I'm about done with ceramic coatings, not worth it , need suggestions

[rick100]

Before you flame me , I ve been detailing for around 5 years , my own cars and some family cars. I do not do clients even though i ve been ask by friends since I think people's expectations are too high and my I feel like I probably would go over and beyond on a friends car, more over than my own car.

Having said that, I m about done with ceramic coatings. I m not sure if the coating I m using is bad , I mean it looks very good but I m having horrible issues with water spots. I ve done 2 cars with the same coating , here is my story

first car is my own , 2019 audi A5 sportback black , the coating of choice is gyeon pure . I spent the whole day correcting the car, car pro essence and HD one with a uro pad, nothing too heavy. Application was easy but buffing the coating is a bit hard. I only had 2 high spots which I ve corrected next day. The coating says no washing for 14 days . The car is garage kept but I still use it for work, during the 12 days it rained 3 times and its summer in Toronto. After day 12 , I decided to wash the car, all perfect , except the damn hood full of water spots. I ve tried a car pro spotless and nothing , I was able to remove a few. Long story short , I had to re polish the hood to remove the water spots . I was so mad that the stupid coating did not help with the water spotting , I mean usually I would ve never let the car go without a wash after so many days , specially if it rained during the summer . After removing the water spots, I decided not to put any more ceramic coating on the hood, instead I applied car pro essence plus and reload. No issues with water spotting now and it has rain.

second car is my brothers audi 2011 audi A4. Same deal as my car, after 2 weeks we went ahead and washed the car , again full of water spots in the hood. We tried washing it 3 times , eraser , car pro spotless and nothing. Again we had to polish the whole damn hood to get rid of the water spots. 2 weeks and the stupid coating cant even protect against water spotting. No more ceramic coating on the hood , instead we are trying car pro gliss , I had some left from a previous application to another car.

Here is the deal , all the money spend on a product that is so useless , I may as well just put a cheap ceramic spray from Walmart at this point. Thank God I have the tools to correct the water spots but imagine if I would ve paid someone to apply a ceramic coating on my car.
Also you go through the hassles of slowly applying the damn coating on the car, throwing out towels , coming back to fix high spots.

I m having a hard time understanding the benefit of a full ceramic coating, I mean , they are horrible against water spotting ( I had the same issue with opti coating) , you need a topper on top of a coating to prevent water spotting. I mean , may as well just put a " topper" by itself and forget about the coating. The process would be much easier , cheaper , same water beadings . It would be less durable sure, but I would rather reapply a topper or ceramic spray once a month than going through the whole ceramic application experience.

In all honesty I m looking at my audi with essence plus on the hood and the ceramic coating on the remaining of the car. I can not tell the difference , the water behavior is the same , the hood actually looks a bit more shiny which may just be the lighting. I had two neighbors drop by while I was looking at the car, they could not tell that the hood did not have a ceramic coating .

Needless to say , my days of ceramic coating are done. From now on , I would use a lite coating , gliss , car pro essence plus , or a quality ceramic wax, even paste wax

As per recommendations, can any here recommend a good product that would help with water spotting? . I m hopping gliss is the answer but any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated

[rick100]

sorry the low quality pictures but it wont allow me to load better quality

car has car pro essence plus on the hood and gyeon pure on the remaining

[The Guz]

In before the anti-coating people hop in.

[Coatingsarecrack]

That is the main reason for topping the coating. Funny I had no issues with water spotting when I applied CQUK 3 on my daily and we get a lot of rain here in WA.

The internet scared me about those but I believe it was toppers I was using.

I also did not seem to have issues with water behavior changing but most times I was using a high end topper like Kami OC and PA Cosmic.

Did you apply Cure over Pure? Gyeon recommends if you might see rain.

If wanting to go just sealant route I like the to I mentioned above applied every 2-3 months for max protect.

If not wanting to spend the money on the above two, Griots Ceramic 3-1 or Shine Supply Clutch are my go too in the $30 a bottle crowd.

For something in the i between Adam’s ceramic spray coating. Marketed like a Lite Ceramic coating it is more of a strong sealant. Easy to apply and reapply.


