Ceramic QD Face-Off

[acuRAS82]

On 02/17/2020 I polished and prepped the 3 horizontal panels on the Acura TSX (hood, roof, trunk lid) to do a short duration comparison to get an approximate idea of longevity of some of the new ceramic QDs (compared against older in some cases). Each QD will cure 24 hours. They were applied this afternoon, 02/18.

The hood and roof are split to test QDs on both bare point and Essence. I’ll mention the Essence side in the pictures below.

The trunk lid is a miscellaneous repeat of two products vs Sonax BSD and my latest concoction, CanCoat Merlin Mix. No room for Essence.

The hood has Essence toward the windshield, bare paint towards the front end.

The hood QDs (from front; left to right):
- Angelwax Enigma QED
- PA Presto
- PA Sprayduster Active (“Waterless Wash”)
- IGL EcoShine Enhancer

The rear roof has Essence near the back and bare paint near the moonroof.
The rear roof QDs (from back; left to right):
- Megs Hybrid Ceramic Detailer
- Added 02/19: Hybrid Solutions 3-1 Detailer
- Mckees Ceramic Detail Spray
- PBL SiO2 Detail Spray

The trunk lid was chosen to have two choice sprays compare to my CanCoat mix and the QD longevity champ, BSD.
The trunk lid QDs (from back; left to right):
- CanCoat Merlin Mix
- Sonax BSD
- Megs Hybrid Ceramic Detailer (repeat)
- PBL SiO2 Detail Spray (repeat)

As a bonus, I applied Wolfgang SiO2 Waterless Wash and the original PBL Diamond Coating Detailer to see if they can stack up against the QDs. These were applied on the front roof, including w/Essence on the sides of the moon roof:

My goal is to limit driving on wet roads over the next few weeks so the vertical panels get similar abuse. I don’t want the roof staying clean while the hood and trunk get grimed. The car will sit outside 24/7 after the 24 hour cure period. The forecast in Pittsburgh is some rain over the next few weeks, but maybe some snow too??

Hopefully there will be some entertaining results, but if not, this is a short test anyways.

 

[acuRAS82]

Added Hybrid Solutions 3-1 Detailer today, 24 hours after the rest. Original post updated.

 

[William_Wallace]

Nicely done

 

[kjeeper]

Adams Cs3 is good stuff

 

[acuRAS82]

Update @ 7 days:

Very light snow on day 2 and on and off rain now since morning 6. I took some pictures tonight after rain, but it’s in the dark.

Even the light weights (PBL Coating Detailer and WG SiO2 WW) are still present and beading (less impressive, but still!):

I’m not going to go into detail about QD’s status. They are all present after a week with a light snow and 1.5 days of showers. Tomorrow is more rain, quarter inch throughout the day, then some snow tomorrow night. I’ll get better day pictures in daylight and talk about my individual observations at that time.

For now I’ll just identify 3 observations:
1) Of the hood QDs, PA Pronto seemed to sheet the fastest while driving. PA Sprayduster the slowest.
2) My CanCoat Merlin Mix on the trunk has poor beading compared to all other QDs. I’m guessing the CanCoat inside has mostly hardened and is just a gloss enhancer with no protection at this point.
3) PBL Coating Detailer may be the poorest beading other than above. This makes sense as I didn’t think it had much protection. WG SiO2 WW has better beads.

 

[acuRAS82]

Since I didn’t reveal much in my last post, I wanted to do a hose spray-down today before heavy rains and a little snow cone tonight. My neighbors were out and I felt too embarrassed to snap pics with one hand while spraying the other (It’s not easy and one can look funny doing it).

Instead, I’ll just summarize all the products in terms of sheeting ability from “shower” and “jet” hose spray, on day 8:

1) Sonax BSD
T-2) Hybrid Solutions 3-1 Detailer
T-2) PA Presto
T-4) IGL EcoShine Enhancer
T-4) Angelwax Enigma QED
6) PBL SiO2 Detail Spray
7) Megs HCD
8) WG SiO2 Waterless Wash (WW)
9) Mckees Ceramic Detail Spray
T-10) PBL Diamond Coating Detailer
T-10) PA Sprayduster Active (WW)
12) CanCoat Merlin Mix

I did my best to rank these despite it being hard to compare roof sheetings vs hood sheeting, etc.

Top Tier: BSD, HS 3-1 and PA Presto were the trunk, roof and hood winners and are very close.
IGL and Angelwax barely behind those.
I would group 1-5 together as very good sheeters, with 1-3 being just a touch behind.

Middle Tier: I have PBL SiO2, Megs and WG SiO2 WW. These all do well for themselves but are noticeably a bit slower than the top tier. My guess is that most people would be very content with self-cleaning/sheeting of these.
The surprise here being WG waterless. I would expect the others to last longer, but it’s performing better than I expected.

