Ceramic coating real life swirl/scratch resistance

Nicholas@Autowerx said:
Scratch resistance is more of a function of the surface tension and slickness of the surface, not the "hardness" of the coating. In my testing CarPro Reload (even without a coating under it) actually has the best "scratch resistance" out of any product I've tried... yet, I've never seen any mention whatsoever of it being marketed as offering increased scratch resistance.

Once your vehicle is ceramic coated, or even if you've just paid big money (or spent countless hours) having the vehicle fully corrected, your wash technique and aftercare routine is going to be critical to maintain a flawless finish. I never recommend to wipe down the vehicle with a quick detail product unless you fully pressure wash the vehicle before hand. If you've driven the vehicle at all it will have picked up debris and contamination from the road such as particles of sand, brake dust, dirt, pollen, etc. that WILL scratch the vehicle if rubbed across the surface. Before you touch any sort of towel or wash media to the paint you must remove as much of the scratch inducing abrasive particles from the paintwork with a pre-rinse every time, otherwise the vehicle will be swirled out again after only a few washes.
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This is how I teach my clinets to care for their cars. The car show guys tell them to stop using detail sprays before a show and do a quick rinseless wash instead, so far all have loved the new process

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Nicholas@Autowerx said:
Scratch resistance is more of a function of the surface tension and slickness of the surface, not the "hardness" of the coating. In my testing CarPro Reload (even without a coating under it) actually has the best "scratch resistance" out of any product I've tried... yet, I've never seen any mention whatsoever of it being marketed as offering increased scratch resistance.

Once your vehicle is ceramic coated, or even if you've just paid big money (or spent countless hours) having the vehicle fully corrected, your wash technique and aftercare routine is going to be critical to maintain a flawless finish. I never recommend to wipe down the vehicle with a quick detail product unless you fully pressure wash the vehicle before hand. If you've driven the vehicle at all it will have picked up debris and contamination from the road such as particles of sand, brake dust, dirt, pollen, etc. that WILL scratch the vehicle if rubbed across the surface. Before you touch any sort of towel or wash media to the paint you must remove as much of the scratch inducing abrasive particles from the paintwork with a pre-rinse every time, otherwise the vehicle will be swirled out again after only a few washes.
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So this is definitely the take home point I have after my experience with my expensive paint correction and coating.
I think I will be moving away entirely from quick detail sprays or even waterless washes.


I still would like to have a quick process/routine to touch up a panel at at time, in between full two bucket washes. So I think I am going to take my chance at a rinsless wash process next.
 
What is the hardness of the clearcoats in pencil tests? I'm wondering if it's harder than ceramic coatings accually. It's say that coatings is easly polished off and that's right in most cases but so are clearcoats. I think that coatings is harder than clearcoats and it's why they are so thin that does them easier to polish of. For an example if you would get a cured coating as thick as a clearcoat you would polish off less coating than a clearcoat with the same setup. This is only in theory as a coating as thick as a clearcoat it would crack like glass I think. Does it do a coating so you wont scratch it no but more difficult than you could scratch a clearcoat I think.

And to clarify what I meaned with a top coating is more sensitive than a base coating to scratch. Is that you will scratch the the top coating and not the base coat. And when the top coating wears off it will be less scratched than the top coating where but till then you will see it. So the top coating that don't bonds into the base coat and has a long longevity I think is no good choice if you are after the most scratch resistance from your coating. Just my thoughts about it and not scientific proof of this.
 
The toppers are so thin it cannot be measured, the scratch you see is in the paint not the coating or topper. Do people actually believe the defects they seeing on coated cars are on the coating and toppers and not the actual paint? Oh my...
 
