Problem on opti coat 2.0

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keithkit

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Hi all, I am very new to here and also very new to the world of detailing. I got a question concerning my recently applied opticoat.

About two weeks ago I have my white Honda opticoated. The installer said he used opti coat 2.0. I was told the curing process would take up to a week to a month and told me not to wash my car until after the first week. But rain water should be fine after the first 24 hours.
I adhered as closely as possible to the advice; for the first 3 to 4 days I kept it in a garage to prevent it from getting wet from the weather. I didn't even touch its surface. Then onto the second week I started to drive it around and parked under the rain. The rain was quite heavy and nearly lasted for a few days non-stop. The car started to look dirty. There was quite a lot of dirt streaks and stains all over it.

Then on the 14th day I washed it. I hosed it down and then washed using Meguiar's wash & wax with a chenille. And I started to see problem here - those dirt streaks didn't come off! On close inspection I found nearly the whole car was covered under these black stain/streaks which didn't come off after a wash. I have actually washed it two times to try to get them off but was in vain.

I have been googling furiously about this issue but seems that no one out there share the same problem with me. I heard that dirts and stains should not bond that easily to opticoat and should be very easy to remove - after all that's the reason I have it opticoated.

I found on the other post that these should be very easy to remove:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...oat-vw-golf-put-test-3-months-later-kc-s.html

Here are some pictures of the stains.

Do you know what really happened to my coating?
I am very frustrated about the result I got..

Sorry about my poor English.
 
First off welcome. Not sure what's going on, but first thing I'd do is call the person that applied it. I presume you spent some good money in having it done.
 
I'm not sure where you are located, but they stopped making Opti-Coat 2.0 a year ago, at least here in the US.
 
Yes I know that it has been discontinued since then. The installer has also told me about that. Yet I believe it has been discontinued not because of any major problem with the product itself, right?

And are you suggesting that the stains and streaks I got on my car maybe the result of the coating being stocked up for too long?

I have contacted my installer and sent him these pictures and he also got no idea what went wrong.

Actually how do i tell if the opticoat is there on the paint? How do I confirm that?

Thanks all for your replies.

By the way Im from Hong kong.
 
Not sure what caused the issue, but I'm wondering if it had something to do with the wash n' wax soap you used, which is actually an odd choice on a coated vehicle. I would suggest trying so wash it with a soap like CarPro Reset first and seeing what that does.
 
It's hard to see in the photo, but I see what looks to me like silicone type trim dressing that ran on the paint from the rain - then picked up some dirt.

Are all the stains below or near a plastic or rubber piece / area?

You can try to remove these with some tar remover or mineral spirits. The OC should be OK by now to use those on. I don't think clay will work - as they look more like a stain than an above surface contaminate.

It might sound silly, but simply waxing the area with a little passion and the right wax may just remove the stains - as even non-cleaner waxes have solvents in them that clean paint. A non-abrasive paint cleaner or a cleaner wax may work as well.

Whatever it is, if mineral spirits doesn't remove it - it will have to be polished off. Which means re-Opti Coat.
 
RaskyR1 said:
Not sure what caused the issue, but I'm wondering if it had something to do with the wash n' wax soap you used, which is actually an odd choice on a coated vehicle. I would suggest trying so wash it with a soap like CarPro Reset first and seeing what that does.
Click to expand...


Try what Rasky said FIRST

Before you do anything else
 
Thanks all for your help. You are really giving me at least some direction of what's happening there.

I wash with that "ultimate wash & wax" just because there's a half bottle left which I used before applying the coating and I had no idea any particular kind of shampoo should be used on opticoated surfaces.
RaskyR1 thanks for suggesting CarPro Reset, but here in HK it may be a little hard to find carpro products. But surely I will give it a try. Except this what shampoo are normally used for opticoated, or in general, mineral-coated cars?

swanicyouth I do have the same feeling that it may originate from those trim dressing thing.
I forgot to mention apart from applying the opticoat, I have also done a gtechniq g1 glass coating on all the windows, including the sunroof (which is accounting for two third the area of the whole roof). I also noticed when I got back the car from the installer he seemed to have applied some kind of dressing on the black plastic parts (e.g. around the base of the wipers and near the side of doors etc); as I found they looked darker and a bit shiny. I am not sure what kind of dressing that was (silicone based?)
I do have asked my installer before if those glass coating/trim dressing thing would be the culprit behind the stains but he seemed not to think so. He said the other cars that he opti-coated (and he did also apply the dressing as a standard package) didn't show the same stain.

