boxingfan30
New member
Ok, so I'm bouncing back and forth between using another coating on my GTI, or if I should go back to using a sealant/wax.
The issues however make this a difficult decision for many people who live in an area with bad water (like the town water here), high heat that might make a standard LSP not last very long, overall time to work on their car(s), reoccurring injuries (again like me, bad back, knees, shoulder,)
I have used coatings on my last 2 cars, which included opticoat, 22ple, and then cquartz uk.
For a long time opticoats many attributes were that "nothing sticks to it", that turned out to not be the case, and after a while, my finish started to just look less than stellar, though it looked good. I recall having some grass clippings that were stuck to my paint, they didn't wash right off under the water pressure, but rather had to be washed off like normal car. The lack of slickness was also a pretty big letdown.
When I had gotten the time, I polished the OC where 22ple would soon replace it...which was the whole car. The paint of course looked brand new and sparkled like freshly polished paint should, the 22ple was put on and the looks were MUCH more improved. In fairness, I can not say much about spotting or any dulling since I sold the car not long after that.
Once I got my GTI, I debated on the 22ple, but because of price, went with CQUK. Again, I polished the paint for hours, got the look I wanted and began the extremely long and ridiculous process of applying the CQ. Going up and down and back and forth, ensuring the paint was fully covered, it was the most difficult coating out of the 3 to apply. Finally I got the car done. It did look great, it added some darkness to the already black paint, and at the beginning it was excellent at water and dirt shedding. The problem then came that I did not keep reload on the car long enough I guess. It said about 4 months it would last. My first application with reload was frustrating, the small streaks where areas were just a little darker than others, seemed to take so much rubbing and buffing that my arm felt like it would fall off. After all of the the paint was slick, very slick...but 4 months was not close to how long it lasted, and washing the car about once a week with Adams car shampoo showed it quickly lost its slickness and water shedding was going downhill. After the spotting showed up, I tried a cleaner wax, tried AIOs and neither would remove the spotting fully. I wound up polishing the coating with a blue pad and sf4500 to remove them, but some were deep enough, they are still there now, I suppose a 2000 grit with orange pad will be needed.
This is not meant as a crack at carpro, though I personally won't use them again, but at coatings in general and my love hate relationship with them now.
I recall a member on here a long time ago saying that those of us who make a living at this will lose money because people won't need to come back. Now many of us, (myself included) are finding that we aren't losing money from a lack of business, we are losing money at trying to figure out just what the hell keeps thsee spots and other issues off these finishes. Reliad, vs1, take your pick of which "topper" is supposed to create magic to a coating that is already supposed to be magic and hydrothis or hydrothat...spot removers, etc. It seems the coating business is all about coating the coating.
Now, I'll admit that the marring resistance is excellent with all of the above mentioned coatings, and I'm sure that with each and every new coating that comes out they will all have that, and for some, that's a decent trade off to have the cost of possible repolishing, or applications of their choice of coating or having a lot of sandblasted or wash induced marring.
My rethinking of using just more standard LSP's is the fact that a GOOD quality LSP will keep water spots from etching into the paint. Some will disagree with this, and that's ok. I have had powerlock on my car and had bird droppings that were on there for several days...never did they make it to the paint.
I had a 370z about 3 cars ago, and it was in my garage when my 130lb.Presa Canario got out of his cage and had jumped all over the car, almost in tears as every panel had multiple claw marks on it, I just started to see what I could do. To my surprise, the marks were are largely wiping right off. I had 2 coats of 915 on the paint, of course the slickness is what helped to keep the actual paint from being damaged. We all also know that a good, slick car shampoo is what greatly improves the possibility of not getting wash marring, along with proper techniques.
In general, the auto paint care industry makes a killing off of their fancy bottles, boxes, special BS wooden containers that hold 1k waxes that aren't worth the lacquer that went onto the boxes they hold. Yet, many of us fall for it anyway. Why? It's our hobby, our livelyhood, or we just are shopaholic that can't say no to trying something new.
In the end, isn't every coating basically going to do the same thing? Isn't every wax going to look great for 2 or 3 months and then need to be redone?
