Water Spot Issues after Coatings are applied and how Paint reacts to hot and cold temperatures

[Mike Phillips]

Hey all, and Velocitybts...

Just now found this thread, clicked on it and read it.

Great discussion. No simple answer. The issues brought up are challenging and that's probably why you don't see any great information about how to address them and that's because there's now fast or easy way to approach them.

For example, heating up a body panel or the entire car to expand the surface, (I'd say sheet metal but not all cars or all body panels are made from metal), so you can inspect it for un-exposed past damage i.e. water spots is both time consuming and for most people, simply un-doable. At least I've never seen anyone write a how-to article with pictures and links to the products needed to do this. (I write a lot of articles but I can't write them all).

I've written a number of times on this forum that my own experience is that a coated car gets a dirt stain on the coating just like any LSP on any car. The stain doesn't wash off. So how do you get the dirt stain off?

If you compound or polish the paint now the coating is gone. So now what? Re-coat the car? If you try any other way to remove the dirt stain you still don't know what's left on the surface because there's no true or accurate test to determine what's on the surface. All anyone can do is simply guess.

And that's how coatings go...

That's why "m not sure I'm sold on the idea of long lasting anything, waxes, sealants or coatings. Sure the "protection" might be there but if the car in question is a DAILY DRIVER then the surface is going to get a dirt stain on the surface and for this reason if you want the car to look it's best ALL THE TIME then you must do something to it at least once in a while.

Kind of back to what I started typing about 20 years ago...

“Find something you like and use it often”


Only "Find something you like and use it often" doesn't apply to coatings but it does apply to cleaner/waxes. Thus the reason I use a light cutting cleaner/wax to maintain that show room new look on my own daily driver that is driven, parked and stored outside 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.


If you’re reading this and you don’t know what I mean when I say that the paint on daily driver’s gets dirty? Then read these two articles and look at the pictures…





Road Film - If you drive your car in the rain your car has road film





Here's why you need to polish paint...

Super Soft Paint------------I have one of the softest paints on cars now. On two of my cars. Yes, it is a pain!!!!!!!!!!!!. I worked with Mike several years ago on my 02' Mustang 5.0 in Navy Blue, where on the hood no matter what I did slight marring showed up.

The Mike you're talking about above? Is that me? Is that Mike Lambert? Or a different Mike?

I'm trying to remember the Mustang?

[axel06]

A cleaner wax every weekend for the win

[Velocitybts]

Mike, its Andrew. you helped on the Navy Blue Mustang 2 years back through my email (same as forum name)(ie...PB AM new DB11 paint correction that the guy never called you back on) with the issue of micro marring on front hood due to soft paint and walked me through the process of eliminating each step and find out where the problem was coming from. Hope that jogs your memory, but if not as you can see it helped immensely.

----"If you compound or polish the paint now the coating is gone. So now what? Re-coat the car? If you try any other way to remove the dirt stain you still don't know what's left on the surface because there's no true or accurate test to determine what's on the surface. All anyone can do is simply guess."

Ultimately that is my largest point with using Coatings. You will have to compound and polish to remove the stain, or to again remove scratches. Either way, you realistically don't know the amount left on the surface so you almost don't know when you have removed all the coating. Hence lowering the CC levels. DD cars it doesn't make a huge diff. But an exotic it could mean everything.

I wanted to bring into light the possible issues for using coatings and not necessarily comparing them to sealents. But, you will have to remove portions at some point for obvious reasons. For people who sell this to their customers, do they think about down the road, or just the sale of the product up front. Coatings are a huge deal right now in the industry. People rave about them to the point on one site the detailer said
"it will take a matter of years to get it in that condition again if proper wash methods are used. If the owner were to use a cheap mitt, beach towel, and sponge used on the wheels for the paint, it won’t take long to scratch up the coating. That’s the beauty of coatings, they take the abuse rather than the clear coat. it’s easier and cheaper to reapply the coating compared to adding more clear to a car."

Seems to me that detailer just told their customer on a very high end vehicle (and other detailers) that the Coating will be the substrate that takes the scratches and abuse not the paint. And then to repair that, all you have to do is re-apply the coating. WRONG from the word go. But that is one example of how people are upselling the products and explaining them to the masses. Coatings help protect the paint from the elements, but wont prevent scratching. (minor micro marring maybe yes, but towel and mitt and abuse no).