No I don't think it's only in the top coating or the coating it self. But I think that if you have those it does less damage to the paint than bare paint. And with scratches I mean marring and wash indused swirls. Since the top coating mostly is not as hard as the coating I think marring and wash indused swirls is more prone to have those than a coating. Or is it so that the protection you get from the coatings is something that doesnt matter? I think that how carefull you are maintain your car with whatever protection you have on it that in the end you will end up with marring swirls wash indused swirls scratches in a period of a couple of years. The benefit with a scratch resistant coating is that they maybe is not as deep as if you would have no protection on the paint. So when you are going to correct it you would be able to use the least aggressive polishing to correct it. Then we will have to consider that it's us autogeeks we are discuss about it. So we are more ocd about it than average Joe about what condition we are accepting to live with during this time. And what kind of use we have with our cars.

If I put it in this way. A soft finicky Honda paint that I would like to keep as much of clearcoat as possible on. Would I benefit from apply Gyeon mohs coating on it to help me to not polishing as aggressive when I do it? I maintain it as carefull as possible. Or will I have to be polishing it as aggressive as if it where bare paint after 18-24 months to get the wash indused swirls and marring corrected?
 
SWETM said:
If I put it in this way. A soft finicky Honda paint that I would like to keep as much of clearcoat as possible on. Would I benefit from apply Gyeon mohs coating on it to help me to not polishing as aggressive when I do it? I maintain it as carefull as possible. Or will I have to be polishing it as aggressive as if it where bare paint after 18-24 months to get the wash indused swirls and marring corrected?
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I applied McKee's 37 Paint Coating v1 on my wife's Toyota Highlander 18 months ago. The paint on that car isn't "you-gotta-be-kidding-me" soft like Honda, but it is very soft and marrs VERY easily.

Based on my experience with using a sealant on the vehicle and now a coating, the wash-induced marring after 18 months with a coating is considerably less than 6 months with a sealant. I'm not saying it's non existent, because I'd be lying, but it is noticeably better. My wash routine, tools and routine have not changed. I'm still going to polish it off this Spring when the weather improves and apply a new LSP simply because the coating is starting to show end of life, and the paint could use a refresher as you'd expect after 18 months of hard daily use. However, I fully expect the polishing process to be faster and less aggressive since I'm only having to remove the coating and a few, highly dispersed swirls versus what I used to deal with when refreshing very soft paint ona daily driver.
 
Desertnate said:
I applied McKee's 37 Paint Coating v1 on my wife's Toyota Highlander 18 months ago. The paint on that car isn't "you-gotta-be-kidding-me" soft like Honda, but it is very soft and marrs VERY easily.

Based on my experience with using a sealant on the vehicle and now a coating, the wash-induced marring after 18 months with a coating is considerably less than 6 months with a sealant. I'm not saying it's non existent, because I'd be lying, but it is noticeably better. My wash routine, tools and routine have not changed. I'm still going to polish it off this Spring when the weather improves and apply a new LSP simply because the coating is starting to show end of life, and the paint could use a refresher as you'd expect after 18 months of hard daily use. However, I fully expect the polishing process to be faster and less aggressive since I'm only having to remove the coating and a few, highly dispersed swirls versus what I used to deal with when refreshing very soft paint ona daily driver.
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Not sure what LSP you are going for but the McKees v2 is a great improvement over the last in all areas from durability,beading, and application

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Ronin47 said:
The toppers are so thin it cannot be measured, the scratch you see is in the paint not the coating or topper. Do people actually believe the defects they seeing on coated cars are on the coating and toppers and not the actual paint? Oh my...
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You know what, I used to think the exact same thing too until I recently played around with Feynlab Self-Heal Lite. This is a hand applied coating, 1 coat, and if I can take a brass wire brush to it and heal the paint with heat I have to believe "most" of the swirls are in fact in the coating.
 
RaskyR1 said:
You know what, I used to think the exact same thing too until I recently played around with Feynlab Self-Heal Lite. This is a hand applied coating, 1 coat, and if I can take a brass wire brush to it and heal the paint with heat I have to believe "most" of the swirls are in fact in the coating.
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I wouldn’t have believed it if it wasn’t on youtube:)

I just watched a demo of a Fiat coated with Self Heal Lite being scratched with a wire brush, then being “healed” with a heat gun.

