paint coating hype

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Cool! Well that's exactly what I wanted to know. For me, it didn't seem worth it if it was just about longevity. But better protection is worth it.

I know I want more and better protection as well as thicker paint to start with.

Let me rephrase my diamond paint coating question;

I understand that one can be used on paint, and the other on any surface. However; why should I buy the paint coating? In other words; does the paint coating do something BETTER than the surface coating when on paint?

A dedicated formula for a dedicated surface.

I like the Surface Coating because of it's versatility. It was convenient to spray down the paint, glass and plastic on our Mercedes-Benz holding a single product in my hand.

On the other hand, there's a part of me that really wants to put the dedicated paint coating on the painted body panels of this car and under normal circumstances that's the approach I would have taken. I needed a car to show case the Surface Coating however and the MB was what I had.

You as a great question and I think it all drills down to the convenience of a multi-surface product for greater convenience versus a dedicated product for a dedicated purpose.

Why on earth would anyone buy the paint, wheel, and glass coatings when they could just get the surface coating? UNLESS those individual coatings did something the 'surface coating' didn't do- what is that?

Same as above, dedicated formulas for more dedicated surfaces or the convenience plus performance of a multi surface product.

 

[Klasse Act]

I'd like to think the paint coating is going to be more concentrated as its strickly going onto the outside of the ride whereas the all surface is trying to be "all things to all people", if that makes any sense.

Sent from my SPH-M930 using AG Online

 

[dpk20x]

I remember Nick saying that the dedicated glass coating sheets rain off of the windshield at lower speeds.

 

[scienceguy]

Yea I believe he mentioned in the large Black Label thread that the glass coating caused water to roll off at 20mph as opposed to 30mph for the all-surface coating in his own testing.

In general, I would expect the dedicated coatings to work better at their dedicated purposes. How much better? Who knows, perhaps time will tell. Although how one determines "better" protection of one coating over another is another question altogether.

I do wish we had more read-outs to check for coating performance or even presence (over time), other than the usual beading, sheeting, or slickness. As these surface properties seem to be affected by any/most of the other products we use in our normal maintenance.

As Jason Rose from Meguiar's has said, what is it we actually mean or are looking for, when we say "protection."

 

[Romans5.8]

I still am curious as to what beading actually tells us. I'm a complete newbie but; couldn't a product be engineered to product excellent beading but actually perform poorly? I mean, my car beads pretty good after some Meguiars ultimate QD spray; but I don't think it's really offering much protection (I just use it for a little touch up shine!)

It's kind of like these new crash testing. When you test things one way, then people make it perform best in one thing. Recently they've started doing 'overlap' testing when they found that most cars were being built to withstand direct, head on, lock-to-lock collisions, sacrificing performance in the real-world much, much, much more common partial offset crash. So it does really well hitting a concrete wall; but it has awful consequences when the real-world devastating scenario of a car drifting over into your lane and hitting the corner of your car head-on happens, and the dashboard is shoved out of the way moving the air bag a couple feet from where it should be leaving you unprotected heading towards a mangled up chunk of car because it was designed to pass a crash test; not to actually protect you in a crash. You would've only been protect in the almost non-existant scenario of a car coming completely into your lane and lining up headlight-to-headlight and hitting you straight on (or hitting a brick wall). The test tested the performance of something that, ultimately, didn't matter.

Beading is one thing; and certainly an advantage when it comes to sheeting water or getting gunk off of your car. But; again- is it really a measure of how well the coating protects? Couldn't some of these companies focus on beading performance, sacrificing actual protection in order to pass 'the test'?

I don't know the answer to any of those questions- I'm just throwing that out there. I think with a LOT of things, sometimes we get so fixated on one 'test' that the manufacturers do too. If the test is flawed, then the product will be too; BECAUSE of the flawed test.

Just to reinforce my example of the crash tests; here's an example of a car that had previously gotten fantastic ratings in the old direct head-on into a concrete wall test; but had fatal consequences in the 'real world' test; because it had been designed to beat the test (so they could market it as safe) without ACTUALLY being safe. Note the dummies head glancing off of the left side of the airbag (because the dashboard is being moved because the car is built for direct head-on tests, not real world crashes); which is compounded with all of the crushing metal intruding into the drivers space!

These tests are done under 30mph, btw. Now that the test has been revised, vehicle safety has changed quite a bit.

So; can the 'test' for coating be revised or is it good as is? Again- I don't even pretend to know the answer, maybe beading IS the end-all of protection tests. But I am curious if there is a 'better' test for actual protection qualities that may show that just because it beads well, doesn't mean it protect well (Maybe, again, I have no clue.)

 

[scienceguy]

It does seem curious as to why we are fascinated with water beading. In any case, I think all beading can tell us is that the surface on which the water is on has a certain surface tension and hydrophobicity that allows for water beading haha.

I am not sure if it is a real test of how protective an external sacrificial layer is, but it is indicative of its presence, so long as the layer is what caused the beading, sheeting, or slickness that was not there beforehand. So in that sense, beading would indirectly imply protection in terms of the protective product being present.

I guess it is also a question of what we are looking for when we mean protection. UV protection? Water beading or sheeting? Glossiness? Environmental contaminants? Protection from bird bombs or water drop etchings?

 

[PiPUK]

While I generally agree with what you're saying, contamination could possible kill beading too.