So, in reality I should have not used the example I did, and just dumbed this down to what do detailers think about down the road for their cars they coat. What issues do they find, or think they could have, just by applying the latest greatest coating. That is my whole point. No one talks about that. There are problems with coatings, however they depend on what the use was for the coating and what type of car it was used on.

Does that make some sense Mike P????? Just want to make sure this is constructive to the forum members and maybe even learn more about it myself. Seeing that a lot of members do professional work for their business, or want to be in the business and will likely sell coatings to make additional money ( I certainly have) the potential downfalls need to be discussed openly to come to a general consensus about them.
Thanks Mike for chiming in.

[rlmccarty2000]

The new CarPro Essence Plus was developed to repair marred and scratched coatings. I haven't been able to try it yet, but it fills a void in the coating installers arsenal.

[RPM_BR]

To Velocitybts
This thread is really interesting, learned a lot here.
All the info you presented was informative, rich in details, and your concern about coating issues after application is extremely valid.
I never thought about reocurring water spots behind the coating, but I had one case and also some complains in a whatsapp group I take part.
I've been coating a lot lately, and I have a lot of returning customers for maintenance wash.
What I can add is that coating is not as easy as I thought it would be, once I mastered the application technique, the car's appearance is degrading faster than I would've hoped, I mean in DD cars in the long run. Some comes back swirled due to improper washes, some with water spots on top of the coating, some are grabbier than others, and the never ending problem of coating application on finicky paints. One, as I said, had water spots below the coating on the hood, I had to remove it, repolish it and reapply it.
I always thought that water spots on paint would be taken care of through compounding, but now I know some few stubborns remain, and I adjusting my prep through adding water spot removal procedure (by white vinegar and water spot remover) after washing and before polishing starts.
Thanks for bringing the subject to our attention.
Best regards.

[Velocitybts]

The new CarPro Essence Plus was developed to repair marred and scratched coatings. I haven't been able to try it yet, but it fills a void in the coating installers arsenal.

The product is interesting, however .....

1. Glazes are the old product that has fillers to fill in marring and scratches, then without panel wipe apply your carnauba or sealant of choice. These fillers were a tool for detialers to improve the paint for a customer, but it only lasts several weeks pending number of washes. Eventually in a short time, this product is removed by washing and the swirls return with a vengeance.

2. CP Essence ---- appears to be a Quartz Silica version of a Glaze. Intended for coatings. I would be assuming its fillers are what they describe as silica product and likely actually bond to the current coating on the vehicle, in a sense filling what swirls are there. Since Essence is partly made up of whats in the original coating any fine marring that hasn't gotten into the paint likely would be filled and not seen any longer. This would last as long as your coating does. However, interested in seeing how long it lasts in areas where the marring and swirls have gone through the coating. Remember, most of the coatings cannot even be measured on the paint, so likely most if not all swirls or marring does go through the paint.

Both of those products have their purpose in the industry. Glazes mostly right before a car show, where any marring can be covered up and intended only for the show. Essence, maybe giving longevity to a coating, and helping with the reduction of swirls. However, in both cases it doesn't prevent the necessity to have to polish or correct the paint down the road. Coatings are an issue with that.

[Velocitybts]

To Velocitybts
This thread is really interesting, learned a lot here.
All the info you presented was informative, rich in details, and your concern about coating issues after application is extremely valid.
I never thought about reocurring water spots behind the coating, but I had one case and also some complains in a whatsapp group I take part.
I've been coating a lot lately, and I have a lot of returning customers for maintenance wash.
What I can add is that coating is not as easy as I thought it would be, once I mastered the application technique, the car's appearance is degrading faster than I would've hoped, I mean in DD cars in the long run. Some comes back swirled due to improper washes, some with water spots on top of the coating, some are grabbier than others, and the never ending problem of coating application on finicky paints. One, as I said, had water spots below the coating on the hood, I had to remove it, repolish it and reapply it.
I always thought that water spots on paint would be taken care of through compounding, but now I know some few stubborns remain, and I adjusting my prep through adding water spot removal procedure (by white vinegar and water spot remover) after washing and before polishing starts.
Thanks for bringing the subject to our attention.
Best regards.