So what are your thoughts? What do you prefer? Why?
The issues however make this a difficult decision for many people who live in an area with bad water (like the town water here), high heat that might make a standard LSP not last very long, overall time to work on their car(s), reoccurring injuries (again like me, bad back, knees, shoulder,)
I have used coatings on my last 2 cars, which included opticoat, 22ple, and then cquartz uk.
For a long time opticoats many attributes were that "nothing sticks to it", that turned out to not be the case, and after a while, my finish started to just look less than stellar, though it looked good. I recall having some grass clippings that were stuck to my paint, they didn't wash right off under the water pressure, but rather had to be washed off like normal car. The lack of slickness was also a pretty big letdown.
When I had gotten the time, I polished the OC where 22ple would soon replace it...which was the whole car. The paint of course looked brand new and sparkled like freshly polished paint should, the 22ple was put on and the looks were MUCH more improved. In fairness, I can not say much about spotting or any dulling since I sold the car not long after that.
Once I got my GTI, I debated on the 22ple, but because of price, went with CQUK. Again, I polished the paint for hours, got the look I wanted and began the extremely long and ridiculous process of applying the CQ. Going up and down and back and forth, ensuring the paint was fully covered, it was the most difficult coating out of the 3 to apply. Finally I got the car done. It did look great, it added some darkness to the already black paint, and at the beginning it was excellent at water and dirt shedding. The problem then came that I did not keep reload on the car long enough I guess. It said about 4 months it would last. My first application with reload was frustrating, the small streaks where areas were just a little darker than others, seemed to take so much rubbing and buffing that my arm felt like it would fall off. After all of the the paint was slick, very slick...but 4 months was not close to how long it lasted, and washing the car about once a week with Adams car shampoo showed it quickly lost its slickness and water shedding was going downhill. After the spotting showed up, I tried a cleaner wax, tried AIOs and neither would remove the spotting fully. I wound up polishing the coating with a blue pad and sf4500 to remove them, but some were deep enough, they are still there now, I suppose a 2000 grit with orange pad will be needed.
This is not meant as a crack at carpro, though I personally won't use them again, but at coatings in general and my love hate relationship with them now.
I recall a member on here a long time ago saying that those of us who make a living at this will lose money because people won't need to come back. Now many of us, (myself included) are finding that we aren't losing money from a lack of business, we are losing money at trying to figure out just what the hell keeps thsee spots and other issues off these finishes. Reliad, vs1, take your pick of which "topper" is supposed to create magic to a coating that is already supposed to be magic and hydrothis or hydrothat...spot removers, etc. It seems the coating business is all about coating the coating.
Now, I'll admit that the marring resistance is excellent with all of the above mentioned coatings, and I'm sure that with each and every new coating that comes out they will all have that, and for some, that's a decent trade off to have the cost of possible repolishing, or applications of their choice of coating or having a lot of sandblasted or wash induced marring.
My rethinking of using just more standard LSP's is the fact that a GOOD quality LSP will keep water spots from etching into the paint. Some will disagree with this, and that's ok. I have had powerlock on my car and had bird droppings that were on there for several days...never did they make it to the paint.
I had a 370z about 3 cars ago, and it was in my garage when my 130lb.Presa Canario got out of his cage and had jumped all over the car, almost in tears as every panel had multiple claw marks on it, I just started to see what I could do. To my surprise, the marks were are largely wiping right off. I had 2 coats of 915 on the paint, of course the slickness is what helped to keep the actual paint from being damaged. We all also know that a good, slick car shampoo is what greatly improves the possibility of not getting wash marring, along with proper techniques.
In general, the auto paint care industry makes a killing off of their fancy bottles, boxes, special BS wooden containers that hold 1k waxes that aren't worth the lacquer that went onto the boxes they hold. Yet, many of us fall for it anyway. Why? It's our hobby, our livelyhood, or we just are shopaholic that can't say no to trying something new.
In the end, isn't every coating basically going to do the same thing? Isn't every wax going to look great for 2 or 3 months and then need to be redone?
So what are your thoughts? What do you prefer? Why?
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