I just read up on their website, that is some very cool chemistry in Feynlab’s self heal.
 
Desertnate said:
... I fully expect the polishing process to be faster and less aggressive since I'm only having to remove the coating and a few, highly dispersed swirls versus what I used to deal with when refreshing very soft paint on a daily driver.
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This has been my experience as well. Once the vehicle is ceramic coated you are no longer caring for the paint but now are instead caring for the coating. When you do eventually polish the vehicle again, assuming you've properly maintained the coating, all you're doing is polishing off the old ceramic layers and maybe biting into the paint to remove about a micron or less of clear coat. Most of the damage (unavoidable light wash marring that accumulates over the course of 12-36 months) is absorbed by the coating. You will significantly prolong the life of your vehicle's paint system with this care routine because you are not simply polishing down the clear coat every time you correct the finish but rather instead just removing the ceramic top coating and then replacing it with a new ceramic layer each time.
 
You are going to get light swirls and marring from washing the car no matter how careful you are. It's just a matter of wether you see them or not. Rubbing a mitt on the dirt has to happen.

You couldn't be any more careful then I am when I wash and I always find light marring after a month or too. Mostly on the lower side panels near the tires. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply driving that caused them. Especially in the rain.

Even fingerprints cause marring/swirls. I've seen it with my own eyes
 
Whacky said:
Wondering what everyone’s experience with swirls, marking, and light scratches on their coated cars?

im asking because I just got my car coated with Gtechniq Serum Ultra followed by two coats of EXO as topcoats.
I thought this professionally only coating would be tops for protection and help prevent light swirls, etc.

However I was doing a little quick detailing of the car with CarPro Ech2o/reload mixture using one eagles edgeless to wipe down, and a second, clean eagle edgeless to do final buff. Nothing crazy there.

I noticed however in one section of the hood I had inadvertently created a very light swirl scratch with the light buff.
I was pretty shocked and kinda upset it had happened.


This detailing was done with pretty new, recently washed towels using recommended towel cleaning methods.
The buff wasn’t done with any significant force. I was genuinely surprised I had just created a light swirl.

I did not expect that my new expensive ceramic coating would be susceptible to such marking done with what I thought was pretty careful procedure.


I wanted to know if other people have experienced similar swirls or light scratchs with their coatings using good technique?

Obviously I am aware that a coating isn’t completely immune to marring, but I wouldn’t have expected it to happen so easily with what I thought was careful technique.

Anything related to the Gtechniq Crystal serum Ultra or EXO?

Thoughts?
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Whacky,

I am also Gtchniq accredited and I will try to answer it.
Crystal Serum Ultra is Professional coating. Exo is not...Anybody can install it.
Exo is softer coating, and it is totally possible to put marring marks in it.
It maybe the towel, price and quality have nothing to do with it.
Ultra alone maybe actually more resistant to it than Exo...
But, I have a client who has Crystal Serum and Exo on his car...I saw it few days ago,
it was installed 12/9/16 and it has very light marring.
He uses boars hair brush...and blow dries it.
I am sorry that your installer didn't say that it is not immune to marring.
I have used over 15 different coatings, and they all haev their own problems...
But Exo is sensitive...I am not offering it too often, unless I see that the owner is more OCD than I am.
I did try most coatings on my own cars...some last weeks, some months, I had one with water spots within 48 hours...
So, they are not totally carefree.
 
antti@561detailing said:
Whacky,

I am also Gtchniq accredited and I will try to answer it.
Crystal Serum Ultra is Professional coating. Exo is not...Anybody can install it.
Exo is softer coating, and it is totally possible to put marring marks in it.
It maybe the towel, price and quality have nothing to do with it.
Ultra alone maybe actually more resistant to it than Exo...
But, I have a client who has Crystal Serum and Exo on his car...I saw it few days ago,
it was installed 12/9/16 and it has very light marring.
He uses boars hair brush...and blow dries it.
I am sorry that your installer didn't say that it is not immune to marring.
I have used over 15 different coatings, and they all haev their own problems...
But Exo is sensitive...I am not offering it too often, unless I see that the owner is more OCD than I am.
I did try most coatings on my own cars...some last weeks, some months, I had one with water spots within 48 hours...
So, they are not totally carefree.
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My issue with coatings is the waterspots, they spot much differently then sealants and sealants seem to be easier to clean up spots then coatings in my area.

