Sealants vs Coatings

[CAdetailer]

First thing you should do is decide what you want out of a coating; things to consider:

1. Durability, longevity

2. What kind of appearance? i.e. hard, candy-like gloss or deeper, warmer wax-like glow

3. Ease of application important?

4. Climate; what might work nice in Arizona (dry) might not be so nice in New Jersey (rain/snow)

5. Do you like beading or sheeting?

6. Are self-cleaning characteristics important to you or are you gonna wash your car weekly regardless?

7. How much do you wanna spend?

8. Daily driver or hobby car?

While quartz/glass/ceramic coatings are all in the same general category with respect to LSP’s, there are subtle differences in them and you may as well go with one that is strong in your primary areas of concern.

And FWIW, claims of hardness, scratch resistance and such are, IMO, way over-marketed with coatings. While they may provide some minor resistance to light marring, it's a harsh world out there and many things (jewelry banging paint around door handles, boxes hitting trunk areas while loading, leaning on hood of vehicle with grimy sweatshirts, etc) *will* leave a mark. Problem with coatings is the only way to remedy those marks/marring is to re-polish (removing coating) and re-coating that area, generally an entire panel as many coatings don't lend themselves well to spot fixes. If you're horribly OCD-ish about having a totally defect free car for 2 years, a coating may not be the best way to go...or a 'lighter' coating like Gyeon CanCoat may be more appropriate.

I'm a coating junkie but there are certain allowances you have to learn to live with; for me the benefits of a coating far outweigh the downside(s) but that's a decision only you can make. Read and research...there is no *BEST* coating but there likely is a *BEST FOR YOU*.

I live in NE Ohio so all ny findings/thoughts are based on that climate. The characteristics of a coating that matter most to me are:

1. Great Self Cleaning Abilities: Our cars see rain and often get rained on in the morning and then sit outside in the sun in the afternoon; don’t like waterspots. I like clean cars but don’t like cleaning cars.

2. Durability and resistance to environmental contamination like water spots and bird bombs. Don’t wanna have to worry about running home and immediately dealing with removing things that would otherwise etch bare paint. Like hard water spots did to our Corvette during the Zaino years. Also has to last cuz I don’t wanna be hauling out compounds and polishes every Spring, given reasonable maintenance.

3. Appearance: Well, stuff has to look good. Has to accentuate body lines, curves and hard edges. It needs to make me stop and admire it when walking towards it, walking away from it or catching a glance in the garage when I take out the garbage.

To be honest, of all the coatings I've tried, there were really no bad products but some did particular things a little better/different than others so I went with the one (s) that excelled in areas I found important.

YMMV

Budget Plan,
So out of your list of features/benefits here, which coatings or combo of coatings achieve which of these results?

[RippyD]

Don't you have the same problem with a wax or sealant with the same maintance?

Where from do you think you are getting those water spots? As in when washing or rain or sprinklers overspray or another way.

I don't have the same problem with sealants. They don't seen to spot as easily, and if they do the spots can generally be removed. Worst case you remove and replace the sealant which is much easier than removing and replacing a coating. Less of an issue b/c I generally don't see bad spotting on my sealants.