crxman2010
New member
- Aug 25, 2011
- 295
- 0
This should be all my thoughts and products used.
Prior to the Labor Day sale at Autogeek, I had never used a polymer sealant on a car, had never considered applying a permanent finish, had never used a compound/polish on a car, had never used a dual action orbital polisher on a car, had never taken the wheels off a car to clean them, and never took so many pictures of a car I owned. For the majority of these products it is the only product of that type I have used so there isn't much for product reviews/comparisons in the following post other than what I used, how I used it, and what I thought of it. Oh, and I thought APC was an Armored Personnel Carrier.
One thing I wanted to note right away was that from the time the vehicle rolled of the transport to the time I did this work, the car was not used for anything other than what was necessary to get it ready: home from the dealership, to shop for some additional items, drove home again. At times I did only spot check things like the need for claying or wax removal because the car was so new. I cannot say I would recommend doing this of course, but I was pressed for time and based on the results I was getting I felt safe moving ahead. I also wanted to minimize any self-inflicted issues as I am still very new to this. The car was transported from Marysville, Ohio by truck and thank you Acura to no end that it was not the lead vehicle on top of the truck; I saw that vehicle after it was unloaded and the rear bumper was solid bugs and I assume rock chips were hidden in there.
Lighting – this project was done almost entirely in my garage with the use of my recently installed fluorescent lighting (four 8 foot fixtures, each with four 4 foot 32 watt T8s) directly above the car, as well as a Fenix LD40 LED (it is supposed to be a neutral white 4000k color) flash light and Dewalt Xenon light that uses the 18v battery from my drill. The LED light worked best I think for finding defects in the paint when used in the 110 lumen mode. The little light is capable of 248 lumens but too often this just resulted in too much light and/or blinding myself. The xenon bulb also worked well for scratches but wasn’t as wieldable as the LD40 and could probably stand to be a little stronger beam. I found the fluorescents worked the best for seeing the opti-coat flashing off and locating the high spots. I even went in and retrieved a small desk fluorescent we use for starting plants to help illuminate the vertical panels. All of my fluorescents are daylight 6400k.
To prepare for Opti-Coating my car, I started with the wheels. For cleaning the wheels I used Optimum Power Clean All Purpose Cleaner at full strength. After pre-rinsing the wheel, I spray the face of the wheel down and then agitated with a microfiber towel followed by rinse. The back side of the face and barrel was then soaked with OPC and agitated with a wheel brush. The OPC generated some lather/foam as it was agitated and did a very good job of cleaning the wheel. After the inside of the wheel was rinsed, the entire wheel was rinsed once more to make sure all of the OPC had been removed. I had considered diluting the solution to 3:1 but since I was prepping the wheels for Opti-coat and should only have to use an APC type cleaner on them this one time, I used it straight. I do have a spray bottle made up of 3:1 for the tires in the future.
Once the first wheel was clean, I brought it in for claying. I used a piece of Meguiars Smooth Surface Clay Bar which has been set aside for claying wheels since it has done several cars already. For clay lube I used Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine at QD strength. After claying the entire wheel, I had no noticeable containments on the clay bar. The wheel was taken back outside to be rinsed after claying. Once the wheel was rinsed, I hand polished the wheel with Optimum Polish II and a white Polishing CCS Euro Foam Hand Polish Applicator. After polishing, the wheel was wiped down with a wet microfiber towel and then dried with a second towel. The wheel was set aside to let any residual water evaporate off the rubber and such to avoid any water runs during coating.
Before (They were actually pretty cleaned compared to what I am use to)
I applied the Optimum Opti-Coat 2.0 Permanent Paint Coating with a Poly Foam Wax Applicator. I did have a fair amount of trouble seeing the Opti-coat as it was applied to these wheels. At just the right angle and light, as I wiped the pad across the wheel, we were able to see the Opti-coat go on but never really saw the flashing that has been talked about and shown in the videos. This left me a little worried. I also noticed after about 3-5 minutes the Opti-coat would start to get grabby with the pad and this was my cue to walk away. Between the additional reading I did prior to applying it to the paint and my experience applying it to the paint, I would say I was applying the product at just about the right thickness to avoid high spots and most likely trying to work it too long due to the light application. This, however, did create some other issues that I will touch on in the paint section, including applicator drag. The only high spots that were found on the wheels were on the Acura symbol which resulted in the rainbow coloring on the plastic/chrome, but with a light swipe of a microfiber towel, it disappeared.