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How is CSL with waterspots? I'm thinking about putting it on my truck that sits outside 24/7 and gets little maintance. Only gets drove maybe 1 time a month

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When I used CSL (2 layers w c2v3 on top) it was among the worst at self cleaning/water spotting of all the various coatings I've tried.

Oddly, about 3 months in it started keeping itself cleaner but lacking EXO as a Topcoat, water behavior was subpar in my experience.

minerigger said:
How is CSL with waterspots? I'm thinking about putting it on my truck that sits outside 24/7 and gets little maintance. Only gets drove maybe 1 time a month

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Nicholas@Autowerx said:
I never recommend to wipe down the vehicle with a quick detail product unless you fully pressure wash the vehicle before hand. If you've driven the vehicle at all it will have picked up debris and contamination from the road such as particles of sand, brake dust, dirt, pollen, etc. that WILL scratch the vehicle if rubbed across the surface.
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Why would this be any different for clear coat?

Nicholas@Autowerx said:
all you're doing is polishing off the old ceramic layers and maybe biting into the paint to remove about a micron or less of clear coat. Most of the damage (unavoidable light wash marring that accumulates over the course of 12-36 months) is absorbed by the coating. You will significantly prolong the life of your vehicle's paint system with this care routine because you are not simply polishing down the clear coat every time you correct the finish...
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This seems like conjecture. I've asked a few times here how to know when a coating has been removed by a polish and haven't gotten a clear answer. It seems equally likely that people are removing more clear coat in their efforts to ensure that the coating has been removed. Without an unambiguous way to know when a coating has been removed or without using a good paint gauge, there's no way to know how much cc you're removing when you remove a coating. Another reason I tend to lean more toward sealants.

Cruzscarwash said:
My issue with coatings is the waterspots, they spot much differently then sealants and sealants seem to be easier to clean up spots then coatings in my area.
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Generally terrible spotting for me. Coatings seem to spot more readily than sealants and are harder to remove. I typically couldn't find a non-destructive way to remove them.

I'm heading into season where we get rain and sun throughout the day. I may try a spotting test on coatings vs. sealants.
 
RippyD said:
Why would this be any different for clear coat?


This seems like conjecture. I've asked a few times here how to know when a coating has been removed by a polish and haven't gotten a clear answer. It seems equally likely that people are removing more clear coat in their efforts to ensure that the coating has been removed. Without an unambiguous way to know when a coating has been removed or without using a good paint gauge, there's no way to know how much cc you're removing when you remove a coating. Another reason I tend to lean more toward sealants.


Generally terrible spotting for me. Coatings seem to spot more readily than sealants and are harder to remove. I typically couldn't find a non-destructive way to remove them.

I'm heading into season where we get rain and sun throughout the day. I may try a spotting test on coatings vs. sealants.
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Yeah, the removal is killing me on coatings, like you said it's much easier to remove/wipe off with sealants. Glad I'm not the only one

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So what would be the recommended touch-up process for someone who has light swirls, marring, and scrathes to their ceramic coated car??


I presume this is why a product like Carpro Essense plus exists?

Any other solutions?
 
Whacky said:
So what would be the recommended touch-up process for someone who has light swirls, marring, and scrathes to their ceramic coated car??

I presume this is why a product like Carpro Essense plus exists?

Any other solutions?
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Carpro Essence Plus would be your best bet since it doesn't have any abrasives and that's what it was intended for.

There may be some other similar products out there that I'm not aware of.
 
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