I had 3 coatings on one of my test panels all fail to bead after being left outside untouched for 8 months. These are coatings which have all held up past the 2 year mark on vehicles, some of which I've applied them too. Even after a wash with APC and strong mix of soap, decon with IronX, Tarminator, claying, and a good rinse with water, neither of them beaded water like they should. One coating did sheet diferently, but they did not act the way they should...

I've come to two conclusions:
1. There is some sort of contamination still on the paint.
2. Possible applicaton issues, though unlikely since it was done same as always but in a more controlled manner.


The test pans were left outside near some evergreen trees and there appeared to be a fine over spray like film is visible on the panels, yet the paint feels smooth. I had planned to view them under magnification but ended up using them for other testing.


Anyway, just throwing out a possible exception to the bold in your post.

Rasky

From my point of view, you are jumping to the more complex line of thought here. Why has my coating started to behave differently - that's the sort of thing that is way beyond the scope of a detailer to accurately answer (it is beyond the scope of what a scientist could easily answer too). To my mind, the simpler question is whether those coatings are actually there at all. I know you have set your reference frame with other vehicles but how did you define that frame - were those other vehicles beading after 2 years? If so, we can immediately be certain that something is different, in which case why couldn't that difference be the simplest one - that the coatings were there in one case and not in the other (the why of the matter should be considered second, not first, after all).

All of this also demands a definition of protection. What do we believe constitutes protection? Scratch resistance? Anti soiling protection? How are we actually quantifying these to show that the protection exists once the beading has gone? Did we ever quantify them to show that they existed even when freshly applied?

I really think that this is all going way too complicated and there is simply no way to discuss this because of the abundance of marketing information and lack of solid science. Realistically one would need to spend a lot of time and effort to consider this properly. I would suggest that any such study would inevitably indicate the truth behind some of the marketing claims and would end up earning the contempt of certain fans. Said fans tend to be the most vocal and would invariably spin it such that the results were rubbished. Taking us back to where we started. The joys of the internet.

 

[aim4squirrels]

I asked this question in another thread, but it got buried and lost so I'll ask it here to Mike or anyone else familiar with the Black Label surface coating:

I have an '08 Challenger with hood stripes from the factory. The stripes are vinyl, and quite large.

Does the surface coating (not the paint specific coating) work on vinyl? Will it adhere, have any detrimental side effects, or have any longevity?
If so, what effect would it have on the appearance of the vinyl (the vinyl finish in my instance appears matte)?

My assumption is that it may bond, but suffer significantly decreased longevity, and put a heavy shine on the matte finish. Of course we all know what happens when one goes assuming things.

 

[JSFM35x]

I predict that coatings will replace conventional sealants and waxes in the professional market and pro-sumer market with anyone who will take the time to learn. The protection and durability are outstanding and greatly reduce maintenance times and frequency.

That said coatings are not for people who can't polish effectively.

Some Pros may choose to not use coatings simply because they would like to wax every few months. Or for customers who don't get it.

This is all my opinion after trying and living with Opticoat 2.0 amd EXO V1 amd EXO v2.

 

[jpegs13]

Given the specific location of a clear bra:

What course of action must be undertaken to have (once again) complete clear bra Surface Coating-coverage if, perchance:
The clear bra receives a good enough whap from some road debris that a portion of the Surface Coating is, unfortunately, displaced?


Just curious.

Bob

Don't know, don't care, it LOOKS better. THAT'S what I care about

 

[Klasse Act]

Don't know, don't care, it LOOKS better. THAT'S what I care about

Well said and once the general public get turned onto coatings, they "old guard" will slowly go away, kinda like a pay phone, remember those?

Sent from my SPH-M930 using AG Online

 

[FUNX650]

Given the specific location of a clear bra:

What course of action must be undertaken to have (once again) complete clear bra Surface Coating-coverage if, perchance:
The clear bra receives a good enough whap from some road debris that a portion of the Surface Coating is, unfortunately, displaced?


Just curious.

Bob

Don't know, don't care, it LOOKS better. THAT'S what I care about

Well said and once the general public get turned onto coatings, they "old guard" will slowly go away,
kinda like a pay phone, remember those?

Yea...fixing blemishes in/on a 'Coating'...in order to make it LOOK better again...
can always be undertaken further on down the road...or not.
They won't slowly go away.



Bob

 

[derek0609]

I almost bit the bullet on Black Friday and bought DPPC. What kept me from buying said product, the fact that I have enough wax and sealants sitting in my cabinets to coat a couple hundred cars still, lol.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

In an earlier post I shared the results from cars I've coated with a number of coating brands as well as the new Black Label brand but I forgot this one...

I keep forgetting about this old Ford truck because when we shot this segment for TV the Black Label line was still hush hush, that is it wasn't public knowledge.

Here's Black Label on Candy Apple Paint.

Candy Apple 1955 Ford F100 with Black Label Diamond Paint Coating

 

[HateSwirls]

Came out pretty good Mike:dblthumb2:

In an earlier post I shared the results from cars I've coated with a number of coating brands as well as the new Black Label brand but I forgot this one...

I keep forgetting about this old Ford truck because when we shot this segment for TV the Black Label line was still hush hush, that is it wasn't public knowledge.

Here's Black Label on Candy Apple Paint.

Candy Apple 1955 Ford F100 with Black Label Diamond Paint Coating