New M340i - Help me decide what to use!

Pick a coating and take it easy on yourself.

So much easier to maintain and the gloss is the best.

Just make sure to paint prep really well after using the 4500.
I have settled on CQUK3 as of now. Goes far, looks good and doesn't break the bank.
The line of CarPro maintenance products are super easy to manage and not be overwhelmed with what to buy.

You probably already know all this. I would definitely suggest coating. Dont forget a coating for the wheels!!
 
Out of my 4 vehicles, 2 are coated, 1 is a garage queen and 1 is a DD.
Mercedes is nearing 2 years in march with optimum gloss coat. Cant say enough good things from what I have experienced with it. It still beads beautifully and works nearly as the day it was done. Believe it or not, it is parked OUTSIDE!
Other coated vehicle is our '18 wrangler JL. The ladies' daily and It received cquk3.0 roughly a year ago, it is garage kept and only has 9k miles. So far, amazing. Beading and sheeting is beautiful.
As far as application, both were very simple to apply, and i cant speak for longevity to the cquk, yet that is. That being said I would not hesitate to use either again.
Garage queen is my Cummins. It gets used to haul our 5th wheel and gets fuzion. It will never be coated and I'm a sucker for a carnauba glow on the granite metallic paint. I'm not worried about longevity.
Daily driver is a white f250. It is NOT coated, and I dont think it will be. The reasoning for coating the other vehicles was ease of maintenance and time on myself to be able to enjoy the other 2 vehicles. I enjoy a nice carnauba wax after a wash on a sunny day. It is old school, sure. But I believe im a bit of an old soul and there is something as a car guy to detail and wax your ride.
These days everyone is about coatings. It depends on what you are about and what makes you happy. A nice carousel of carnauba waxes to try, and some good old aqua wax gets you quite a bit of protection and longevity in my California climate.
My vote would be for optimum gloss coat probably if we were being honest. But these days you probably cant go wrong with any of them. Pick something that speaks to you and enjoy it.

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Cquartz UK 3.0 seems to be the popular go-to around here which I guess I was a little surprised about given all of the coatings on the market now. It's on my short list after reading the responses.

jmorlan, my vehicle lives outside as one garage bay houses my S2000 and the other yard equipment so that is a consideration. I get it about wanting to detail and wax your ride. That's one of the reasons I'm looking at Xtreme Solutions Poly-Seal. It has extreme gloss kind of like a wax with polymer durability which might be the right medium for me.
 
gofast182 said:
Cquartz UK 3.0 seems to be the popular go-to around here which I guess I was a little surprised about given all of the coatings on the market now. It's on my short list after reading the responses.
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It shouldn't be a surprise. CQuartz is offered at a reasonable price, is easy to apply, looks good, easy to maintain (don't need to do anything special), and lives up to it's durability claims. Those characteristics push it to the front of the pack of the products here at AG. There may be others sold elsewhere we can't discuss out of a courtesy to the AG hosts an the TOU, but I'd bet CQuartz UK would hold it's own against those as well.
 
I know CQUK3.0 is good but with so many other things that have come out (and that are sold here) I was just a little surprised there weren't more different recommendations.
 
Desertnate said:
It shouldn't be a surprise. CQuartz is offered at a reasonable price, is easy to apply, looks good, easy to maintain (don't need to do anything special), and lives up to it's durability claims.
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Not having used CQuartz, I’ve been under the impression that maintaining with other products (Gliss, CanCoat, Reload, etc) is not a “must”, but basically a “really want” due to improving slick surface, gloss, and beading that aren’t as good as the toppers. *If these are true*, it seems CQ might not be the best ‘set it-forget it’.

I could certainly be wrong about all this and no intention on dissing CQ. These were just things I’ve read here and there. No intention diverting this thread either... love the M series’!!
 
acuRAS82 said:
Not having used CQuartz, I’ve been under the impression that maintaining with other products (Gliss, CanCoat, Reload, etc) is not a “must”, but basically a “really want” due to improving slick surface, gloss, and beading that aren’t as good as the toppers. *If these are true*, it seems CQ might not be the best ‘set it-forget it’.

I could certainly be wrong about all this and no intention on dissing CQ. These were just things I’ve read here and there. No intention diverting this thread either... love the M series’!!
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No coating is set it-forget it. If there was one, those of us coating users would have no need to chase other coatings. If you are just basing this on slickness well that could be said for any coating. They are not as slick as a sealant or wax. That is a known fact. Which is why many like to top with something to get that slickness. Cquartz TiO2 sure is slicker than some of the other coatings.

Gloss well that comes mostly from polishing and is subjective from person to person. To the naked eye one will not notice a difference between coatings.

I suggest heading over to my thread to check out the beading of all versions of cquartz compared to the other coatings. All versions of Cquartz look pretty darn good.

https://www.autogeekonline.net/foru...eramic-coating-1-year-test-3.html#post1663211
 
^^Thanks for the info, Guz. I didn’t realize all/most pure coatings aren’t very slick. I’ll keep an eye on your thread as well.
 
gofast182 said:
Last month I got a new M340i in Portimao Blue (very happy with the color). Right now, since it's winter and I can't do a full detail process because I'd have to work outside, I'm washing regularly and applying Optimum Instant Detailer and Gloss Enhancer while trying to figure out what to apply in the spring. I've been going back and forth between a coating, sealant, or going old school with wax. Maintenance doesn't bother me so much and gloss is my priority over hydrophobicity.
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Lots of good suggestions here, but I had great results on an E92 M3 (Melbourne Red) and now an F10 M5 (Singapore Gray) with carnauba-based waxes (P21s and Pinnacle Liquid Souveran). They are metallic pains just like yours, I believe. Something about the wax and the deep colors of BMW paints that really seems to work well. (I have zero technical foundation for that last sentence.) I'm old school (and chronologically old, as well) so I don't mind waxing every 3-4 months as detailing is my hobby. You may have different time constants.

