IAJack
05-07-2020, 07:26 PM
I present to you for caution and entertainment a tale of how to not screw up your coating. I am a total amateur, but I try to do my best to learn and at least not do any harm. Hopefully you can all either learn from my tale or have a lot of fun laughing at me. I am not a great writer but bear with me here.
In Feb. I purchased a 2019 F150 in Magma Red (dark burgundy to where it looks black except in bright sun). I brought it home and the first weekend I had I washed it (two buckets), clayed it using iron remover clay bar lube, and then used an random orbital polisher with Chemical Guys #36 and #38, then washed it again. I have fairly hard water here at home so then I wiped it down the best I could and removed any water spots, again I was doing good. So then I decide to put on a coating of Mothers CMX ceramic spray which went on and wiped off easy. It seemed to darken the finish quite a bit but looked great.
Forward about 6 weeks and the CMX was still beading but I wanted to try and touch it up or make it better if I could. A friend recommended Meguires Ceramic spray so I figured ahh, they are both ceramic what can it hurt. I put on a layer and wiped it off per the instructions. It seemed ok but kinda left some streaks and water marks that needed wiped off. When I put this on it was kinda warming up here in AZ and you could cook on the hood of the dark paint when outside. The next time I washed the vehicle and tried to wipe it down I noticed that it was leaving holograms and it was like smearing clear cooking oil over it. No matter how much I wiped there was a sorta greasy haze that moved around and smeared as I wiped. I was not happy with this so I though I would just wash it off and start over.
Forward again to today. I tried wiping the surface with a 50/50 IPA mix that I had, and that really didn't do a lot and again kinda smeared. Off to the car wash with some buckets and a bottle of Adams surface prep soap. I washed it all down and did the spot free rinse and the beading / sheeting was gone so I thought I was good. I get home, pull it in the garage and started to inspect with a light and there were a few water spots. I grabbed a nice soft towel and start to wipe and under the inspection light more smearing. I was pretty frustrated at this point and I was out of IPA so I grabbed a can of invisible glass and used it to wipe down the tailgate as a test area. That did the trick and removed whatever crap was still left on the surface, so I wiped down the entire truck.
I now had a clean slate again so I used just one coat of the Meguires ceramic spray. It went on ok but it did leave very faint "ghost streaks" and water marks under bright light that are a ##### to wipe away. I had to use quite a bit of pressure to hand polish them away. I dont have all of them out but close and I am happy with the finish now and at least it isn't a greasy mess.
So there you go, another amateur tale of what not to do. So go ahead and blast away at me for everything I did wrong. I will put on my big boy pants and hopefully learn some more too. One thing I am going to have to take away from this and learn to accept is that a daily driver finish will only be so good and never perfect and OCD ppl should not buy dark colored vehicles.
In Feb. I purchased a 2019 F150 in Magma Red (dark burgundy to where it looks black except in bright sun). I brought it home and the first weekend I had I washed it (two buckets), clayed it using iron remover clay bar lube, and then used an random orbital polisher with Chemical Guys #36 and #38, then washed it again. I have fairly hard water here at home so then I wiped it down the best I could and removed any water spots, again I was doing good. So then I decide to put on a coating of Mothers CMX ceramic spray which went on and wiped off easy. It seemed to darken the finish quite a bit but looked great.
Forward about 6 weeks and the CMX was still beading but I wanted to try and touch it up or make it better if I could. A friend recommended Meguires Ceramic spray so I figured ahh, they are both ceramic what can it hurt. I put on a layer and wiped it off per the instructions. It seemed ok but kinda left some streaks and water marks that needed wiped off. When I put this on it was kinda warming up here in AZ and you could cook on the hood of the dark paint when outside. The next time I washed the vehicle and tried to wipe it down I noticed that it was leaving holograms and it was like smearing clear cooking oil over it. No matter how much I wiped there was a sorta greasy haze that moved around and smeared as I wiped. I was not happy with this so I though I would just wash it off and start over.
Forward again to today. I tried wiping the surface with a 50/50 IPA mix that I had, and that really didn't do a lot and again kinda smeared. Off to the car wash with some buckets and a bottle of Adams surface prep soap. I washed it all down and did the spot free rinse and the beading / sheeting was gone so I thought I was good. I get home, pull it in the garage and started to inspect with a light and there were a few water spots. I grabbed a nice soft towel and start to wipe and under the inspection light more smearing. I was pretty frustrated at this point and I was out of IPA so I grabbed a can of invisible glass and used it to wipe down the tailgate as a test area. That did the trick and removed whatever crap was still left on the surface, so I wiped down the entire truck.
I now had a clean slate again so I used just one coat of the Meguires ceramic spray. It went on ok but it did leave very faint "ghost streaks" and water marks under bright light that are a ##### to wipe away. I had to use quite a bit of pressure to hand polish them away. I dont have all of them out but close and I am happy with the finish now and at least it isn't a greasy mess.
So there you go, another amateur tale of what not to do. So go ahead and blast away at me for everything I did wrong. I will put on my big boy pants and hopefully learn some more too. One thing I am going to have to take away from this and learn to accept is that a daily driver finish will only be so good and never perfect and OCD ppl should not buy dark colored vehicles.