"Acid baths" for ceramic coatings that have been on for 6 months plus???

[fightnews]

I've heard people talk about using different acids (I think?) to remove road film and contamination from ceramic coatings that have been daily driven for a while. I've heard people say they use Iron removers but is that the only think you can use?

What about stuff like ps21 total auto wash, polish angel ultrared, snow foam, clean slate, or even a paint cleaner that you rub on? How about the new actifoam stuff from sonax?

What do you guys think are the best products to use for this purpose?

[expdetailing]

Carpro's Reset Shampoo was made specifically for this purpose and it is ph neutral.

[Bruno Soares]

Carpro's Reset Shampoo was made specifically for this purpose and it is ph neutral.

I think Reset is not pH neutral, and it's not acid, it's slightly basic. If I remember correctly, it has a pH of 8.9. I'm pulling this from memory and not checking the SDS for it. That pH is totally fine for coatings but can reduce the life of sealants/waxes.

But you are right that it's a great soap for coatings. That's all I use on the paint now. It can be expensive for those doing washes in large volume but for the hobbyist I think it's not bad.

[Rsurfer]

I think Reset is not pH neutral, and it's not acid, it's slightly basic. If I remember correctly, it has a pH of 8.9. I'm pulling this from memory and not checking the SDS for it. That pH is totally fine for coatings but can reduce the life of sealants/waxes.

But you are right that it's a great soap for coatings. That's all I use on the paint now. It can be expensive for those doing washes in large volume but for the hobbyist I think it's not bad.

Haven't done the math, but 1.35 oz per 5 gallons is pretty economical.

[SWETM]

The acid baths are mostly for the mineral deposits and lime scale build up if you have those. Then of cause it going to be remove other dirt and contaminants. It's a little tricky to recommend products to the forum rules though. But you have most consumer coatings own decon products.

Take Carpro for an example. Reset car soap is just a car soap and it's awesome for being a car soap. But sometimes it's not enough and needs other chemical products to get off the contaminants that you may have gotten. And the proof or what you could say is that the water behavior has degraded already after 6-12 months on a cquarts coating. Also remember that if you have Carpro Gliss v1 at least this is not recommended to use TarX as it will removing some of the top coating and also the Reload. Reload is easy to just reapply but Gliss v1 can be a little harder to rescue. I don't know how Gliss v2 is with TarX unfortuneally.

If I where to be doing a decon wash on a Carpro coating. How I start depends on how clean the car is. And I also do a test spot with the chemical product where it has been able to accumulate the most if it has done it. I have always a PW and a blowdrier in my case a leafblower. Say it's 1 week since washed and generally not so dirty.

Prewash foam and PW clean rinsing it off and blowdry it. You could just spray on Carpro MultiX at 1:10 in the foamcannon bottle or a pump pressure spray bottle or a spray bottle with 1:10-1:20 depending on how dirty it is. If it's not foaming so good ad 1 part of Reset in the foamcannon bottle also.

TarX I do the test spot on a section behind any of the wheels. If I see it's starting to desolve tar spots it's a full application of this on the vertical panels. And if you have tree sap spots it's also applyied on the horisontall panels. This is fast reaction so apply only as you will be rinsing it off before it dries on you. Skip spraying it on the lights and glass and plastic trim and rubber. It's no problem if it's coming some on these parts but rinse these first if do. Make sure you rinse it off very thoroughly and blowdry.

IronX is next up. Why is IronX the second step? Because of the possible that the tar spots has covered the iron particals. And if you have iron particals they are easier to hold on to dirt and contaminants and especially tar and sap. But test spot on the same place as you did with TarX. If you have iron particals here or you have a bleeding anyways but not from spots. I apply it on the vertical panels if only iron particals. And if I get a bleeding reaction on the test spot on the hood or roof I do the whole car. Let the chemicals work long enough and just before it's dries on you. You rinse it off very thoroughly with with the PW and use the water pressure from the PW to clean with. Some also wash it off with the Reset car soap instead. I don't like this as iron particals can be hard to get out of the wash media you are useing. It's almost like use the wash media you are useing on the wheels and use it on the paint. If you still want to be washing it off I would use a wash mitt that gets degraded to wheels or toss it. The bleeding that's not from spots but more of a uniform bleeding on mostly horisontall panels is proberly industrial fallout.

Wash with Reset and dry.

The last step is to use the Carpro Spotless water spot remover. Have an eye on the water behavior and if it's coming back more than before. If you have still areas where you have a degraded water behavior. I test with Spotless on these parts and sometimes 2 applications can be needed to see a difference. If this takes back the hydrophobic cararictics then I do it on the whole paint and windows. It's harder to see how it works but from the water behavior.

Evaluate if you would be doing a Reload or Elixir or Hydro2 topping. Hopefully this decon is bringing your coating up in effectiveness on the water behavior and self cleaning ability. These decon washes gets less effective if you use a stronger topper regualary. So a month or 3-5 washes I would only wash with Reset and don't apply anything else. To get the toppers to degrade or fail before you do a thorough decon wash.

Is this too much? I don't think so as a coating is made to last a very long time. And this is very depending on where you live and where you drive and how much you are driving. Also the environment where you park the vehical has an impact on the contaminants.

And why test all this different products? It's cause different kind of chemicals desolves different kind of dirt and contaminants. Also it's hard to say what kind of contaminants you have that cloggs your coating. So test spot is what I do to see how it works on that kind of contaminants. It's also not a garanty that you have contaminants. But if you do this decon washes you know your coating is on top of it's behavior. If you have contaminants of one kind that is more of it. It can be a good option to use that chemical product more often to keep them on the lowerbuild up.

Almost every consumer coatings has their own decon products that you can use. Or use another brands decon products as they are made for doing the same thing.

[FUNX650]

Re: "Acid baths" for ceramic coatings...???

•“Acid Baths” are so
60s-era Psychedelic! ☮

-So...
Just Say No!

************************************

What about stuff like ps21 total auto wash...

IMO:
P21S TAW—diluted @~10:1—will
make an excellent road-film and
contaminants remover.


Bob

[fightnews]

Carpro's Reset Shampoo was made specifically for this purpose and it is ph neutral.

I don't think so. It was made to be a maintenance soap that leaves nothing behind to interfere with the coating. It's not going to remove heavy road film.

[Mike@ShineStruck]

Acid will eat iron contaminates like a fallout and also allot of the same Contaminates of what I claybar does.

They work well to reset hydrophobics and even prep for a coating job

I've always used CS-II Dewax

[Bruno Soares]

Haven't done the math, but 1.35 oz per 5 gallons is pretty economical.

Right but a pro might prefer something like Hyperwash for a better cost per wash. Since I only wash 2 cars Reset is great for me.

[expdetailing]

I think Reset is not pH neutral, and it's not acid, it's slightly basic. If I remember correctly, it has a pH of 8.9. I'm pulling this from memory and not checking the SDS for it. That pH is totally fine for coatings but can reduce the life of sealants/waxes.

But you are right that it's a great soap for coatings. That's all I use on the paint now. It can be expensive for those doing washes in large volume but for the hobbyist I think it's not bad.

"CarPro Reset Intensive Car Shampoo is formulated with intelligent pH surfactants that give Reset...

Benefits of CarPro Reset:
Intelligent pH Surfactants provide a strong cleaning and foaming action, whilst remaining mild and pH-Neutral (7) in use."