@RPM_BR -----That was the whole purpose for the thread is so members can learn more of the products they use. Mike eluded to that in his post and said this topic hasn't been really discussed, which was my purpose.

The water spots issue comes from paint expanding and contracting and at what point in time the materials were on it, and that is exacerbated by using IR light which heats up the panel, causing some of the coating to embed itself into the paint when the panel cools. This happens at a micro level also when buffing panels, pending on the heat levels that occur.

Remember, the water spots sometimes occur, lets say during the day, when its hot and the panel is heated up drastically, when the rain, sprinklers etc.... falls on it, then dries. When the panel cools, a minute amount of the water spot chemicals get embedded into the paint. Thus after buffing you cant see them, but when the panel is heated up, then you do. ONLY way to remove those, is to heat up the panel to where they show up, then remove them with minimal heat build up. This is not likely much of a concern on your personal car, but a customers whose paint you are not familiar with. Never discussed on this forum.

Best way IMHO to upsell the coating, is to teach your customer how to protect their paint from future swirls. Maybe have a $40 kit, you include in your pricing, that has soap, wash mitt, proper drying towels etc... in it and give to the customer after your work is done and they can help prevent. Most customers who pay for a paint correction realize there is residual upkeep.

Ones who have a coating and get swirled, I personally wouldn't touch. No way to properly know how much clear is left to work with, let alone know fully when you have removed the coating. And charge a LOT more for the removal.

Essence may provide a solution to coatings to help with at least filling the swirls with something that wont wash away after a few washes. But still doesn't take away the fact there are swirls in the paint.

My main topic for this, is do you recommend a Coating for Exotics or possible collector cars? Or not? I personally after learning more about coatings and future possible issues with them, I wont recommend them, but the reasons are to give longevity to the paint down the road and to keep as much of that as possible for corrections down the road in 40 years. Re-painting and OEM paint are huge differences in values for collector cars or even run of the mill exotics. No one wants to pay for one with repainted panels. Why do that, when you can spend a few dollars more for one that is totally OEM. Issues that are important, but not to the every day detailer.

That's why I said DD cars putting coatings on are not an issue, and even correcting time and time again. In 10 years who cares, likely doesn't affect the value. As long as the owner likes the look its perfect.

Coatings for me -----------a DD no problem, wheels, wood trim with CC, metal parts/ trim, and CF parts I feel are perfect places to apply them. Paint, for me on high end ones only get sealants and carnaubas.

[waelwell]

Velocitybts - you presented an interesting situation and asked some good questions. I'm thrilled to see that Mike chimed in but my experience with post-application coating questions on this forum is that it can be tough to get straight answers. I don't believe that our industry has completely thought through the care and feeding of a coated car and the conflict that care creates with the sales pitch used to sell the coating in the first place.

Anyway, you asked about how to tell if you've completely removed a coating. I asked a similar question a while back and the answer appears to be that there isn't a way to tell for sure if a car has a coating... or not. So it goes without saying that if you're trying to buff off a coating, you're flying blind and have no way to tell if you are past the coating and into the clear coat.

You asked if shops accept previously coated cars for paint correction. After taking in a car that I didn't know was coated (and the customer didn't either) I asked this forum how they deal with coated cars. It took a page and a half of unrelated responses before Scott@IncrediblyDetailed stepped up and gave a straight response. Scott and GKSR both seem to offer the same services for both coated cars as uncoated cars with the addition of a charge to remove the coating before the other correction work begins. That is now my position as well.

Personally, I'm not yet sold on the coating concept. I think the benefits are oversold and in a few cases not true. For example, most coatings have some language that talks to the concept of scratch resistance (note, I did not say scratch proof). By now, we all know that coatings get scratched. A scratch is a scratch and it doesn't much matter if it was harder to make the scratch or not. What nobody is talking about is that when a coated car gets scratched, it costs more to correct it than an uncoated car. I continue to talk with owners to coated cars to get their thoughts.

Thanks for starting the thread.

Bill

[jonn127]

So if I'm reading some of this right, it's obvious that paint gets dirty, but are people saying that the coatings are getting stained as well?

[PreludeVTEC01]

Some really good knowledge being dropped in here!