If you're interested in paint coatings I'll get you sorted

[TRIMMELL]

I use just for rinsing, not for the wash, run it through the pressure washer and it works well. Even though I could let it dry on its own, I use the Master Blaster and then touch up whatever I need to and inside the door jambs with a microfiber.

Smart man! Its definitely smart to dry it off. There is enough dirt and other crap in the air down here that just letting it dry will probably leave you with some spots when the contaminants stick to the water droplets.

 

[BajaFred]

They are scratch resistant but nothing is perfect. A lot of people will get a vehicle coated and then take it to a cheap car wash for a $25 or even a $50 wash where they are using cheap soaps, towels and wash mits and they get pissed off when they end up with swirl marks. Most of the car washes unless you go to an actual legit detail shop that knows what they are doing are using cheap towels and chemicals as they are about quantity over quality. They will use the same towels on multiple vehicles until they are either dirty or super wet. They dry with the same towels until they are wet so if they missed a spot on a previous car they might then grind that dirt they just picked up into your paint.

This is me

If you're similar, forgo the permanent coatings and get a sacrificial sealant like Sonax polymer net shield or xpel sealant but ONLY works if you have XPEL underneath

 

[TRIMMELL]

This is me

If you're similar, forgo the permanent coatings and get a sacrificial sealant like Sonax polymer net shield or xpel sealant

The problem is the sealants aren't going to protect you from marring at the car washes. If anything you're better off still going with a coating and just getting the coating polished every year or two and going on. The coating will definitely protect you better than sealant. Some companies are claiming their sealants are now resistant to scratches but meh. I don't get the science behind how a sealant can resist scratches. I have had to remove coating before that wasn't applied correctly and it was a huge pain in the ass.

 

[BajaFred]

The problem is the sealants aren't going to protect you from marring at the car washes. If anything you're better off still going with a coating and just getting the coating polished every year or two and going on. The coating will definitely protect you better than sealant. Some companies are claiming their sealants are now resistant to scratches but meh. I don't get the science behind how a sealant can resist scratches. I have had to remove coating before that wasn't applied correctly and it was a huge pain in the ass.

You missed the subtlety in my post

It's a sacrificial layer ie it is replaced every 6 months or so, boom all scratches and marring are gone when you redo the layer

I've tried re-doing ceramic, detailers hate it, they have no idea how much ceramic is there, they don't want to wet sand into the factory clear, much more expensive

Note this is only for me since I have no choice but using automated car washes

 

[TRIMMELL]

You missed the subtlety in my post

It's a sacrificial layer ie it is replaced every 6 months or so, boom all scratches and marring are gone when you redo the layer

I've tried re-doing ceramic, detailers hate it, they have no idea how much ceramic is there, they don't want to wet sand into the factory clear, much more expensive

Note this is only for me since I have no choice but using automated car washes

Sealant does not prevent scratches and its not a coating that will take the scratches and keep them on that super thin layer of soft sealant. It doesn't matter if you have 20 layers of sealant on your paint. Sealant isn't coating. It may keep it slick enough to help prevent scratches but you're not going to just remove sealant and not have scratches in your paint.

Most coatings can be polished and some can actually be rebuilt using the right product. Car Pro makes a product that you can polish your coating with and it will help rebuild it and fill in the scratches with resin. So removing scratches and rebuilding the coating. Actually removing a coating is a huge pain in the ass correct.

Using sealant is definitely a more affordable alternative to coating but if you're going through an automatic car wash with the spiny brushes or the car washes that drag the cloth sheets over your truck you will most certainly get scratches no matter if your truck is coated or has sealant. The difference is the coated truck will resist scratches a bit better. Touchless automatics are the way to go but in turn they tend to use harsher chemicals.

 

[BajaFred]

I updated my first reply, I thought I was in the XPEL thread

I have XPEL underneath that's why I use the sacrificial layer

I agree with all you wrote if you're just using any coating straight onto factory paint

 

[TRIMMELL]

I updated my first reply, I thought I was in the XPEL thread

I have XPEL underneath that's why I use the sacrificial layer

I agree with all you wrote if you're just using any coating straight onto factory paint

Ah, your posts make more sense now. If you have XPEL Ultimate it should be self healing anyways.

 

[BajaFred]

Ah, your posts make more sense now. If you have XPEL Ultimate it should be self healing anyways.

Except it's not, people have bought into this OC on xpel for so long but haven't stopped to think about it

I posted a lot about this in the other thread

If you put a ceramic on top of xpel, the xpel doesn't really get a chance to heal since nothing gets to it as the vast majority of minor scratches and marring reside only in the ceramic layer, which doesn't self heal

 

[TRIMMELL]

Except it's not, people have bought into this OC on xpel for so long but haven't stopped to think about it

I posted a lot about this in the other thread

If you put a ceramic on top of xpel, the xpel doesn't really get a chance to heal since nothing gets to it as the vast majority of minor scratches and marring reside only in the ceramic layer, which doesn't self heal

We're not talking about your XPEL being coated. You said yourself you don't use coating. So your XPEL WILL self heal if its XPEL Ultimate. Scratches can still go through a coating quite easily. They aren't the end all of marring. They simply make it more difficult to screw up the paint. If someone doesn't know what they are doing they can very easily scratch right through coating and screw up their paint. I have seen it alot.


And to be frank, most of the people getting XPEL and coating don't care about the self healing. They want the coating to make the clear bra easier to wash, protect it from the elements and keep it looking better longer so most don't even give the self healing part a second thought.

 

[BajaFred]

We're not talking about your XPEL being coated. You said yourself you don't use coating. So your XPEL WILL self heal if its XPEL Ultimate. Scratches can still go through a coating quite easily. They aren't the end all of marring. They simply make it more difficult to screw up the paint. If someone doesn't know what they are doing they can very easily scratch right through coating and screw up their paint. I have seen it alot.

I don't want to derail your thread, we can continue in the other one if you want but I had two different ceramic coatings over xpel on two different black cars, raised hell when the scratches didn't self heal only to find out what I shared above, they ripped and replaced both now only topped with the sacrificial sealants and am magnitudes more scratch free than before