I answer this question by telling a "kind of" joke.
As I'm standing in front of a person asking me about a new product, I turn my self around in a circle and as I'm taking a few steps to turn-around in a circle I say,
In the time it takes me to turn-around in a circle there's a new coating on the market.
Usually the person or people I'm talking to and myself have a laugh and then continue with the discussion. Point being, is "coatings" have hit the
tipping point where mainstream Joe and Joanne Consumer now know the "term" but are pretty much
un-educated about the product and more important the
PROCESS required to apply or to use coating-lingo,
INSTALL a coating.
Reminds me of
Beanie Babies and
Cabbage Patch Dolls, neither of which I collected for the record.
To wrap-up my conversation with the person or persons, I give them the same advice I've been giving all my life in this industry and to be safe, go with an established brand with a great reputation. That either makes sense or goes over their head and after I walk away they are probably going back to Facebook to watch some amazing demonstration of water running off a car hood.
I met an older gentleman just last week that asked me about F11 and I told him the story I just shared above. And "yes" as I told the story I turned myself around in a circle.
He then told me he loves Topcoat F11 and bus it by the gallon.
First I get tired of people that are testing me by asking me questions without first being up front with me. In this case he's asking me my opinion about a product he already owns, uses and loves but he didn't make that apparent on purpose before asking me his question.
Second - the sun was out so I looked at the finish on his car and sure the paint was shiny but it was all swirled out. I could tell right away from his talk and the finish on his car he was an expert on paint care. So I let him talk and talk and talk about how great his other cars all look while I washed a Camaro.
I've never used Topcoat F11 and my guess is at a minimum it's a decent product. MOST coatings on the market if applied to clean car paint will make water bead up and run off a car hood. If that's all a person wants then there are probably a lot cheaper ways to get water to bead up and run off your car's hood.
Me?
I guess I appreciate the process as much as the LSP and think that for nice cars, the paint should be corrected at least to some level before chemically stripping the paint and then installing a paint coating. Now this of course is only for people that look at their car as an extension of their personality and take pride in taking care of all their possessions and/or investments.
For the average Joe Consumer that doesn't wash and wax their car anyways, (and when I drive down the road that would be about 90% of the people I see driving a car), then get the F11 and have at it.
Now days, when I detail a car I take a picture of everything I use. In my next write-up I will list all the items and what they cost. This would be what it would cost for a person that owns nothing to coat their car. I do this because most people don't know that before you can apply any coating you need to,
- Wash
- Decontaminate
- Machine polish
- Chemically strip
- Install coating
And to go with each one of those steps you need,
- Tools
- Chemicals - lots of them
- Pads - lots of them
- Towels - lots of them and not junky towels but GOOD and contaminant free towels
- The solvent and coating
Yep... we've hit the tipping point, everyone knows or is getting to know the word "ceramic paint coating" but now comes the boring part of education and bringing the masses up to speed on what they need BESIDES the coating to coat their Toyota Prius.
And here's the good news.... Autogeek provides the education and we sell all the stuff to make the magic happen.
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