Interior of wheel with Opti-Coat
Opti-Coat cured for about 3 days
I know, I see the dirty mud flap also… Overall I am happy with how the wheels turned out; the application process left me a little worried but seemed to work out just fine. The water currently beads/sheets quite well and there is a very noticeable improvement in the ability to dry the wheels with a leaf blower. Compared to the paint on the vehicle I did not see as much of an improvement in the appearance of wheel, but I am assuming this is due to not only the color difference but also the finish on these wheels. However, I am more interested in if Opti-coat will help the wheels stay cleaner longer, clean easier, help prevent oxidation of the wheel, and if I no longer need to spend an hour plus per wheel trying to clean the tar and rust spots off with a cleaner wax. Based on how simple the process ended up being and lack of complications, if Opti-coat lives up to half of that, I will never own another set of wheels without Opti-Coat on them.
The tires were dressed with Optimum Opti-Bond Tire Gel and an applicator similar to the Cobra Flex Foam Tire Dressing Applicators. I do have some of these on hand but I am still using up a previous pack of applicators I had found at Target/Wal-Mart one day. I just recently started using this product and really like it. I do not care for the high gloss wet look on tires and this product fits the bill nicely. I would say the above picture shows more gloss than is actually apparent on the tire due to the camera and lack of comparable "wet" tire (just ran out to the garage to check, just a nice clean rubber look with no residue). My wife has also converted to Opti-Bond; she originally did not want to use the Opti-Bond on her car because it is a low gloss product and she has always used her ghetto gloss. I had her apply it to my mother’s CRV while I waxed it for the winter and before I was done applying the Collinite 845, she was sold on Opti-Bond. Now I have to figure out what to do with the remainder of her ghetto gloss.
Considerations or Adjustments if I was to do it again:
I would apply the Opti-coat a little bit heavier to begin with so that there are a couple of high spots to have to knock down versus struggling to tell if I am getting coverage. I think reading all the threads about applying super thin led me to possibly over do the thinness which made applying the Opti-coat more difficult.
From start to finish the process probably took 3 hours if you do not include the downtime, I let each set of wheels cure for about an hour before placing them back on the car. If you are trying to save time, I would definitely recommend two sets of jack stands.
The first step was to wash the vehicle with Meguiars Gold Class Shampoo & Conditioner. I just recently started using this Gold Class and love it compared to the previous random turtle wax and armor all soaps we have used. Gold Class produces more suds which also appear to stick around longer, but more importantly, it even makes my microfiber mitt feel slippery. Being that I love all things Optimum so far, I would like to try Optimum Car Wash at some point, but until it is on sale to bring it down to a similar price point, I will continue to use Gold Class Shampoo happily.
The second step was to check the car to see if it needed to be clayed. Instead of doing the baggie method, I grab my clay and clay lube and just clayed several test areas. For clay and lube I used Pinnacle Ultra Poly Clay Special. This was my first time using this clay and it felt very different than the Meguiars Clay I am use to. I did about a 2x2 foot section of the hood, rocker panel, middle of door, and lower door and removed no noticeable contaminants. Regarding the clay and lube combo, I really liked how pliable the clay was and how well it glided across the paint. If you have had problems with other clay causing marring I would definitely recommend giving this one a shot. However, with no real contaminants removed (I wasn’t necessarily expecting any) I could not say how well the clay actually performed but based on how “nice” it felt on the paint, this would probably be a poor choice for once a year claying. Oh, and the lube smelled great, borderline edible?
