First use of Essence and Reload

[suke]

I've had quite a few folks interested in getting ceramic coatings, yet all are turned off by the high price of getting a coating. Looking for ways to give clients what they're looking for while trying not to break myself doing it. I decided to give essence topped with reload a try. Figured it'd be best to give it a whirl on my own vehicles first. So up comes my DD. While this has never seen a tunnel wash it has gone weeks sometimes months without a bath and it's driven like crazy.

As you can see the paint really didn't have any swirls. A few RIDS but no visible swirls. This was before I washed it or anything

This has never seen a polisher and it almost 4 years old with 80k miles. It didn't even really need to be clayed....I did it anyways. She's naked and ready for essence.

Few random scratches here or there.

Trim on this thing was beyond done

Wasn't quite sure what essence would do on black trim. It was toast so figured worst case I pull it off and paint it anyways.
After

Essence going down. Now I've read in several places people complaining about it being hard to work with or hard to remove. Honda paint is middle of the right edging towards soft and I had no issues. I even tried to abuse it. Cranked the speed up on the flex, left it on panels when I went on to other panels, etc. Every time it the residue just came right off. It's quite possibly one of the easiest polishes I've ever used. When I get more vehicles under my belt with this maybe I'll figure out what people are complaining about.

After essence

Scratch is gone....granted that did take some work, not just essence

After reload

I hate black wheels and these ones are stupid soft and scratch when you look at them. I have them coated, so wasn't really looking to deal with these at this time. However, was curious to see what essence did on these.
before

after just essence. Not perfect, but holy crap what is this sorcery?

All in I had less than 10 hours in from wash to reload. That's impressive for me.

 

[Mantilgh]

Cool, thanks posting this up!

That wheel, wow!!!

What was your process on the wheel?

 

[jaimz11]

Nice work! What pad did you use?

 

[lane5515]

Very nice! Essence and Reload are fantastic products that never let me down.

 

[Cruzscarwash]

Essence has been my AIO go to and coating prep for a little bit now. I really like it and so do clients.makes my job easier and leaves them very satisfied

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[lj993]

Car looks new. Nice work. Thanks for the write up. Phil

 

[suke]

Essence has been my AIO go to and coating prep for a little bit now. I really like it and so do clients.makes my job easier and leaves them very satisfied

Sent from my Pixel using Autogeekonline mobile app

That was exactly my thought process. Normally a full 2 stage polish, sealant, and wax would take me close to 20 hours on a car. If I can get out for 10 total WHILE getting a coating that's a MAJOR time saver.

 

[suke]

Cool, thanks posting this up!

That wheel, wow!!!

What was your process on the wheel?

Believe it or not just a 3" finishing pad and essence on a porter cable. Nothing fancy at all.

 

[suke]

Nice work! What pad did you use?

I used Adam's orange pad. Which is basically a finishing pad. I tried my meguiars microfiber cutting pad on some RIDS and it didn't do anything with essence, not surprising really. So figure any REAL scratches will take M105, but likely swirls this stuff would eat up. Sadly my car didn't really have any swirls. I'll be doing my neighbors car which is black and swirled up here next week. Should give me an idea of how this stuff will really work for me.

The scratches I had on the roof I ended up having to wetsand with 3000 grit sandpaper then M105 with a megs MF cutting pad. I likely could have gone over it a couple times with M105, but to speed up the process I just busted out the sandpaper.

 

[Eldorado2k]

I'm about to try that on my wheels


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[Heisenberg]

I've had the same experience. It's the easiest polish to remove I've ever used. Only easier product to remove off paint is Blackfire Wet Diamond.

Now I have to give it a shot on my trim!

 

[suke]

I've had the same experience. It's the easiest polish to remove I've ever used. Only easier product to remove off paint is Blackfire Wet Diamond.

Now I have to give it a shot on my trim!

The trim and wheel was the biggest shocker for me.

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[suke]

So this is the car I was talking about. Oh boy......this thing is hammered. A really good test subject though.

Before

That's a freaking sticker on the hood!!!

UGH gum.....what did I get myself into.

This is severely oxidized

Gum is gone.

Lets see what we got under the lights.

oof

After. That's pretty incredible for a one step polish.

 

[wolfpacker92]

Nice job. I just purchased Essence and can't wait to try it. Oh and I love the grill cover in one of the pics!

 

[rlmccarty2000]

Another convert to the Essence religion. I like to follow up Essence with PBL Paint Coating which is almost as easy to apply as Reload, but lasts much, much longer.

 

[suke]

Another convert to the Essence religion. I like to follow up Essence with PBL Paint Coating which is almost as easy to apply as Reload, but lasts much, much longer.

I've been toying around with the idea of trying other coatings over top of essence besides reload, but this is for cost effectiveness. Cquartz will likely be the coating of choice for full on coatings. I've tried gloss coat and that was SUPER easy to deal with. I've also got DLUX on my personal vehicle (wheels and plastics). So reload will make that stuff easier to maintain.

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[suke]

Nice job. I just purchased Essence and can't wait to try it. Oh and I love the grill cover in one of the pics!

It's absolutely incredible. One trick I've found if using a microfiber cutting pad in particular is VERY light to no downward pressure. I did notice if I was pressing down at all, old habits die hard, it was a little tougher to wipe off. If I noticed I pressed down on my last pass I'll make sure there's as little pressure as possible and go over it with a little quicker arm speed. It'll wipe right off with ease.

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[Cruzscarwash]

I use the boss MF cutting pad with my GG6 with essence, I use very little to moderate at most pressure and it always wipes off fine

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[suke]

Finished up last night.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

All done with reload on

That's pretty dang good for just a one step with essence. Now keep in mind this thing is still HAMMERED.......BAD! Don't let the pics fool you. She's definitely a 20 footer. However, she's now good and protected to live out her life getting hammered on being a mom car haulin kids all over the place while not much thought is put into how clean she is.

 

[suke]

Forgot the outside shots that I made when returning it.

Ignore the pollen that's already on it. Grrr