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[rick100]

That is the main reason for topping the coating. Funny I had no issues with water spotting when I applied CQUK 3 on my daily and we get a lot of rain here in WA.

The internet scared me about those but I believe it was toppers I was using.

I also did not seem to have issues with water behavior changing but most times I was using a high end topper like Kami OC and PA Cosmic.

Did you apply Cure over Pure? Gyeon recommends if you might see rain.

If wanting to go just sealant route I like the to I mentioned above applied every 2-3 months for max protect.

If not wanting to spend the money on the above two, Griots Ceramic 3-1 or Shine Supply Clutch are my go too in the $30 a bottle crowd.

For something in the i between Adam’s ceramic spray coating. Marketed like a Lite Ceramic coating it is more of a strong sealant. Easy to apply and reapply.


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I did not have any topper applied on top of pure evo , but again goes back to my point , what is the point of the ceramic coating if I m going to apply a topper on top of it . Like the car is going to adapt to the hydrophobics characteristic of the top layer , which is in this case the topper. The ceramic coating is just a layer between the clearcoat and topper doing nothing.
to me the ceramic coating its not doing anything for the hydrophobic properties since the toppers is the one doing that job, its not making the car look better since I have 2 cars with ceramic coating and just a sealant apply on it and I can not tell the difference at all, its not scratch resistant , its not water spot resistance. The only benefit I see is that it may have better chemical resistance but then again my car is not exposed to any of that. The most it will be exposed is bird crap, which I m sure a quality sealant would fight against

If I see a water spot now on my car , I can just polish off the spot without having to worry about reapplying a ceramic coating to the whole hood , which means taking out my da polisher, removing the ceramic coating , applying a new coat, throwing away my microfiber towels then waiting another 2 weeks to wash my car, hoping that it wont rain during these days ...

I ll look into Kami OC and PA Cosmic , thanks for the suggestion

[Dr Oldz]

I hear you on the water spotting issue. My area has acid rain and most coatings spot up.

The two consumer coatings that really held up well for water spotting are CK UK 3.0 and CK Sic. The customers vehicles that I have done with these are holding up really well. I generally don’t use any toppers on them besides an occasional wash with WG Uber SIO2 coating wash if the coating is aged. I do also use 3D bead it up as a drying aid on each wash. That seems to work well for me.

[rick100]

I hear you on the water spotting issue. My area has acid rain and most coatings spot up.

The two consumer coatings that really held up well for water spotting are CK UK 3.0 and CK Sic. The customers vehicles that I have done with these are holding up really well. I generally don’t use any toppers on them besides an occasional wash with WG Uber SIO2 coating wash if the coating is aged. I do also use 3D bead it up as a drying aid on each wash. That seems to work well for me.

hey thanks for the recommendation!

[dgage]

One of Cquartz SiC focuses was to provide more protection from chemicals/minerals. It can be used by itself or over CQuartz UK 3.0, which is a really good combination for most protection by a coating.

But while that might work for you, I’m not sure that’s what I would suggest. I would look for a coating or sealant that focuses more on sheeting the water, which is more popular in Europe vs the beading that Americans seem to prefer.

Guys and gals, any paint protection recommendations that sheet instead of bead that you’d recommend?

[opie]

Coatings are more susceptible to water spots....especially during the first two weeks of the curing process. That's why gyeon Recommend cure. Just like crack said.

That could a possiblilty why you had spotting issues. I know I had a water spotting issue one time I did not use cure. Every time since then I've used care and never had one issue

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[BadgerRivFan]

I think your location has a lot to do with this issue. I can’t offer any specific advice, other than to make an observation that your geography and weather in your part of the world seems to make a big difference.

I don’t experience any water spotting issues in my area.

Have you experimented with other coating brands? Perhaps there is one that works better for your location. I would not make a blanket statement that all coatings are susceptible to water spotting issues however.

Unfortunately, trial and error is probably the only way to know for sure what works best for you. Given your initial frustration, you may not want to put the time and money into experimenting. I get that, so in your case perhaps just stick with what you feel comfortable with and is working for you.

You’re welcome for this insightful “help.“

P.S. Dr. Oldz… if you’re using 3D Bead It Up as a drying aid after every wash, then you ARE using a topper, lol .