The next step was to check for any wax, polish, or sealant that may have been applied to the vehicle. The dealership was told not to apply their sealant like they normally do to cars, but I wasn’t completely sure they followed my directions. Without taping the door off, I applied Griot's Garage Paint Prep to the left side of the door panel, I left the center of panel dry, and I applied Optimum Power Clean All Purpose Cleaner at full strength to the right side of the panel. I agitated the Paint Prep as recommended with a gloved hand and used a microfiber towel for the OPC. After using a spray bottle and soaked microfiber towel to rinse the panel of chemicals I, I sprayed some extra water on the panel to check for a difference in beading. The Paint Prep and non-treated part of the panel looked identical as I sprayed across the sections so it was looking like there was no wax/sealant on the car. However, the OPC section beaded quite differently and at closer inspection the section also looked darker. I ended up using a little Polish II and a red CCS Euro Applicator over the section to remove the remainder of the residue left by the OPC. Granted, I wasn’t using a lot of water to rinse the panel (spray bottle and wet microfiber to rinse followed by a dry towel), but it just didn’t seem my rinsing and wiping was getting all of the OPC off. I should have taken a picture but I was more interested in the time at figuring out why I was getting different beading from the OPC. A section of the hood was also done; I was a little skeptical about using Paint Prep on my new clear bra, but I figured it was the best was to make sure no one had applied anything over the top of the clear bra. I didn’t apply any OPC at this point because I wanted to use as few chemicals as possible on the plastic clear bra. Happy that the paint Prep area was beading the same as the section I had not used it on (not removing anything), I moved on to polishing.
For the polishing step I used Polish II and the red and white CSS Euro hand applicators. First thing I did was to remove the tape residue lines the dealership missed when they washed the car (all the way around the roof and edges of the trunk). One of the reasons the dealership wanted to wash the vehicle was to remove the plastic and residue lines so I would not have to struggle with them, yet it looked like they struggled more than I did. I did have some scratches in the rear trunk lid and the trunk face that I would guess was a result of the wash job it received, just nice light straight line scratches. More interesting though, both rear fenders just above the wheel area had small scuffs and some weird shaped scratches (not sure how it happened so evenly to both sides). When I say scratch, I mean something the depth and quality of a swirl but not the nice round pattern I am use to seeing, a light scratch? To remove any imperfections I could find I used the white pad and the Polish II. Some of the scratches took a little more elbow grease than others but they were all removed. Once the actual defects were removed, the entire painted surface of the car was hand polished using first the white pad with Polish II followed by the red pad and Polish II. This was done in hopes of removing any residue as well as any imperfections I was not seeing. Each panel was wiped down with a wet microfiber towel after polishing and then dried. Prior to Opti-coating each panel was again wiped down with a wet towel and dried again. Since abrasives are not to be used on the clear bra, the only prep these areas received was a wet towel and good drying.
The Opti-coat was applied with the applicator included in the kit. I did use the needle attachment for the syringe to keep my drop size small. I did an X across 2/3rds of the pad and proceeded to start on the roof. First step was to deposit as much of the Opti-coat as I could in the center of my area with some random S shape or smiley. With my wife verifying that I was coating all the way to the edge of the panel I went all the way around the edge of the panel followed by side to side and front to back coverage of the roof. I moved to the other side of the roof and repeated the process but with only a couple additional drops of Opti-coat. A couple possible high spots were gently wiped just to be sure but nothing definitive. I did notice that the pad did not glide as nicely over the paint as I had expected. The first time over an uncoated area there was noticeable drag in the applicator that went away on the second pass which led me to believe it was in fact coating even though I was having trouble seeing it. The wife with flashlight in hand was able to verify application from different angles that I could not necessarily see while applying it. The trunk lid, hood, and rear fender/connecting section above the windows were all done in this fashion. As the pad drag was starting to bother me, I took a quick break, ran inside to check the internet for any thoughts.
At this time I watched a video Rasky had posted in my thread {Link to Video, Thank you for the help} and came to the conclusion I should use a little more Opti-coat than I was currently using. Up to this point we had suffered/found very few high spots though it appeared we were getting good coverage from what was seeable and how the applicator would glide better when doing the second pass on the panel. The remainder of the vehicle was done using slightly more Opti-coat which did result in noticeable high spots that were quickly and easily wiped with my microfiber towel. At some point this transitioned into each section getting a full gentle microfiber wipe then checked for high spots. After starting the “mandatory” wipe no additional high spots were noticed once I had completed a panel even though I continued to apply it the same. I did wait a couple of minutes to perform the wipe to give the Opti-coat a chance to flash and reveal the high spots. I do want to stress this was a very light wipe and by no means was I using any pressure to try and remove the Opti-coat. The amount of Opti-coat used for both my wheels and my paint is shown in the picture below. My best guess is I used about 5-6cc of product with a little product getting on my hand during a brain failure. Not sure how this compares to everyone else.