Love the blue, btw. I almost bought a Laguna Seca Blue M5, but the pre-purchase inspection said I should look elsewhere.
 
Another vote for CQUK3.0
Starting using it about 4 years ago on 2 cars and it has done very well.
Easy to apply, maintain, and is durable.
 
acuRAS82 said:
Not having used CQuartz, I’ve been under the impression that maintaining with other products (Gliss, CanCoat, Reload, etc) is not a “must”, but basically a “really want” due to improving slick surface, gloss, and beading that aren’t as good as the toppers. *If these are true*, it seems CQ might not be the best ‘set it-forget it’.

I could certainly be wrong about all this and no intention on dissing CQ. These were just things I’ve read here and there. No intention diverting this thread either... love the M series’!!
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I really don't care about slickness and don't run my fingers over the paint all the time. I care how my cars look, how well they are protected, and how easy they are to maintain. When looking at it that way, CQuartz UK works great. I've never topped my CQuartz cars with anything and I don't use Reload. I simply keep them clean from hand washing, and after each wash I wipe them down with Ech2O or Elixr to remove the water spots. That's it. The coating holds up for years and performs great the entire time. The beading/sheeting action is fantastic all on it's own. Since I polish the vehicles out before applying the coating there is plenty of gloss.

On my car which currently is running CanCoat, I will admit to using Cure on it. However, the Cure bottle came as part of a kit I simply tried out for fun. While it does make the surface a little more slick and it does boost the gloss a little, it's nothing earth shattering. The CanCoat works just fine on it's own. If I buy CanCoat again, I won't buy another bottle of Cure.

There are tons of toppings and other coating accessory products on the market for coatings, but I like to keep life simple and have found coatings to work just fine all on their own for me without all the extra time, effort and money.
 
Cancoat definitely took the gloss to a higher level than the Cquk3.0. I did all but one panel with cancoat on top and the Cancoat looked more “candy” on top.

If topper adds to duration of coating great but when i top with Cosmic its mainly for show. If i could Carnauba wax and it last more than a week id probably do that.

Anyways that’s why i top. Most who don’t argue the protection and so be it. You cant argue that it doesnt look better with a great topper.


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I'm zeroing in on these choices: TAC System Moonlight, Xtreme Solutions Poly Seal, or Power Lock.

My priorities are (in order):
1. Gloss
2. Dirt repellency
3. Durability
4. Hydrophobicity
 
gofast182 said:
I'm zeroing in on these choices: TAC System Moonlight, Xtreme Solutions Poly Seal, or Power Lock.

My priorities are (in order):
1. Gloss
2. Dirt repellency
3. Durability
4. Hydrophobicity
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I have used Moonlight and love it. Amazing hydrophobic properties, gloss, and durability. I've had it on my Rav4 for 6 months and no sign of it letting up. It is great for trim too.

I just bought Poly Seal to compare, but havnt used it yet. I'll post my thoughts on here after I used it next week.

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gofast182 said:
I'm zeroing in on these choices: TAC System Moonlight, Xtreme Solutions Poly Seal, or Power Lock.

My priorities are (in order):
1. Gloss
2. Dirt repellency
3. Durability
4. Hydrophobicity
Click to expand...
May I suggest WGDGPS? Some great stuff.

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DETAILROOKIE said:
I have used Moonlight and love it. Amazing hydrophobic properties, gloss, and durability. I've had it on my Rav4 for 6 months and no sign of it letting up. It is great for trim too.

I just bought Poly Seal to compare, but havnt used it yet. I'll post my thoughts on here after I used it next week.

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Thank you for this reply and I look forward to seeing your results with Poly Seal. Do you have any photos of Moonlight on your RAV4?

The more I research coatings the less inclined I am to buy into the multi-step process with coatings and toppers. I'm all for the benefits of Si02, but to me it doesn't make sense to need a sacrificial layer to protect your sacrificial layer that takes other maintenance on top of that to keep going. I'd rather use the 'light' coating or topper standalone and have to refresh it every 6-9 months without the same worries of special maintenance wash and stripping before reapplication.
 
Second on moonlight. Awesome on trim too. Love Can coat on paint but havent tried on trim


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gofast182 said:
Thank you for this reply and I look forward to seeing your results with Poly Seal. Do you have any photos of Moonlight on your RAV4?

The more I research coatings the less inclined I am to buy into the multi-step process with coatings and toppers. I'm all for the benefits of Si02, but to me it doesn't make sense to need a sacrificial layer to protect your sacrificial layer that takes other maintenance on top of that to keep going. I'd rather use the 'light' coating or topper standalone and have to refresh it every 6-9 months without the same worries of special maintenance wash and stripping before reapplication.
Click to expand...
Here ya go. The pictures dont do it justice.

I agree, I'm about simplicity. I will stick to the "lite" coatings myself.
e233262725e41d4c8f79f35edbe6afbd.jpg
5fed700ee7a273e7daa0e1b02d7372b8.jpg
15e218f109fdefa07db6ebf551df7bc8.jpg


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Coating lite / SiO2 Maintenance Spray junkie here. Not because I’m against layering/topping (I still do a lot of that with everything), but because I like to change things up seasonally or every 6 months max and I would hate to waste an expensive coating with a way-early stripping.

Either way, there’s no shame in coating lites and you get coating benefits (for the most part) minus the extra long durability.

CanCoat on my wife’s car, applied around Christmas time:
View attachment 68761View attachment 68762
 
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