In all the years I've lived up north I'm used to keeping all my cleaning stuff inside for the winter. The last couple years I've been in an apartment, so everything stayed inside by default. This year I'm in a house and have left everything outside like I always used to do. I finally was able to go out and do a real good cleaning on everything and found several things seem to be messed up. The Griot's leather conditioner had a strange color to it, speed shine seemed foamy on top (almost like it had seperated), and the Leather CPR looked like it had melted and had a layer of mold on top.

Should I be keeping everything inside to avoid heat and humidity in the south?

 

Extreme hot or cold can hurt chemicals. Humidity, to my knowledge, won't play any effect...

 

That plus age... how old are your chemicals? Were they properly sealed all the time? This can alter the performance of your car cae products.

 

I've always made sure they were sealed, meaning covers always closed tight. I've never done anything extra to seal them. The Speed Shine and Leather CPR were both less than a year old, and the leather conditioner were a couple years old.

 

??? MAybe the extreme temp. differences caused a problem, or maybe humidity does play a role. I dunno. But if I was you, I'd call the manufacturers. (and I had to with NXT from Meg.'s...awaiting reply... Most companies will at the minimum tell you why it happened, and how to prevent this from happening again, and some (ie: Meg.'s) will replace the product and *usually* send you a freebie to compensate for the inconvenience.

Good luck, and let us know what the cause was, and the solution...

 

Even chemicals that are sealed can be adversely effected by environmental conditions... new chemicals, for that case, will go bad (even as sealed by the manufac) if stored in adverse conditions...

 

From what I've seen, the chemicals that have issues with cold temperatures are emulsion/suspension types of products (liquid waxes, buffing compounds, conditioners...). An emulsion is a mixture of 2 or more components which don't mix (no solubility). These materials usually have a milky appearance. Freezing these materials seem to seperate them into 2 or more distinct components. Usually you can shake them up enough to use them, but they will never be as uniformly mixed as new no matter how hard or long you shake them.

 

I noticed the same thing with my leather CPR, and it has been kept indoors

 

I understand cold forcing components out of an emulsion, and I can see heat breaking down components. I think what catches me off guard the most is the garage getting hot enough to do damage. I've lived most of my life up north, so I'm used to weeks at time with below freezing temps and everything getting messed up. We've had a lot of heat, but I didn't think my garage got that hot.

None of the waxes, polishes, or soaps seem to have had any changes, it seems to have been confined to leather care and speed shine, and even they seem to be ok. I'll try to contact the manufacturers and will report back if I find anything out.

 

Had the same thing happen last year. I live in Houston and it is never very cold but hot as hell itself most of the time. Called up many of the manufactures and most of them said just to be sure to shake them "just like the label says" and they will be fine.

An example of this was my smaller bottles of Meguiar’s # 83 Dual Action Cleaner / Polisher and Meguiar’s # 82 Swirl Free Polish
They acted the same and I had no problems with them after a good shaking