Thoughts, Considerations, or Adjustment if I was to do it again:
To use OPC as a wax remover, I would most likely use it at full strength but do so when washing the car. Give the car a good scrubbing, and then spray the panel with OPC, then scrub the panel once more using my microfiber mitt and my Gold Class Shampoo.
I would start off using the Opti-coat slightly heavier than I did in my initial application, accepting there would be high spots and planning on wiping each panel gently in the first minute or two after application.
Almost every high spot we encountered was in an area the applicator pad would have to change direction, for example the corner of the door panel was a common area to see a high spot.
To polish the entire car by hand, including the first round of defect removal, probably required 5 hours. A lot of that time was spent just looking at different angles and grabbing different lights to make sure the paint was good to go.
The actual Opti-coat application took about 2.5 hours including the final wet microfiber towel wipe and drying. Since it was the first time I had done this, I did spend a good amount of time inspecting panels for application issues otherwise you are looking at probably an hour to apply.
Overall, we easily spent 24+ hours on the car that weekend between the exterior, interior, picturing taking, and cleaning up the cleaning supplies.
Results:
The Opti-coat most definitely added a candied look to the car. There is a noticeable increase in the level of shine from the car. This is particularly true of the clear bra; the Opti-coat did wonders for changing the clear bra from a slightly dulled look to a nice reflective shine. I do not have any shots of the clear bra reflection prior to Opti-coat, but I think the reflections shown in the hood speak for themselves (everything was covered in front of the windshield so that the seams occurred at the edge of the body panels making it rather difficult to tell there is a clear bra). There was a down side to the Opti-coat on the clear bra however: anywhere the clear bra material itself had defects that were not previously too noticeable were made noticeable. I think this is a pretty fair trade considering how good the clear bra looks now and that one day when it is peeled off those defects will go away it won’t look like my car was hit with bird shot.
Some of the pictures were taken after the car about 5 days later after the vehicle was washed and wiped down with Griot's Garage Speed Shine Detailer. I did not have any trouble with the Speed Shine streaking on the finish and it actually added a level of darkness to the paint. This was also confirmed by the wife who was able to pick out the side of the hood that it had been applied to and confirmed it in fact did look darker. A little slickness was added, but still not what I would call wax slickness; however, it did look good. I have some Optimum Instant Detailer & Gloss Enhancer on its way right now but it is going to have its work cut out to one up the Speed Shine. Though a gallon of Speed Shine is about $30 dollars compared to the $12.50 a gallon cost of OID. I won’t be able to get a review of the two up this year as it is starting to snow but I will plan on following up in a post of these two QDs and Opti-Coat come spring. The review will most likely contain a comparison of both QDs used on top of P21s Carnauba Wax/Optimum Spray Wax on top of Opti-Coat.
I know the waxes can take away from the purposefulness of Opti-coat, but the idea of an added layer of protection, Opti-coat, and the added beauty of wax/qds will most likely be too hard to pass up on.
Had to include this one, 1987 CRX Si sitting the background.
Opti-Coat glamour shots
The following pictures were taken after the car about 5 days of curing and after the vehicle was washed and wiped down with “Griot's Garage Speed Shine Detailer.”
Also, here are a couple shots of water that was sprayed on the car. The first shot of each panel is just random high pressure spray from my shutoff valve followed up by the best flood attempt I could do with turbulent flow coming off a shut off valve.
Some additional questions I came up with during my process:
If I was to go from straight from car wash to opti-coat in the case I was using Gold Class Shampoo as part of rinsing OPC off my car, would I need to worry about residue from the shampoo affecting the Opti-coat application?
How much Opti-coat should I expect to use on a mid-size car and wheels? I used about 5-6cc.
