Differences between sealant and ceramic coatings

[cheekyage]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get a better understanding on the differences of paint protection between ceramic and sealant.

Products such as CQuartz Finest and Opti-Coat seem to get mentioned quite a fair bit on here.

Any additional information or hint and tips would be great :)

[Pureshine]

Sealant like Menz Power Lock is not a permanent sealant and will last about 4-6 months

A sealant like Opti-coat is a permanent sealant that will last up to 2-3 years and Opti-coat pro can last up to 5 years. They will always be on until you remove them but there effectiveness wares after time.

[hernandez.art13]

I am new to coatings, but from what I've seen they look different too. For the most part.

[PiPUK]

It is primarily down to the way in which they bond to the surface. Starting with a basic wax (a professional wax won't be like this these days), there is practically no bond at all. A sealant will have an intermediate bond strength (not as strong as the internal paint bonding). A coating should have the strongest bonding, somewhat comparable to the bonding in the paint itself. Hence the coating should really not come off with anything that wouldn't do similar damage to the paint.

There are variations within this and obviously coatings themselves can have different hardness which will further modify their durability. Some of the more annoying variations are where someone has decided to call their long life sealant a 'coating' for marketing purposes.