Coating Maintenance

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Reuben Brumby

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So I applied CQuartz UK 3.0 and topped it with Gliss.

I've washed it about 3 times since then in a months time.
I'm noticing a big reduction in slickness and some reduction in hydrophobic effects.
Most washes I used carpro reset. The last time I used the wax shops cherry snow foam.

I used 2 bucket method with dirt traps.
I used no less than 2 mitts carefully washing top to bottom and using the second Mitt for lower panels.

I was drying using a leaf blower. I didnt touch it with a towel until the last wash.
Could my Korean wash mitt from the rag company be to blame? When I first bought it I used high heat to dry before I learned about proper towel washing.

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I see you’re in Chicago. Salt and brine from the roads will contaminate a coating during the winter months. Applying some iron-x and giving the car a good wash with Reset in the spring should help bring back the properties you think are disappearing now. If properly installed that combo of coatings should last about 2 years. You can top it with Elixir after each wash.
 
BSoares said:
I see you’re in Chicago. Salt and brine from the roads will contaminate a coating during the winter months. Applying some iron-x and giving the car a good wash with Reset in the spring should help bring back the properties you think are disappearing now. If properly installed that combo of coatings should last about 2 years. You can top it with Elixir after each wash.
Click to expand...
I've heard a lot of people say I should use elixir over reload. I'll go and pickup some tomorrow!

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Naw, I'd say you didn't cause any damage, Carpro CQ UK is pretty tough stuff.

There's a number of ways you could go. I used to be a big fan of Carpro Reload way back, before the number of various re-formulations created a product I no longer trust to use personally. Yeah, it still works, but, there's others out there.

Others that might be easier to work with, but perhaps will still only provide short term results.

Such as Blackfire Coating Booster, or Blackfire SIO2 Spray. There's a multitude of such products now available. Both here and abroad.

I think whatever you top CQ UK with, you won't hurt it. You'll know when CQ UK is gone

IMO, you'll get basically similar results from all. Unless you're willing to decon, prep, and do another coat of Gliss? Or their "Lite" product? Never used such, or Gliss.
 
Is the hydrophobic performance from it uniform all over your paint?

Try to check with a good light if you have marred your paint. A parking lot or gas station where they have that orange kind of light is actually pretty good to see the light defects on the paint. This way you know if it's the wash mitts that are something wrong with. Did all of your wash mitts got washed in high heat? And do they feel coarse in any way than when it where new? These kind of wash mitts if it's those with long and short mf in blue and white. Is usually very durable and a wash or 2 I don't think would be a problem. One thing that mf don't like is high heat in the tumble dryer. Also in the longrun if you have a HE washer and you have the centrifuge setting of over 800-900rpm. They mf fibers can be streched out and loose it's performance that way but this is after many washes.

And since you live in an environment where you road salt and maybe brine on the roads. It can be something that could knock down the Gliss top performance a notch. I have had interest to test out the Gliss top coating. But it's impossible to have that during the winter months here in Sweden. We get a lot of tar spots and also like a mix in the road film with tar and oils and road salt and other contaminants that gets all over the vehicals. So usually if you are not being able to wash in more than 3 weeks. You need to be useing a tar remover as a pretreatment to desolve this layer of contaminants. The problem is that Gliss has some kind of oil based glossenhancers in it. Which Carpro them self says that TarX desolves these from Gliss. So even if you use Reset you may have a very little build up of a road film that change the hydrophobic caractics of Gliss. Since it's so high performance from it it don't need much of contaminants to be noticeble changed. Since road salt also is pretty good to desolve oil based dirt this could degrade the performance from Gliss faster in your environment. Have not been looking on the domestic forum for while but will go in there and see if anyone here in Sweden has Gliss on their vehicals and how their experience is.

Do you wash your car useing a PW? The water pressure from the PW and the flow from it is very helpfull to use in the prewash step. It's not necessary to be useing a prewash foam and you can just spraying on a weak dilution of an alkaline degreaser. Some APCs have surfactans that's not so easy to be rinsed off. So an alkaline degreaser that's more for paints or an APC that it's easy to be rinsed off. Something like Carpro MultiX diluted to 1:20 in pump pressure spray bottle or spray bottle or in your foamcannon bottle 1:5-1:10 don't use it if you have anodized aluminum as it will stain and etch it easly. Gtechnic W4 Citrus Foam is a great prewash foam or even used in a spray bottle. It's more gentle on the alkaline ph level and if not ph neutral even and citrus based is effective to desolve the road film. The dirt these kind of products don't take off it's usually loosen them up good so the dirt releases easier in the contact wash. 2-3 wipes over a section you wash with those kind of wash media you have and Carpro Reset car soap properly diluted in 1:500 and an easy way is to use 1oz to 4 gallons of water. Is enough for me when I use Reset when I wash the car. And no pressure on the wash mitt and the vertical panels just so you don't drop it. Many use these mf wash mitts as wash pads but put it on your hand and you can adjust the pressure on it even less this way. Another tips since I think that you wash with the 2bm. Is before you rinse the wash mitt in the rinse bucket wring it out thoroughly outside of the the rinse bucket and then rinse the wash mitt in it after that. With wringing it out, much of the dirt in the wash mitt releases and you get less of a risk to get it into the wash bucket and on the paint again. I like to use multible mf wash mitts and mf wash pads. And 5 for the whole car and then 1-2 extra for the rocker panels and the lowest parts of the car. I leave about 2 width of the wash mitt size from the lowest part I wash and up. When you have it dialed in it just flows through the wash. Just some friendly tips and how I wash a winter dirty car. But you may be even more gentle than I am LOL. It can be usefull to hear how others do and try if it's something that you like or not.

