Sealant comparison

[RippyD]

Update for the week. Let's start with the Boxster hood first. I washed the hood with Reset, rinsed, and dried.

Are these working? The hood is sloped steeply so I would expect them to clear faster than a car with with a flat hood. This is a great example of why absolute times aren't very meaningful - it's all about relative times on the same panel. How water is applied, slope of the panel, and apparently if the panel was dried are all factors. Water softness is likely a factor as well. So I decided to remove some product. I polished a section in the middle with McKee's Prep Polish using a black LC pad (no cut). I did 3-4 passes with a GG6 at speed 4 moving the machine slowly.

Here was the result. I don't see any significant difference. So either the prep polish didn't do anything, or the sealants aren't doing anything. (FYI, I polished that area again with a white pad just to be sure. No difference.) Hydro Blue in the middle is doing something at front, but not much. I'll call these done and give a few more days to Hydro Blue.

The Rover hood is doing about the same. Also washed it with Reset and dried. Here's the right side. Nothing much happens until 0:25. Left side is more interesting. SFX-4 clearing first as usual and slowing down. BF Carnuba, 303 working, 4 Star, and MdKee's fast wax still working (surprisingly). I'm calling calling Dodo Mystery #4 done. And I have to bring back Griots finishing. It's a little behind, but still clearing in ~45 seconds.

The Sentra trunk is doing well. I can't tell if it's clearing fast because it's small or if everything is working. I'll have to remove some product later today. So TBD on these. Same story for the Sentra hood. All clearing in 30 seconds or so but there's little differentiation. Could be they're all done. Will update later today.

The Sentra roof has some working, some not. Sonax Briliant Shine still appears to be the fastest. Megs Quik Wax, WG DGS, and Ultima Acrylic and McKee's 10 Min are working. Crystal Seal is very much done.

I'll get an updated graph pic and a link out later today, as well as an update on the Sentra hood and trunk.

 

[RippyD]

Long winded post. Most the stuff below the graph can be skipped. If you have questions about the cost graph they are likely answered below in garrulous rambling.

Two updates from yesterday: I polished an area across the hood. The only difference I saw was that the polished area may have cleared water a little sooner than the other areas. So clearly the sealants had stopped working. I did the same for the trunk and also could not see any difference. I'm calling the products on the hood done, which would be consistent with what happened on the Boxster hood for two of them. I'm going to throw out the tests on the Sentra trunk. I hate to do this, but that area is just too small to get a good sense of sheeting action. Will get those three reapplied this week.

Here's an updated graph of results. Here is a link to the spreadsheet.

If you have no interest in the spreadsheet you can skip the rest of this post.

I put some notes at the top of most tabs in the spreadsheet. I'm not expecting most of you to get how it works-it's a little overly complicated. The goal is to get it automated so as I enter tests the graphs change automatically. All working, except it's bad visually for the 2nd graph so I'm doing that manually for now. 2nd graph, you ask?

I've been trying to collect some usage info on these sealants. What does it cost to use them and apply them? First of all, how do you value your time? I put an hourly rate at the top of the tab called named "Usage info." You can save a copy and put in whatever rate you want, including 0. I suspect this is more useful to pros that than to people like me. I'm also estimating time to apply for a small sedan. A wipe-on-wipe-off obviously takes less time than an AIO. I guessed at the times based on my experience. Again, you can easily change these if you like. I also did some time testing: I applied a few of these and timed myself just to see if my estimates were ok. Where I have actual times, I used those.

Lastly, I'm trying to get a product cost per usage for a small sedan sized car. This will let us know what the true cost of the product is. When you divide that cost by duration, you can get a cost per week, month, year, or whatever. If a product lasts for 2 weeks and it takes $1 of product to apply to a car, it would cost you $26 in product cost to keep your car sheeting all year. If it lasts for 26 weeks and takes $0.50 of product, it would cost $1 per year in product. Do you guys see where this is going?

I'm testing product amount on some panels of the Rover. I measured them and compared to the Sentra size, so I know the percentage. So if I do 3 panels of the Rover and this is 33% of the area of the Sentra, I can just multiply by 3 to know about how much product I would use on the Sentra. Why do it this way? Because the Sentra has product on it and I wanted some large areas to see how much product would get used. Going forward I may just apply to the Sentra. I weighted the product, applied it to the Rover, and weighed it again. Hope this also makes sense.

With all that, here is a what the cost graph looks like.

