Update after 2 months, around 3200 miles
We’re now at about 2 months, 3200 miles in on the SPS Graphene application (2 coats) to my daily driver, a 2017 Black Pearl Honda Accord Coupe. This car sits outside 24/7 on a somewhat heavily wooded lot meaning lotsa ‘Nature Debris’ end up sitting on the car through the rain and sun; leaves, seed pods from Oak and Maple trees, tree-sap ‘mist’…all manner of gruel end up on this thing. Additionally, this car sees a 80 mile daily commute on 4 of the most heavily used, constantly under-construction freeways in the NE Ohio area; constant dirt, dust and all manner of other road grime are what this vehicle sees 5 days a week. Point being, this car gets *used* and is the farthest thing from an occasional use garage queen that sees overly OCD-ish maintenance.
Have pretty much settled into a maintenance routine of washing as follows:
1. Rinse w/ pressure washer (SunJoe SPX3001, 2030psi, 1.76 GPM rating but that’s probably a bit…uh, optimistic)
2. Foam with MTM PF22 cannon (1.1mm orifice), Gtechniq G4 Citrus Foam at about 1” of G4 to about 20oz water. Yep, that’s some pretty accurate measuring, eh? In the end it doesn’t give me that YouTube-impressive thick, shaving cream foam but rather a more aqueous foam that clings to the surface for the recommended dwell time…which is what I prefer. And sometimes have to go a bit ‘richer’ to get it to cling to the coated surface which is kinda a misnomer as it clings ‘the best it can’ due to the coating’s tendency to shed stuff very well.
Whether foaming is useful or useless is up for debate but I figure 1) It can’t hurt and 2) it’s just too much fun to not do it. We do have what people have told me is ‘tree sap mist’ around here which manifests itself in very, very tiny crystals (much like very small sugar crystals, perhaps?) that end up on the car at various times, sometimes as soon as about an hour after it’s been washed; it makes the paint somewhat ‘sparsely gritty’ and is tenacious enough that when using wipers/washers on the windshield to clear, it will result in smearing and incomplete removal. I figure the 3-5 minute soak in a somewhat wet-ish foam loosens this stuff enough that it is easily removed before a wash mitt/sponge/whatever contacts the surface. Eh, whatever…it’s still too much fun to spray foam to stop so I’ll continue on this course as it seems to be working.
3. 2-bucket wash (OK, sometimes a 1-bucket wash) using CarPro Reset soap and a Rag Company Cyclone wash mitt or a Kamikaze sponge depending on what I grabbed of the shelf that was clean.
4. Air Dry with Bigboi BlowR PRO Car Dryer & Bigboi BlowR BUDDI Car Dryer cuz, well…nothing exceeds like excess, no?
5. Uh, that’s about it. I’m not topping this coating with anything, not adding anything to the mix. Just wash and go.
Anyway, with all the preliminary (and yet possibly useful) preliminary nonsense outta the way, how is the SPS Graphene doing so far? We’ll get there but first, perhaps redundant but the following is what *I* look for in a coating:
1. Great Self Cleaning Abilities: Our cars see rain and often get rained on in the morning and then sit outside in the sun in the afternoon; don’t like waterspots. I like clean cars but don’t like cleaning cars.
2. Durability and resistance to environmental contamination like water spots and bird bombs. Don’t wanna have to worry about running home and immediately dealing with removing things that would otherwise etch bare paint. Also has to last cuz I don’t wanna be hauling out compounds and polishes every Spring, given reasonable maintenance. Given a black car with somewhat heavy usage like this one, if I can get to 2 years/40k miles with a coating still performing well, I’m pretty well set on that being the longest I can go while still maintaining acceptable appearance (to me) w/ regards to scratches and other the defects that accumulate over the course of normal usage.