And the most important part, notice the stick in the center of the picture, known to some as enjoyment or a matter of tradition and to others as an anti-theft device:
Prior to the Labor Day sale at Autogeek, I had never used a polymer sealant on a car, had never considered applying a permanent finish, had never used a compound/polish on a car, had never used a dual action orbital polisher on a car, had never taken the wheels off a car to clean them, and never took so many pictures of a car I owned. For the majority of these products it is the only product of that type I have used so there isn't much for product reviews/comparisons in the following post other than what I used, how I used it, and what I thought of it. Oh, and I thought APC was an Armored Personnel Carrier.
One thing I wanted to note right away was that from the time the vehicle rolled of the transport to the time I did this work, the car was not used for anything other than what was necessary to get it ready: home from the dealership, to shop for some additional items, drove home again. At times I did only spot check things like the need for claying or wax removal because the car was so new. I cannot say I would recommend doing this of course, but I was pressed for time and based on the results I was getting I felt safe moving ahead. I also wanted to minimize any self-inflicted issues as I am still very new to this. The car was transported from Marysville, Ohio by truck and thank you Acura to no end that it was not the lead vehicle on top of the truck; I saw that vehicle after it was unloaded and the rear bumper was solid bugs and I assume rock chips were hidden in there.
Lighting – this project was done almost entirely in my garage with the use of my recently installed fluorescent lighting (four 8 foot fixtures, each with four 4 foot 32 watt T8s) directly above the car, as well as a Fenix LD40 LED (it is supposed to be a neutral white 4000k color) flash light and Dewalt Xenon light that uses the 18v battery from my drill. The LED light worked best I think for finding defects in the paint when used in the 110 lumen mode. The little light is capable of 248 lumens but too often this just resulted in too much light and/or blinding myself. The xenon bulb also worked well for scratches but wasn’t as wieldable as the LD40 and could probably stand to be a little stronger beam. I found the fluorescents worked the best for seeing the opti-coat flashing off and locating the high spots. I even went in and retrieved a small desk fluorescent we use for starting plants to help illuminate the vertical panels. All of my fluorescents are daylight 6400k.
To prepare for Opti-Coating my car, I started with the wheels. For cleaning the wheels I used Optimum Power Clean All Purpose Cleaner at full strength. After pre-rinsing the wheel, I spray the face of the wheel down and then agitated with a microfiber towel followed by rinse. The back side of the face and barrel was then soaked with OPC and agitated with a wheel brush. The OPC generated some lather/foam as it was agitated and did a very good job of cleaning the wheel. After the inside of the wheel was rinsed, the entire wheel was rinsed once more to make sure all of the OPC had been removed. I had considered diluting the solution to 3:1 but since I was prepping the wheels for Opti-coat and should only have to use an APC type cleaner on them this one time, I used it straight. I do have a spray bottle made up of 3:1 for the tires in the future.
Once the first wheel was clean, I brought it in for claying. I used a piece of Meguiars Smooth Surface Clay Bar which has been set aside for claying wheels since it has done several cars already. For clay lube I used Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine at QD strength. After claying the entire wheel, I had no noticeable containments on the clay bar. The wheel was taken back outside to be rinsed after claying. Once the wheel was rinsed, I hand polished the wheel with Optimum Polish II and a white Polishing CCS Euro Foam Hand Polish Applicator. After polishing, the wheel was wiped down with a wet microfiber towel and then dried with a second towel. The wheel was set aside to let any residual water evaporate off the rubber and such to avoid any water runs during coating.
Before (They were actually pretty cleaned compared to what I am use to)
I applied the Optimum Opti-Coat 2.0 Permanent Paint Coating with a Poly Foam Wax Applicator. I did have a fair amount of trouble seeing the Opti-coat as it was applied to these wheels. At just the right angle and light, as I wiped the pad across the wheel, we were able to see the Opti-coat go on but never really saw the flashing that has been talked about and shown in the videos. This left me a little worried. I also noticed after about 3-5 minutes the Opti-coat would start to get grabby with the pad and this was my cue to walk away. Between the additional reading I did prior to applying it to the paint and my experience applying it to the paint, I would say I was applying the product at just about the right thickness to avoid high spots and most likely trying to work it too long due to the light application. This, however, did create some other issues that I will touch on in the paint section, including applicator drag. The only high spots that were found on the wheels were on the Acura symbol which resulted in the rainbow coloring on the plastic/chrome, but with a light swipe of a microfiber towel, it disappeared.