The stains are actually all over the car; there are stains & streaks on the hood and even on the roof. But they are particularly serious around those corners which tend to accumulate dirt and water normally drip from those area (like the pictures that I attached)
 
I googled and found those silicone trim dressing things do create stains or streaks on paint, but that doesn't seem to be hard to clean or remove like mine.

Anyway, I will give the carpro reset shampoo a try first.
 
keithkit said:
I googled and found those silicone trim dressing things do create stains or streaks on paint, but that doesn't seem to be hard to clean or remove like mine.

Anyway, I will give the carpro reset shampoo a try first.
Click to expand...


In all honesty, you prolly paid a lot of yen to have this coating installed. Instead of messing with it - just bring it back to the dude who did it and make it his problem.

Edit: showing my ignorance. HK doesn't even use yen. Lolz.
 
If Rasky's procedure didn't remove the streaks, I would consider the possibility of the coating wasn't fully cured. I know by my limited experience that the 'syrup', thick type coatings are harder to fully cure.
They seem OK to the touch, but not ready yet. Maybe if he cured with the help of infrared lights it would be better.
You also said that you kept in the garage, probably a dark place, so it didn't get any sunlight, and HK is humid, right?
Leaving the car in the sun, in a hot dry day for a couple hours, it is beneficial to help cure coatings. Of course, after 12 to 24 hours since it was applied.
 
Tried the carpro reset this morning, didn't help.
The stains are just there after the wash.
But this shampoo feels good, the car do look clean and it feels quite promising.
Thanks for the recommendation.

Now I am quite convinced that there's something wrong with the coating itself - I feel that the stains, whatever that is,
has been etched to the surface and so cannot be removed. I just wonder how could one tell if the coating is there?
Is there any easy way to distinguish?

I asked the guy and he said he would help to "clean the stain and apply some topping on it regularly" - he say
that in Chinese and this is the best I could translate it. I am not sure how he is going to clean it.
But the whole situation seems to suggest the coating needs to be re-applied for any real improvement, right?
 
Yes Hong Kong use it's own dollar, we don't use yen, haha.

RPM_BR, for the curing part, I am actually missing a little details there.

I got back my car in the evening. On the next day after the application,
the sun is shining hot and I did have it bathed under the hot sun for the whole day.
I put it in the garage the following days to avoid the rain only.
 
I was thinking about your problem, saw your pics and read your initial post again, and indeed, the streaks appear below the windows.
Since you said you drove a bit after, and before the two days torrential rain, the windows got air pollutants/dust and then was washed down by the rain. If the installer cleaned your windows with a window cleaner, there is isopropyl alcohol in it.
Maybe if it was a quick rain, instead of a two day rain, you would be fine. The duration of the rain seems to be the problem.
Isopropyl alcohol is a carrier for ceramic coating, though apparently not for SiO2 coatings. I would guess the IPA reacted with the coating, bringing the pollutants with it and stained the coating.
I use a Brazilian SiO2 coating called VX45 for budget coatings, a CQuartz cheaper clone, a real PIA to apply it, and you have to level it with IPA. Without IPA, it is almost impossible to level the streaks.
By this fact, I know Isopropyl alcohol reacts with SiO2 coating.
I would do a test spot with IPA 13% and IPA 25% dilluted in distilled water as a cleansing agent for the streaks. Do it in a very small area, to not aggravate further your problem in case it doesn't work.
 
RPM_BR said:
If the installer cleaned your windows with a window cleaner, there is isopropyl alcohol in it.
Maybe if it was a quick rain, instead of a two day rain, you would be fine. The duration of the rain seems to be the problem.
Isopropyl alcohol is a carrier for ceramic coating, though apparently not for SiO2 coatings. I would guess the IPA reacted with the coating, bringing the pollutants with it and stained the coating.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this one's a but "Huh??" The IPA in any window cleaner would have long evaporated before the car even saw rain, heck it was probably gone when the windows were finished, and given that all of the rest of your supposition is predicated on that we'll say it has... holes in the logic.
 
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