Avant guard 1051 product failure. Eron Knox, Matthew James Kennedy STAY AWAY!
This is for the detailing community, particularly anyone thinking about putting their money, customers and reputation behind Avant Guard Formula 1051. I want to talk about my experience dealing directly with Eron “Knoxy” Knox and Matt Kennedy. This isn’t something I heard from another detailer or read online. I was there. I put my money behind this product and, more importantly, I put my reputation behind it.
By the time I left SEMA in Las Vegas on November 7, 2025, I was still sitting on approximately 500 kits that we had been told were not working properly. This was a massive concern because Avant Guard was coming to Australia for our national Formula 1051 training tour, beginning November 18.
I repeatedly raised my concerns with Matt and Knoxy before leaving Las Vegas. I wanted to know whether the product was actually ready and whether Australia was covered. I was repeatedly reassured that they had it handled and not to worry. I trusted them.
Eleven days later, our first training session was scheduled for 9am on the Gold Coast, with around 20 detailers waiting at my shop. Matt and Knoxy flew into Brisbane at approximately 8am that morning carrying around 40 kits in their luggage — roughly an hour’s drive away from a training session starting an hour later.
Then their luggage was lost.
They arrived and told me we had no product to train with. Fortunately, another approximately 40 kits had been express-shipped to Australia. I’d managed to divert that shipment and have it urgently redirected to our shop. We started training around an hour late, thinking we’d managed to save the situation.
Then we got the call: don’t use those 40 kits — they’re faulty.
I’d left SEMA eleven days earlier with around 500 kits already causing concern, been assured Australia was covered, and now the replacement product at the first session of our national training tour couldn’t be used either.
What happened next is the part that has stayed with me. My recollection is that Matt and Knoxy proposed using rental cars for the training so the detailers wouldn’t subsequently see how the coating cured and how bad the finished result was.
I went along with it, and I take responsibility for that decision. I had around 20 detailers standing there who had trusted me, some having rearranged their businesses and travelled to attend. I didn’t want to let them down, and I was still believing the assurances that these problems were going to be fixed.
Looking back, I should have stopped the training and told everyone exactly what was happening. I didn’t. To the detailers who trusted me because of my involvement with Formula 1051, I’m sorry. I should have acted on what I was seeing instead of continuing to rely on assurances.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it.
By January 2026, I had received approximately 1,540 Formula 1051 kits. In my experience, different batches presented different problems, including solvent pop, coatings remaining sticky, rainbowing and other application and curing issues. I wasn’t comfortable putting what I was seeing onto a paying customer’s vehicle.
Then, after SEMA, the Australian training situation and the issues we’d experienced across those batches, I was asked in January to reload another 1,000 kits to maintain my exclusivity.
That’s the part I still struggle to understand. I had already received approximately 1,540 kits and was dealing with multiple issues across batches, yet the conversation had come back to committing to another thousand kits.
This is a major reason I’m speaking publicly about my experience with Eron “Knoxy” Knox. Avant Guard publicly identifies Knoxy as its Head of Product Development, and Formula 1051 has been marketed as the result of 1,051 rounds of testing and refinement.
So there are questions I believe deserve answers. If the product had undergone that level of testing and refinement, why was I experiencing these problems across different batches? Why did I leave SEMA with hundreds of kits already causing concern and then get reassured that Australia was covered? Why did the people responsible for the training arrive on the morning of the first session carrying the training product in their luggage, only for the replacement kits we’d managed to secure to be declared faulty?
And most importantly, why, according to my recollection, was the proposed solution to use rental cars so the detailers wouldn’t later see how those vehicles looked after the coating cured? Then, after everything that had happened, why was I being asked in January to commit to another 1,000 kits to maintain exclusivity?
Matt Kennedy and Eron Knox are entitled to give their version of these events, and I invite them to.
I’m not asking anyone to blindly believe me. I’m putting my experience on the record. Do your own due diligence. Research the company and the people involved, read the product claims, test products independently, and keep your messages, emails, invoices, batch numbers and agreements.
The biggest lesson I took from this is simple: don’t let somebody else’s confidence override what you’re seeing with your own eyes. If I’m putting a coating on somebody else’s vehicle, I need to be confident I can stand behind the result.
With the Formula 1051 batches I had received, I couldn’t. I should have acted on that sooner. I won’t make that mistake again.