Interior of wheel with Opti-Coat
Opti-Coat cured for about 3 days
I know, I see the dirty mud flap also… Overall I am happy with how the wheels turned out; the application process left me a little worried but seemed to work out just fine. The water currently beads/sheets quite well and there is a very noticeable improvement in the ability to dry the wheels with a leaf blower. Compared to the paint on the vehicle I did not see as much of an improvement in the appearance of wheel, but I am assuming this is due to not only the color difference but also the finish on these wheels. However, I am more interested in if Opti-coat will help the wheels stay cleaner longer, clean easier, help prevent oxidation of the wheel, and if I no longer need to spend an hour plus per wheel trying to clean the tar and rust spots off with a cleaner wax. Based on how simple the process ended up being and lack of complications, if Opti-coat lives up to half of that, I will never own another set of wheels without Opti-Coat on them.
The tires were dressed with Optimum Opti-Bond Tire Gel and an applicator similar to the Cobra Flex Foam Tire Dressing Applicators. I do have some of these on hand but I am still using up a previous pack of applicators I had found at Target/Wal-Mart one day. I just recently started using this product and really like it. I do not care for the high gloss wet look on tires and this product fits the bill nicely. I would say the above picture shows more gloss than is actually apparent on the tire due to the camera and lack of comparable "wet" tire (just ran out to the garage to check, just a nice clean rubber look with no residue). My wife has also converted to Opti-Bond; she originally did not want to use the Opti-Bond on her car because it is a low gloss product and she has always used her ghetto gloss. I had her apply it to my mother’s CRV while I waxed it for the winter and before I was done applying the Collinite 845, she was sold on Opti-Bond. Now I have to figure out what to do with the remainder of her ghetto gloss.
Considerations or Adjustments if I was to do it again:
I would apply the Opti-coat a little bit heavier to begin with so that there are a couple of high spots to have to knock down versus struggling to tell if I am getting coverage. I think reading all the threads about applying super thin led me to possibly over do the thinness which made applying the Opti-coat more difficult.
From start to finish the process probably took 3 hours if you do not include the downtime, I let each set of wheels cure for about an hour before placing them back on the car. If you are trying to save time, I would definitely recommend two sets of jack stands.
The first step was to wash the vehicle with Meguiars Gold Class Shampoo & Conditioner. I just recently started using this Gold Class and love it compared to the previous random turtle wax and armor all soaps we have used. Gold Class produces more suds which also appear to stick around longer, but more importantly, it even makes my microfiber mitt feel slippery. Being that I love all things Optimum so far, I would like to try Optimum Car Wash at some point, but until it is on sale to bring it down to a similar price point, I will continue to use Gold Class Shampoo happily.
The second step was to check the car to see if it needed to be clayed. Instead of doing the baggie method, I grab my clay and clay lube and just clayed several test areas. For clay and lube I used Pinnacle Ultra Poly Clay Special. This was my first time using this clay and it felt very different than the Meguiars Clay I am use to. I did about a 2x2 foot section of the hood, rocker panel, middle of door, and lower door and removed no noticeable contaminants. Regarding the clay and lube combo, I really liked how pliable the clay was and how well it glided across the paint. If you have had problems with other clay causing marring I would definitely recommend giving this one a shot. However, with no real contaminants removed (I wasn’t necessarily expecting any) I could not say how well the clay actually performed but based on how “nice” it felt on the paint, this would probably be a poor choice for once a year claying. Oh, and the lube smelled great, borderline edible?
