Still only using another clean microfiber cloth I gave it a rub, this took a little more effort but the result was certainly worth it. First attempt below.
The second application and a fair bit more physical work and more paste.
The effort was worth it.
A little while later I upgraded my headlights to LED bulbs. While I had the retaining rings of, I gave them a shine up too.
What comes of a little stainless steel ring like this?
After a couple of applications and a good buff the rings started to come back to life. A little out of focus, but you can see the shine coming through.
Anither little thing I did was to polish my radiator cap, just because I could. With this I used my Dremel buffer with a little polish to see what would happen. This is the before pic.
A couple of applications during the cleans.
After about ten minutes the results after a nice buff were amazing.
After this result a little wax protection was applied.
Results:
The effort for great results on the exhaust was easier than making a full shine on the petrol tank. That surprised me a little. To get a good shine you need to rub, buff and have a second go. Unless you wanted to be a little more aggressive and use 00 or 000 grade wire wool of course. Like i said I used a dremel and a buffing wheel pad to get great results.
I found that using a heavier woven thick cotton cloth was better than the microfiber. The depth of clean will obviously determin what you will use to clean.
The product is supposed to leave a protection on the metal to prevent tarnishing. So far that has held up to be true. Months after cleaning the radiator cap, it still looks like it did when I polished it. And that cap is subjected to hands all over it and heat extreme too.
Rating: 9 out 10
A great product it honestly is, but to get a nice shine result you may have to apply twice. Hence why I knocked a mark off. You will get the results you want no problem with this product, but it can take just a little longer.
Ease of use – 8
Finish – 9
Conclusion:
This is a great product, but not as aggressive as some that I have seen. Put the work in and you will get great results.
To put this into perspective, another very well known off the shelf product charges £12 for 148g. This is £25 for 500ml, that’s almost four times as much for twice the cost. This product then all of a sudden becomes great value. It will last you ages and I have been using liberally when you don’t need to. Even if you use twice as much from a second application then you still have much more left on a cost per cost comparison.
To have the option to buy a smaller pot would have been nice say 250ml or even 150ml.
I dont use metal polish that much as a wax or quick detailer brink up the shine. But I suspect shelf life is
I think a little fragrance would have been nice, just for the sake of it.
Would I recommend it? Yes.
Would I buy it again? Yes.