The line shows the product cost per application for a small sedan. The scale is on the right of the chart. The first bar shows the annual cost if you used the product for a year and reapplied it based on the longevity numbers. The other bar shows the cost if you included labor. I used $60 per hour - you can use whatever number you like. The scale for the bars is on the left of the chart. The numbers you see correspond to the Annul Cost bar. It's too low to see for some of these.

So what does this thing say? Let's look Annual cost bar. Track Claw says $1. That means it's ~$1 of product to cover a small sedan with this stuff. Collinite and FK 1000 say $0. Rounding issue. Based on weight, Collinite used $0.15 of product and FK 1000 used $0.08 per application. They both last about 6 months. So at 2x per year their cost is still under $0.50.

Why is DG 105 so expensive? The product costs almost nothing. It's an AIO, so the labor gets expensive. It's an hour+ to do a small car vs. 10 mins for most of these. Why is BF Polymer Spray so expensive? Because it doesn't last. While it takes no time to apply, you would be applying it every week to keep sheeting water.

The blue like is showing product cost per application. You can see that most are very inexpensive. A few are not. Note that I almost certainly overuse the spray products. The one exception is Polish Angel. I tried hard to use it as sparingly as possible knowing it's expensive and that it doesn't take much. For most of the other sprays I probably used 1.5-2x what I needed to.

 

[Cruzscarwash]

Long winded post. Most the stuff below the graph can be skipped. If you have questions about the cost graph they are likely answered below in garrulous rambling.

Two updates from yesterday: I polished an area across the hood. The only difference I saw was that the polished area may have cleared water a little sooner than the other areas. So clearly the sealants had stopped working. I did the same for the trunk and also could not see any difference. I'm calling the products on the hood done, which would be consistent with what happened on the Boxster hood for two of them. I'm going to throw out the tests on the Sentra trunk. I hate to do this, but that area is just too small to get a good sense of sheeting action. Will get those three reapplied this week.

Here's an updated graph of results. Here is a link to the spreadsheet.

If you have no interest in the spreadsheet you can skip the rest of this post.

I put some notes at the top of most tabs in the spreadsheet. I'm not expecting most of you to get how it works-it's a little overly complicated. The goal is to get it automated so as I enter tests the graphs change automatically. All working, except it's bad visually for the 2nd graph so I'm doing that manually for now. 2nd graph, you ask?

I've been trying to collect some usage info on these sealants. What does it cost to use them and apply them? First of all, how do you value your time? I put an hourly rate at the top of the tab called named "Usage info." You can save a copy and put in whatever rate you want, including 0. I suspect this is more useful to pros that than to people like me. I'm also estimating time to apply for a small sedan. A wipe-on-wipe-off obviously takes less time than an AIO. I guessed at the times based on my experience. Again, you can easily change these if you like. I also did some time testing: I applied a few of these and timed myself just to see if my estimates were ok. Where I have actual times, I used those.

Lastly, I'm trying to get a product cost per usage for a small sedan sized car. This will let us know what the true cost of the product is. When you divide that cost by duration, you can get a cost per week, month, year, or whatever. If a product lasts for 2 weeks and it takes $1 of product to apply to a car, it would cost you $26 in product cost to keep your car sheeting all year. If it lasts for 26 weeks and takes $0.50 of product, it would cost $1 per year in product. Do you guys see where this is going?

I'm testing product amount on some panels of the Rover. I measured them and compared to the Sentra size, so I know the percentage. So if I do 3 panels of the Rover and this is 33% of the area of the Sentra, I can just multiply by 3 to know about how much product I would use on the Sentra. Why do it this way? Because the Sentra has product on it and I wanted some large areas to see how much product would get used. Going forward I may just apply to the Sentra. I weighted the product, applied it to the Rover, and weighed it again. Hope this also makes sense.

With all that, here is a what the cost graph looks like.

The line shows the product cost per application for a small sedan. The scale is on the right of the chart. The first bar shows the annual cost if you used the product for a year and reapplied it based on the longevity numbers. The other bar shows the cost if you included labor. I used $60 per hour - you can use whatever number you like. The scale for the bars is on the left of the chart. The numbers you see correspond to the Annul Cost bar. It's too low to see for some of these.

So what does this thing say? Let's look Annual cost bar. Track Claw says $1. That means it's ~$1 of product to cover a small sedan with this stuff. Collinite and FK 1000 say $0. Rounding issue. Based on weight, Collinite used $0.15 of product and FK 1000 used $0.08 per application. They both last about 6 months. So at 2x per year their cost is still under $0.50.