It’s a tough world out there, especially on freeways, and even if a coating is still ‘working’ after 2 years, me banging stuff into the car and other incidents that just ‘seem to happen’ mean at 2 years I’m ready to re-polish and re-coat, provided I’ve got the motivation to do so. For a car used like I use this one, I have no need for a 5-7 year coating (questionable to me anyway as longevity is determined by so many differing variables), even if that coating is a “10h Diamond-Infused hardness” product ‘cuz I think that whole hardness thing is mostly overrated and disingenuous marketing as well.
3. Appearance: Well, stuff has to look good. And it has to stay looking good with relatively minimal effort on my part cuz at the end of the day I can be kinda lazy with regards to maintenance.
Are ya still with me? Well, if so let’s get down to the results so far, as I see them. Aat this juncture in the SPS Graphene’s lifetime on my paint, the stuff just simply and plainly works better than nearly all of the coatings I have tried (about 20-25 of ‘em) and is the equal of the best (really better described as my favorites ‘cuz that whole ‘best’ thing is a rather subjective matter of opinion) I have used, given my specific needs for a coating…so far. If it continues to perform in this manner over the next 21 months or so, this stuff is something really, really special. The reflectivity of the coating and it’s ability to maintain that reflectivity and gloss even when somewhat dirty has really cut down on the washing I would do to this car with a lesser coating just because I see no reason to wash it when, slightly soiled or not, it’s still the cleanest car around in all the parking lots I leave it in.
Much like the other ‘great-in-my-mind’ coatings, this coating sometimes has me actually looking forward to heavy rain so I can grab a chair, sit in the garage and watch water shed, sheet and slide off the paint (yes, my life is so empty that I actually consider this a valid form of entertainment).
Additionally, the car had a particularly hard week last week, even though it drove zero miles and just sat in my driveway for 9 straight days. Summer has finally arrived in NE Ohio and last week saw heavy rains on some days, blazing, scorching 90+ full sun on others meaning that raindrops had ample opportunity to dry and leave marks on the painted surfaces…and yet there were no lasting indications of 3 or 4 wet/dry cycles that were not easily removed thru the wash process when we got back home. Nor did the occasional gifts from birds flying overhead leaving any lasting blemishes after washing. Should be noted though that I’ve never had water spotting issues or permanent environmental staining issues on my personal cars since moving to coatings, which is actually kinda surprising. Living in NE Ohio, outside of Cleveland where our river caught fire in the 1970’s due to pollution and our apparent need to still do emissions testing because of ‘high pollution zones’ is an ongoing thing, it’s not like our cars live in the pure, healthy air (I think) of the Pacific Northwest. And, yet, coatings still protect me, an area where SPS so far more than capable.
The initial slickness has subsided a little bit, it’s now somewhere between ‘freshly applied’ slick and ‘normal coating’ slick but while slickness is nice and all, I don’t see it as vital as long as the other aspects of the coating are still doing their job, which they are.
Many coatings I have tried over the past few years have been nice, have worked well and functioned ‘as advertised’ for the most part. Occasionally (in one or 2 cases for me personally) a product really stands out for the looks and the manner in which it works well for my needs; if the SPS Graphene continues its albeit still-early performance, it will be up there on the shelf, likely supplanting one of my current favorites, as a product that not only works as advertised, but exceeds my expectations by a significant margin. I was kinda getting burned out on trying new coatings since I’ve found 1 or 2 that specifically excel for me and it’s really nice that the SPS Graphene proved to be one of the notable ‘Well, that certainly works better than advertised…’ products. Will be using the other ½ bottle of SPS Graphene soon on a metallic gray Ford that I’ll be able to watch relatively closely and I have no reason to expect it won’t excel on that paint as well. Good stuff, for sure.
Photos below are from 07/25/2019. Car was washed on 07/21/2019, Rained on early morning of 07/22/2019 and then has driven 400 miles since then. Still looks pretty good to me; little dusty but not nearly to the point of needing a wash. Notably the back end/trunk area which always ends up grimy after a rain due to no wind hitting in to remove residual rain drops.