And as mentioned above the Carpro Elixir seems to be a great option to go with to top it up if the Gliss performance has lost it's top performance. But I don't think that Gliss would lost much of it's performance from when you applyied it a month ago. Especially when you have washed it 3 times too. Is the water harder to blow off with the leafblower since you first washed it or how do you see the less water behavior since you applyied the CQUK and Gliss? Sometimes if the weather gets lower temperature it can impact the water behavior to a little notch lower if you have had such of weather.

/ Tony
 
Is there Reload on it? If so Reload can be messing with the water behavior. I'm going into my second winter with CQUK 3.0 and if applied properly it will last you a long time. If you feel your seeing major degradation in only a month then it wasn't applied properly, we've had minimal if any salt applied so far so I highly doubt the coating is contaminated that quickly.
 
Eldorado2k said:
How will it be any different from what he’s seeing now? Or what will be the obvious can’t miss indication?
Click to expand...

You'll notice swirling and fine scratches occurring after washes. That means it's gone, nothing left to protect.

Time to whip out the DA, re-correct, strip, start all over.
 
Heard the same about reload messing with the coating but assumed they’d fix right now. I had the same issues with my cquk3 and was going to maintenance wash followed by iron and tar X.

Being so newly coated tho id recommend two products that ive recently had lick with clearing up road film clogging up the coating:

1st Mckees coating prep wash.

I foamed let dwell rinsed and then foamed and washed panel at actime with MF mitt. Cleaned it right up and saved me alot of iron and tar X.

2nd Fenylab Pure rinseless

it seems to remove everything to expose bar coating. Feel it will be a Great product if reapplying topper like elixir after.


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I do wring my mitts onto the ground after rinsing before soap water dunk.
I didnt use reset last time, and I did use reset today, It seemed to make a difference, I've only used reload on one panel to test.

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Supposedly, Carpro Reset is one of the few that doesn't have shine enhancers added Most OTC shampoos do.
 
It’s Definitely not the reset. Id guess road grime and film building up. From what ive read most products to remove this seems to be alkaline usually.

That is kinda why i like toppers is so that when grime builds up, its buildimg on the topper. Im hoping alkaline products are only harming topper when i use these washes and then re top.

Those are my thoughts but not sure if that’s how it works.


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Op just try these simple steps for a month, keep clean with Reset or ECHO2 and leave it alone. If the coating was applied correctly you don't need to go nuts protecting the coating, let it do its job as intended
 
I'd be furious if I took the time and $$ to install a 2-part coating and had to "top" it after the 3rd wash, winter not withstanding.
 
So I just gave the car a thorough wash with reset yesterday, and it looked much better this time. Still not as slick but more of the glassy appearance returned.

Part of my problems may be due to the curing process.
It was cold and very dry when I installed the coatings. There was a lot of salt dust on the roads here.
The car was so dirty and my wife had so many potential detailing clients eyeballing my work at her job that I jumped the gun and washed the car with reset 3 or 4 days after installing.

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Well that may explain the loss of slickness on the GLISS, per CarPro detergents are to be avoided for 5-7 days
 
vobro said:
Op just try these simple steps for a month, keep clean with Reset or ECHO2 and leave it alone. If the coating was applied correctly you don't need to go nuts protecting the coating, let it do its job as intended
Click to expand...

Great advice from my experience with coatings.

In the winter I'll notice the lower door areas and the rear of vehicles will loose some of their water sheeting ability due to the salt and grime. However, once spring arrives and I can wash the cars by hand on a regular basis (I use Optimum Car Wash), all the coating properties quickly return after only a couple of washes. I've seen the same results with a couple different coatings and haven't felt the need to do anything more serious.
 
MarkD51 said:
Naw, I'd say you didn't cause any damage, Carpro CQ UK is pretty tough stuff.

There's a number of ways you could go. I used to be a big fan of Carpro Reload way back, before the number of various re-formulations created a product I no longer trust to use personally. Yeah, it still works, but, there's others out there.

Others that might be easier to work with, but perhaps will still only provide short term results.

Such as Blackfire Coating Booster, or Blackfire SIO2 Spray. There's a multitude of such products now available. Both here and abroad.

I think whatever you top CQ UK with, you won't hurt it. You'll know when CQ UK is gone

IMO, you'll get basically similar results from all. Unless you're willing to decon, prep, and do another coat of Gliss? Or their "Lite" product? Never used such, or Gliss.
Click to expand...

is it necessary to top any ceramic coating with a topper like reload? what happens if you never do? i think why need to top might as well not put the ceramic coat on to begin with will you not just be getting the topper?
 
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