Last Tier: The disappointment is Mckees. Based on my previous test of Mckees vs Megs, I knew it was lagging in performance but now it really shows in a larger field.
PBL coating detailer was expected and I don’t think it will last much longer (it should be noted that the portion topped on Essence sheets a bit faster).
PA Sprayduster looks beat when compared to the 3 other hood items (all of which are in top tier), but it’s still beading and I’ll co to use to let it go.
CsnCoat Merlin Mix is pretty much gone. I might swap my High Gloss Merlin Mix in its place to see if it fates any better.


More to come after some bad weather tonight!

 

[acuRAS82]

Update @ 13 days:

Conditions since Day 7 post:
Heavy rain all of day 7, then snow starting day 8, on and off through night 9.
I actually drove around chasing snow squalls on night 9 (we’ve had a lack of snow and I miss it). I got into 30 minutes of blizzard, and then drove 20 miles back home through snowy, salty roads. I purposely did not trail close behind any cars to avoid the hood getting caked way more than the roof or trunk.
Upon checking the car in the morning, there was an even distribution of snow and salt across the horizontal surfaces. Wish I took a picture.
I then carefully washed all horizontal surfaces via N-914 WW pre-soak followed by N-914 RW. The caked-on salt wiped right off, except for on the tape lines. Tape lines were very visible during the RW for being hydrophilic. I had to carefully agitate on the tape lines to remove some salt and dirt, in some cases scraping with my finger nail. LSPs (these WDs in this case) make a huge difference for ease of cleaning.
A few more minor snow dustings while the car sat outside in 20-30deg F on day 10 and 11. Day 12 got back into high 40s, precip.
Day 13 has been rainy, good for checking out the pretty clean surfaces for a status check N-914 WW done before rain.

Original product areas for reference:

Here after light rain has started to accumulate. If picture quality is good, it’s easy to zoom and see tape lines on the hood. Hood items are pretty roughed up.

It continued to rain and I see the QDs have been beaten up pretty bad, most likely from the salt from the snow on day 9, 10 and 11, but note on the roof that the back side with Essence might be better off (or maybe that’s just Essence alone).

A couple of these are past what I would ever allow for my own protection. But I’m going to hold that thought for tonight.

I’ll let the rain do it’s thing tonight and tomorrow morning, then I’ll flood the surfaces and see what I can consider dead based on (lack of) sheeting.

Summary of two weeks tomorrow.

 

[acuRAS82]

Then I go out 3 hours later and the car looks like it has protection again.

Two miles later, traveling in a 35mph zone, the hood is mostly dry

Maybe N-914 left some residue? I didn’t wipe it off to well as I was trying to preserve the protection.

 

[Coatings=crack]

Maybe N-914 left some residue? I didn’t wipe it off to well as I was trying to preserve the protection.

Did you mix at 1:256? If adding more product could definitely leave some behind.

Would definitely be surprising if any are doing well after 2 weeks



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[acuRAS82]

Did you mix at 1:256? If adding more product could definitely leave some behind.

Would definitely be surprising if any are doing well after 2 weeks
I used directed 1:128 WW dilution. As mentioned, didn’t give a real thorough wipe off on purpose.

It’ll rain all morning so I’ll get to see how the behavior is, as I’m sure any residue of N-914 is gone after raining most the night. I think these QDs are still suffering, but maybe not as bad as I thought at 6pm yesterday.

 

[acuRAS82]

Update @ 15 days: Done

Beading continued to get even uglier during rains on day 14.

This morning I jet-sprayed each panel to remove light dust, then flooded. The only QD that has any life based sheeting was the mighty BSD, and even that looks about 70% dead.

If I had to rank them by longevity, or how “alive” they seemed prior to the snow/salt onslaught on day 9 (which more or less crushed everything):

1) Sonax BSD
2) PA Presto
T-3) IGL EcoShine Enhancer
T-3) Angelwax Enigma QED
T-5) Hybrid Solutions 3-1 Detailer
T-5) Megs HCD
T-5) PBL SiO2 Detail Spray
8) WG SiO2 Waterless Wash (WW)
9) Mckees Ceramic Detail Spray
T-10) PBL Diamond Coating Detailer
T-10) PA Sprayduster Active (WW)
12) CanCoat Merlin Mix

Summary:
The top 7 still looked good before the day 9 snow squalls.
WG WW and Mckees were present but starting to degrade.
PBL Coating Detailer was about 50% dead at the time.
PA Sprayduster was >80% dead.
CanCoat Merlin Mix lasted no time, and was a dumb idea since the SiO2 hardened and there’s no longevity at that point. Won’t be doing that again.

The good surprises were IGL and WG SiO2 WW.

The bad surprise was Mckees. Mckees is behind it’s main competition (Megs, TW, IGL as I see it). I put it behind WG WW even though they were close. It’s still a good product, as are all of these ceramics, but doesn’t quite hang in as long.

Overall I would say that the ceramic QDs do great when first applied as standalones (may seem obvious but not all QDs have noticeable protection). They handle well in rain. But not the durability to overcome a good salting during winter.

I just washed and slapped a layer of temporary Megs GC Quik Wax on the horizontal panels until I decide what’s next.

Thanks for following!