Switching To Ceramic Car Coating

 

It has been over six years since my "Polishing Your Car" post, explaining the best way to wash and polish a car.  While I still wash my car the same way, I have switched from Zaino Z2 car polish to the new ceramic coatings.

I called around to find out how much a professionally done ceramic coating would cost, and it ran $1200-1800 and required $190 in yearly "maintenance" to keep the warranty valid.  Gulp!

So I decided to do it myself with Turtle Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Spray Coating. The packaging says just spray on and wipe off - no buffing, no drying time, instant protection and shine!  I've now done it to two of my 2019 cars with it and here is what I think so far.

I applied the coating with a blue microfiber pad and wiped the surface dry with a soft baby diaper. 

The packaging says not to allow the product to dry on the surface, to wipe it off immediately.  It also says to apply the coating sparingly, one to two squirts per panel.   On the first car I did, I found I tended to apply too much product and it was difficult to get all of it off.  This lead to the product drying on the car leaving a very streaky appearance.

I found it much better to squirt a small amount on the applicator instead of directly on the car body as was easier to control how much product transferred to the car.   After some practice, I learned to squirt the pad once, rub the pad on one half a body panel, then immediately wipe the panel dry.  I repeated the process for the other half of the panel.   The car looked great!

The spray coating instructions state to coat the car once for six months of protection and twice for a full year.   So I decided to go for broke and apply a second coat.

This is where things get tricky.  Since the car is already coated, it is extremely difficult to not over-apply the product.  My car looked extremely streaky after the second coat!    After letting it dry a few days, I washed the car again and rubbed the panels very well with a very soft white bath towel.  After a little bit of effort, I was able to get most of the streaks removed.

With my second car, I had a similar issue:  first coat when on fine by applying the product to the applicator, but it was extremely difficult to get the second coat on with no streaks.  The car looked horrible.

I remembered I had detailing spray in the cabinet, so I used Meguair's Quik Detailer and and Zaino Grand Finale with  a diaper to remove the streaks.

The car looks the best it has ever looked!

Based on past experience,  I expect more streaks to show up as the car gets out in the sun for awhile.  When and if that happens, I'll either wash and cotton bath towel it dry again, or apply a bit of detailer to remove the new streaks.

Was it as simple as spray on, wipe off and done?  No.  But it is still way easier and quicker than Zaino Z2 that needed to be removed after it dried (took several hours to dry) and required a bit of muscle to remove the dried product.   Zaino was easily taking me 2 days of clock time to apply due to large amounts of dry wait time, and then some time over the next few days to remove more residue as it dried over the next few days.   

With this Turtle ceramic coating, application/initial once-over with a detailer is about an hour, perhaps a little more,  and I'm sure there will still be some residue removal over the next few days.  If it lasts a year as advertised, I'll probably stay with it!