The next step was to check for any wax, polish, or sealant that may have been applied to the vehicle. The dealership was told not to apply their sealant like they normally do to cars, but I wasn’t completely sure they followed my directions. Without taping the door off, I applied Griot's Garage Paint Prep to the left side of the door panel, I left the center of panel dry, and I applied Optimum Power Clean All Purpose Cleaner at full strength to the right side of the panel. I agitated the Paint Prep as recommended with a gloved hand and used a microfiber towel for the OPC. After using a spray bottle and soaked microfiber towel to rinse the panel of chemicals I, I sprayed some extra water on the panel to check for a difference in beading. The Paint Prep and non-treated part of the panel looked identical as I sprayed across the sections so it was looking like there was no wax/sealant on the car. However, the OPC section beaded quite differently and at closer inspection the section also looked darker. I ended up using a little Polish II and a red CCS Euro Applicator over the section to remove the remainder of the residue left by the OPC. Granted, I wasn’t using a lot of water to rinse the panel (spray bottle and wet microfiber to rinse followed by a dry towel), but it just didn’t seem my rinsing and wiping was getting all of the OPC off. I should have taken a picture but I was more interested in the time at figuring out why I was getting different beading from the OPC. A section of the hood was also done; I was a little skeptical about using Paint Prep on my new clear bra, but I figured it was the best was to make sure no one had applied anything over the top of the clear bra. I didn’t apply any OPC at this point because I wanted to use as few chemicals as possible on the plastic clear bra. Happy that the paint Prep area was beading the same as the section I had not used it on (not removing anything), I moved on to polishing.
For the polishing step I used Polish II and the red and white CSS Euro hand applicators. First thing I did was to remove the tape residue lines the dealership missed when they washed the car (all the way around the roof and edges of the trunk). One of the reasons the dealership wanted to wash the vehicle was to remove the plastic and residue lines so I would not have to struggle with them, yet it looked like they struggled more than I did. I did have some scratches in the rear trunk lid and the trunk face that I would guess was a result of the wash job it received, just nice light straight line scratches. More interesting though, both rear fenders just above the wheel area had small scuffs and some weird shaped scratches (not sure how it happened so evenly to both sides). When I say scratch, I mean something the depth and quality of a swirl but not the nice round pattern I am use to seeing, a light scratch? To remove any imperfections I could find I used the white pad and the Polish II. Some of the scratches took a little more elbow grease than others but they were all removed. Once the actual defects were removed, the entire painted surface of the car was hand polished using first the white pad with Polish II followed by the red pad and Polish II. This was done in hopes of removing any residue as well as any imperfections I was not seeing. Each panel was wiped down with a wet microfiber towel after polishing and then dried. Prior to Opti-coating each panel was again wiped down with a wet towel and dried again. Since abrasives are not to be used on the clear bra, the only prep these areas received was a wet towel and good drying.
The Opti-coat was applied with the applicator included in the kit. I did use the needle attachment for the syringe to keep my drop size small. I did an X across 2/3rds of the pad and proceeded to start on the roof. First step was to deposit as much of the Opti-coat as I could in the center of my area with some random S shape or smiley. With my wife verifying that I was coating all the way to the edge of the panel I went all the way around the edge of the panel followed by side to side and front to back coverage of the roof. I moved to the other side of the roof and repeated the process but with only a couple additional drops of Opti-coat. A couple possible high spots were gently wiped just to be sure but nothing definitive. I did notice that the pad did not glide as nicely over the paint as I had expected. The first time over an uncoated area there was noticeable drag in the applicator that went away on the second pass which led me to believe it was in fact coating even though I was having trouble seeing it. The wife with flashlight in hand was able to verify application from different angles that I could not necessarily see while applying it. The trunk lid, hood, and rear fender/connecting section above the windows were all done in this fashion. As the pad drag was starting to bother me, I took a quick break, ran inside to check the internet for any thoughts.
At this time I watched a video Rasky had posted in my thread {Link to Video, Thank you for the help} and came to the conclusion I should use a little more Opti-coat than I was currently using. Up to this point we had suffered/found very few high spots though it appeared we were getting good coverage from what was seeable and how the applicator would glide better when doing the second pass on the panel. The remainder of the vehicle was done using slightly more Opti-coat which did result in noticeable high spots that were quickly and easily wiped with my microfiber towel. At some point this transitioned into each section getting a full gentle microfiber wipe then checked for high spots. After starting the “mandatory” wipe no additional high spots were noticed once I had completed a panel even though I continued to apply it the same. I did wait a couple of minutes to perform the wipe to give the Opti-coat a chance to flash and reveal the high spots. I do want to stress this was a very light wipe and by no means was I using any pressure to try and remove the Opti-coat. The amount of Opti-coat used for both my wheels and my paint is shown in the picture below. My best guess is I used about 5-6cc of product with a little product getting on my hand during a brain failure. Not sure how this compares to everyone else.
