Pinnacle Diamond Surface Coating possible screw-up

[JohnGriffith]

Hello Autogeek Community,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. I just completed a 3 day detail of my wife's 2010 Infiniti G37 and the outcome has me concerned a bit. I washed and clayed the car first. Next I polished the car with M205 and a white pad. That brought the shine up nicely. Then I polished the car again with the Black Label Surface Cleansing Polish using a grey finishing pad. Now I'm ready for the Diamond Surface Coating except I had some dusting on the car that didn't want to go away. I decided to wipe the car down with Optimum No Rinse. I'm afraid that may have been a mistake. When I went to apply the Diamond Coating next, It did not want to go on smoothly and I had to use more than recommended to get it to spread. Part way through, I re-polished the trunk with the Cleansing Polish to see what would happen. The Coating went on a little easier but still didn't seem to spread out well. I was using a yellow foam applicator to apply. I finished applying to the whole car and pulled it out of the garage to check things out in the partial sunlight. The car looked pretty good and feels smooth but frankly I don't think it looks much better than it did after I finished polishing. Now I'm worried that I just wasted a couple day's work and the coating's going to fail because of the ONR. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

John

[JHL88]

Is this your first time using a coating? I ask because applying a coating is a lot different than applying a wax or sealant. You have to work in smaller areas at a time and application has to be uniform.

If you feel the applicator drag, squeeze your applicator to get the residual coating that soaked in the pad or spray more coating on the surface/applicator.

Using ONR right before the coating is a bad idea. Ive never used it before but I'm sure it has some type of gloss enhancer/wax/polymer in it which will jeopardize the coatings abilities.

[Tato]

I don't recommend using nothing like ONR just before applying the coating, but I must say, if you polished the car, stripped old LSPs, you'll not have any problem.

Please, take a look at my thoughts here:
http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...ally-more.html

I'm following some tests on PBL coating, and I can assure you it's more towards 'binding' to surface than not.

To advance, after reading my post recommended above, the Application Over Menzerna Polishing Oils is holding normally, no noticeable flaw.

After polishing car to a beautiful finish, I also do not experience a lot of enhancement 'in looks' after applying PBL coating. But as the days goes on, you'll see your finish maintained, and you'll truly feel if you coated the car to a good standard in the first wash. And after months, wash after wash, you can return the car closer to just-coated fashion.

Wait a week, and do the first wash, if you cannot tell coating is there (crazy water beading, in example), you'll know the real answer to your question.


I'm doing some tests, applying a second coating.

Although we (me and whoever I'm discussing this with) haven't decided when it's the best time to reapply a second coat, I'm doing (again) some tests and applying 2 coats at once, some a day later, a week later, and a month later.

The secondary applications (but not the same day or a day after) are being applied this way:

Wash, Surface cleansing polish, re-coat.

I also posted some 'how-to' apply the coating, based on what I'm doing lately after applying uncountable PBL coatings in customers cars.

Today I've applied one again, and followed basically my directions on the thread that follows:

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...ml#post1094925

Please, I'd like to help you out but I'm in a hurry right now.

After taking a look on what I've recommended you above, please, feel free to question here anything you need,

You can also shoot me a PM whenever you want, feel free for it.

Hope I could help,

Kind Regards.

[RobertJ34]

To be very simple and to the point, shouldn't have used ONR. (has polymers/lubricants in it-thus effecting the ability of the coating to adhere to clean paint)

use an IPA, CarPro Eraser, etc (stuff to completely strip oilers/cleaners etc) off of the car, then you can use the coating.

[swanicyouth]

My guess is the alcohol/solvent/carrier in the coating cuts through the ONR. You can use ONR on a surface and then OptiCoat it without issue.

However, I still wouldn't do it. If the car is clean, and your towel and environment is clean; you should be able to safely remove dust with Prep Al or IPA.

[JohnGriffith]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

It's supposed to rain on and off the next few days so I'll see how the coating performs. I was thinking of polishing the car again this weeked with the PBL cleaner and reapply the coating but I wonder if the cleaner will actually remove the coating or if I would have to clay 1st to remove it.

John

[aim4squirrels]

You wont get the coating off with anything other than an abrasive polish.

Claying won't remove it, nor will the PBL Cleaner.

If half the car was done properly and the other half gives up the ghost, you'll know it in a few weeks when you wash it and the water beading and sheeting is significantly different. You should be able to lightly polish the bad half and reapply with surface cleanser and then re-coat the bad half. A little overlap into the good section with the surface coating shouldn't affect anything.

Last weekend, I had a runaway shopping cart left in the lot at the grocery store roll into the rear of my car and leave a nice marr down the very back side panel. Luckily, it was very light and I was able to use Meg's Ultimate Polish to remove the paint transfer from the cart. I re-prepped the area with the cleansing agent, and reapplied a couple spritzes of the surface coating.

Today you can't event tell where it happened and where I had to "blend" the coating in.

[cleanmycorolla]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

It's supposed to rain on and off the next few days so I'll see how the coating performs. I was thinking of polishing the car again this weeked with the PBL cleaner and reapply the coating but I wonder if the cleaner will actually remove the coating or if I would have to clay 1st to remove it.

John

PBL Paint Cleaner wont remove the coating, you'll need to repolish those areas.