Why is DG 105 so expensive? The product costs almost nothing. It's an AIO, so the labor gets expensive. It's an hour+ to do a small car vs. 10 mins for most of these. Why is BF Polymer Spray so expensive? Because it doesn't last. While it takes no time to apply, you would be applying it every week to keep sheeting water.

The blue like is showing product cost per application. You can see that most are very inexpensive. A few are not. Note that I almost certainly overuse the spray products. The one exception is Polish Angel. I tried hard to use it as sparingly as possible knowing it's expensive and that it doesn't take much. For most of the other sprays I probably used 1.5-2x what I needed to.

on the sealant info tab, id like to see if you can add the duration that the sealant lasted, this is great info and i cannot thank you enough for all this data, im a data miner so this for me is gold!!!! being able to sort thorugh the list and filter out the type of sealant i want to use, its est cost and then how long its been shown to last is AMAZING!!!

 

[RippyD]

Will do. For now, the duration in weeks is on the "Graph data" tab. (Have go through a few steps to get data graphed in Google Sheets. It's better than Excel in almost every way, but graphing isn't one of them. I'll eventually get this moved to Google Charts.)

Edit: answered too soon. If you want durations on the sealant info tab that will be a challenge - multiple tests per product, so multiple columns to show test results. If I categorize them it will start to look like the pivot tab. I could add an average - would that work?

Edit 2: Done. Added an average to the "Sealants" tab.

 

[Cruzscarwash]

Will do. For now, the duration in weeks is on the "Graph data" tab. (Have go through a few steps to get data graphed in Google Sheets. It's better than Excel in almost every way, but graphing isn't one of them. I'll eventually get this moved to Google Charts.)

Edit: answered too soon. If you want durations on the sealant info tab that will be a challenge - multiple tests per product, so multiple columns to show test results. If I categorize them it will start to look like the pivot tab. I could add an average - would that work?

Edit 2: Done. Added an average to the "Sealants" tab.

Rippy has anyone today told you that you are awesome?>

 

[RippyD]

Thanks much. You need to influence my wife.

 

[Finick]

I’m curious how PNS will stack up on the value list. Seems fairly durable and very quick application.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RippyD]

Me too on PNS. Really looking forward to seeing how a few of these do.

btw, here's how I'm handling my actual application times: I'm typically doing all 4 doors and rear quarter panels of the Rover. That's about 56% the surface area of the Sentra. In addition to adjusting for the size difference, I'm multiplying by 1.5 to account for the Rover doors being big, flat panels. Doing bumpers, the trunk, and grill on a small car take considerably more time. I'm also moving quickly and not buffing to get the best look like I would when applying ever 3 months.

Even with the 1.5x multiplier this is a rough estimate. It would realistically take 1/2 as long or 2x what I estimated depending on how fast you move, how much you buff your sealants, weather, etc. So please take these actuals as a rough estimate. (In other words, ymmv.)

 

[Markymapo1]

So much for WG DGS, time to switch to something more durable.. awesome work

 

[RippyD]

Keep in mind that DGS is on the Sentra roof right now. It may go longer than it did before. I doubt it'll get into the FK 1000 and Collinite range.

Also remember that longevity is only one factor. If you're going to reapply every 3 months and the product lasts 3 months, that would be adequate. I still use Aquawax despite the short longevity. Based on testing I may switch to something else. And when I use up the 1/2 gallon I have left.

 

[RippyD]

Polished the Sentra hood with McKee's prep polish and white pad. Unnecessary but used Gyeon prep as well. Gave it an hour or so and added 9 products, several of which are repeats. Left an open area with no sealant running down the hood.

• HD Speed
• Reload - seems like this failed too soon last time
• Optimum spray wax
• Aquawax
• Mothers Cali Gold Spray Wax
• Mothers Speed Spray Wax
• DG Rinseless as a QD - seems like this lasted far longer than it should have last time
• DG 521 Detail Spray - just because it was on the shelf
• DG 921 FC&S Detail Spray + Aquawax (75%:25%)

I applied these yesterday morning. They've had two full days of sun to cure. They're all working so well I can't even keep water on them. No obvious tape line between Aquawax and HD Speed. No idea why.

Did a mid week check on the Rover hood as well. Things are slowing down. Griot's Finishing is doing nothing. I was overly generous with it last time. I'll be going to the first date I called it done. BF Carnuba slowing down enough that I'll call it done. SFX-4 still ahead of everything else. We're now to the following on teh Rover hood:

• SFX-4
• 303 Spray Wax
• Dodo Acrylic
• Four Star
• McKee's Fast Wax

Having issues uploading a current chart. You can see it in the spreadsheet here.