Thoughts, Considerations, or Adjustment if I was to do it again:
To use OPC as a wax remover, I would most likely use it at full strength but do so when washing the car. Give the car a good scrubbing, and then spray the panel with OPC, then scrub the panel once more using my microfiber mitt and my Gold Class Shampoo.
I would start off using the Opti-coat slightly heavier than I did in my initial application, accepting there would be high spots and planning on wiping each panel gently in the first minute or two after application.
Almost every high spot we encountered was in an area the applicator pad would have to change direction, for example the corner of the door panel was a common area to see a high spot.
To polish the entire car by hand, including the first round of defect removal, probably required 5 hours. A lot of that time was spent just looking at different angles and grabbing different lights to make sure the paint was good to go.
The actual Opti-coat application took about 2.5 hours including the final wet microfiber towel wipe and drying. Since it was the first time I had done this, I did spend a good amount of time inspecting panels for application issues otherwise you are looking at probably an hour to apply.
Overall, we easily spent 24+ hours on the car that weekend between the exterior, interior, picturing taking, and cleaning up the cleaning supplies.
Results:
The Opti-coat most definitely added a candied look to the car. There is a noticeable increase in the level of shine from the car. This is particularly true of the clear bra; the Opti-coat did wonders for changing the clear bra from a slightly dulled look to a nice reflective shine. I do not have any shots of the clear bra reflection prior to Opti-coat, but I think the reflections shown in the hood speak for themselves (everything was covered in front of the windshield so that the seams occurred at the edge of the body panels making it rather difficult to tell there is a clear bra). There was a down side to the Opti-coat on the clear bra however: anywhere the clear bra material itself had defects that were not previously too noticeable were made noticeable. I think this is a pretty fair trade considering how good the clear bra looks now and that one day when it is peeled off those defects will go away it won’t look like my car was hit with bird shot.
Some of the pictures were taken after the car about 5 days later after the vehicle was washed and wiped down with Griot's Garage Speed Shine Detailer. I did not have any trouble with the Speed Shine streaking on the finish and it actually added a level of darkness to the paint. This was also confirmed by the wife who was able to pick out the side of the hood that it had been applied to and confirmed it in fact did look darker. A little slickness was added, but still not what I would call wax slickness; however, it did look good. I have some Optimum Instant Detailer & Gloss Enhancer on its way right now but it is going to have its work cut out to one up the Speed Shine. Though a gallon of Speed Shine is about $30 dollars compared to the $12.50 a gallon cost of OID. I won’t be able to get a review of the two up this year as it is starting to snow but I will plan on following up in a post of these two QDs and Opti-Coat come spring. The review will most likely contain a comparison of both QDs used on top of P21s Carnauba Wax/Optimum Spray Wax on top of Opti-Coat.
I know the waxes can take away from the purposefulness of Opti-coat, but the idea of an added layer of protection, Opti-coat, and the added beauty of wax/qds will most likely be too hard to pass up on.Had to include this one, 1987 CRX Si sitting the background.
Opti-Coat glamour shots
The following pictures were taken after the car about 5 days of curing and after the vehicle was washed and wiped down with “Griot's Garage Speed Shine Detailer.”
Also, here are a couple shots of water that was sprayed on the car. The first shot of each panel is just random high pressure spray from my shutoff valve followed up by the best flood attempt I could do with turbulent flow coming off a shut off valve.
Some additional questions I came up with during my process:
If I was to go from straight from car wash to opti-coat in the case I was using Gold Class Shampoo as part of rinsing OPC off my car, would I need to worry about residue from the shampoo affecting the Opti-coat application?
How much Opti-coat should I expect to use on a mid-size car and wheels? I used about 5-6cc.
And the most important part, notice the stick in the center of the picture, known to some as enjoyment or a matter of tradition and to others as an anti-theft device:
, my order showed up today (a day early) and I was able to give the car a quick wash and try out the Optimum Instant Detailer & Gloss Enhancer. Sometimes I appreciate a good rain as a reason to rewash the car.
