CSL Update; finally decon`d and washed it.
CSL w/ C2V3 applied probably sometime in January or February of 2017.
Around 15k miles since application, maybe run through a touchless soap/rinse only once or twice since then.
Vehicle is a 2014 Ford E250 van, 80K miles at application time, about 94K now, used daily from March thru current, parked outside likely 75% of the time. As a Technician vehicle for a swimming pool service company in NE Ohio the truck pulls in out out of a lot of residential driveways each season, obviously many with trees as there are faint scratches running along the side of the body. Prior to CSL application the truck got the full deal...decon, clay, compound and polish so paint was pretty near as flawless as it could be with regard to surface defects that could be removed by either Megs M101 or D300 on microfiber pad. The CSL did darken the paint a bit after application, giving it a deeper glossy look; I thought it was gonna be one of my favorites.
As I`ve mentioned before, the CSL was kinda an odd bird. After application and release `into the wild` it was among the worst of all I tried at keeping itself clean. Rain would always leave dirty/dusty waterspots, albeit easily removed for the most part. Some were a bit more stubborn. About 3 months in (maybe when C2V3 wore off?) the paint started to stay cleaner, matching many of the other coatings such as Cquartz. By the time I got to it last night, the things was looking pretty good despite the minimal attention paid to it during the past season.
Feeling the paint after a simple wash, the surface still felt relatively slick...much more so than the Gyeon Mohs did after a similar amount of time/miles. Using the `ol baggie test, there was some obvious contamination on the surface. So I hosed the whole vehicle down with Sonax Fallout Remover (and then agitated), then washed again. Probably about 60% of the roughness to the surface was removed and there was some visible bleeding from the Fallout Remover. After this process I really didn`t see any water spot staining or etching.
The Tech who drives this van says he does, in fact, have a few driveways with pine trees close enough to run down the side of the van which would nicely explain the marring (very light but easily visible). As I wasn`t going to do any machine work on this van, didn`t want to clay and possible mar up the surface. These scratches did diminish somewhat after an aggressive washing so perhaps a light clay would help? I dunno...
Anyway, I`d have to say that after the initial period of not staying so clean, the CSL performed nearly as well as the Gyeon Mohs; it didn`t stay as clean all the time but certainly had a better feel to the paint after 10 or so months. I`m not quite ready to give up on the CSL...there`s just something intangible about it that I like despite it`s initial poor performance at self-cleaning. There is perhaps a CSL/EXO combo in my future.
After the decon/wash/panel wipe (really starting to like the Gtechniq Panel Wipe) I dropped 2 coats of Gyeon CanCoat on it which I`ll top with IGL Premier later today...just because I can. We`ll see how that holds up over the NE Ohio winter although the mileage will likely be down to about 5k between now and March 2018 and the van will probably be parked inside 75% of the time this winter.
Will be going over the Cquartz coated vehicle in a week or two, may just decon/wash and top that with IGL Premier to see how it does this winter, then the 22ple HPC van after that, probably with a decon, wash and then 22ple HPC Finitura application. Just got a closer look at the 22ple HPC van this morning and it`s holding up better than any other vehicle I coated here last winter (with respect to self cleaning, gloss and overall appearance anyway)
CSL (applied 10 months ago) topped with 2 coats of Gyeon CanCoat; next to another van of the same `vintage` can still see the darkening/richness that the CSL added to the red paint (and yes, I pretty much ignored the wheel wells cuz` it`s just a fleet vehicle after all):