Spreadsheet update (skip this unless you're into spreadsheets):
Redid some of the logic. Was much to hard to manage the "still going" products with the others. If there's an end date how does the logic know it's still going. If there's no end date I don't get the cool looking underlying dot on the graph. So I need both. The answer and lazy way around many spreadsheet issues: helper columns. Added a few. This allowed me to greatly clean up the pivot as well. This thing isn't done, but it's now better. There are few notes in there to help explain what's going on.

 

[bryanviper]

In for results.

If you have not already done so can you also test Geyon CanCoat.

Thanks

 

[Sonic Pilot]

Just curious. I have read through many, but not all of the 32 pages (so far) of this rather lengthy review. Why aren't the product manufacturers commenting more on the results of their product performance??? Some results seemed quite disappointing when compared to product claims.

The original Poster, RippyD I assume has spent considerable time effort and money.

 

[RippyD]

If you have not already done so can you also test Geyon CanCoat. Thanks

The lowest cost option I see for Can Coat is $50. Unless I can trade for a sample that makes it unlikely for me to test.

 

[bryanviper]

If you were close to me I could give you some lol.

I may do half my mothers hood with cancoat & half with Collinte 845 and see how it lasts through the winter, if I remember to do so.

The lowest cost option I see for Can Coat is $50. Unless I can trade for a sample that makes it unlikely for me to test.

 

[RippyD]

Been longer than I wanted to update. Been struggling with the Sentra hood. Everything was sheeting great, including the untreated area. So that wasn't good. Then a week later nothing was sheeting. Washed with Reset and everything was sheeting. I then polished a narrow strip across the hood - still no difference. Maybe reset removed most of them? Maybe they all failed already? Right now I'm just guessing. Hate to do it, but I'm going to start over with fewer products and see how it goes.

Sentra roof is doing about the same. Products are slowing down, but the same 6 are working as last time. I have a video that's terrible I can link to if anybody wants to see it. Will try to get a new one tonight or tomorrow.

Rover hood is doing about the same as last time. SFX-4 still performing the best and clearing in ~25 seconds.

Spreadsheet is up to date, but products on the Sentra hood will get another re-start. I did a few more application measurements that graph has additional info as well. Just linking to the spreadsheet this time rater than posting snapshots.

 

[rlmccarty2000]

The lowest cost option I see for Can Coat is $50. Unless I can trade for a sample that makes it unlikely for me to test.

I would skip Cancoat as it falls into the coating arena. Stick to sealants unless you want to take your best performing sealant and match it up with the lowest performing coatings, which is not a bad idea. Fk1000p vs Cancoat?

 

[RippyD]

I believe some is on it's way to me. I kind-of crossed that line already. I initially started doing coating tests and quickly realized $200 wouldn't get me very far. And I agree I'd have to stick to entry level coatings from a comparison and cost perspective.

If I recall I did 4-5 coatings, at least 2 of which are misnamed sealants. If there are smaller sizes of some coatings I may give that a try. Seems like a next year thing - I'm running out of runway to get a coating applied. Although the Boxster is available, and it needs to polished anyway... thinking.

(And thank you CarPro for selling sample sizes. Can we please get a 10ml size of Dlux?)

 

[RippyD]

Polished the hood then wiped with N-914 at 8:1 three times, then did 15% alcohol solution. Polished with HD Adapt and a LC white pad - there's no way the old stuff isn't gone. (Adapt is just a pain to remove - I have tried everything people suggest. And I have a most of a large bottle left. It may need to find a new home.)

I taped off a horizontal and vertical sections of the hood to compare with no product. Also covered those areas with towels to ensure no overspray.

Added back to the hood:

• Mothers Speed Spray Wax
• Mothers Gold Spray Wax
• Reload
• Aquawax (just realized this is 2 years old - not sure if that's an issue)
• DG 931 Rinseless as a QD
• HD Speed

They were applied thusly:

It got about 3 hours of sun today and should bake all day tomorrow. Car is going in for service, possible I won't have it for a few days. (Didn't do my homework. Nissans apparently having major issues with their CVT transmissions.)

 

[DetailZeus]

This is awesome you're keeping this going. Could you do a weird test for me? Could you put a couple drops of oil on some of them to see if they're oleophobic? Truth is that's really what I want in a sealant. Obviously not asking to see if it sheets oil just to see if the drop kinda beads or lays flat immediately and sticks...