Review & How-To: CarPro Hydro2 Touchless Silica Sealant

[rlmccarty2000]

Hydro2 beads much better than Reload. I have Hydro2 over the whole car and used Reload on the hood (trying to keep the bug guts at bay) and the car sheets and beads much, much better where I did not apply the Reload.

[Calendyr]

Good to know. Will have to add this to my next order...

[KB in MD]

What happens if you use it as full concentration, without diluting with water?

You're wasting product and money.

[TTQ B4U]

Hydro2 beads much better than Reload. I have Hydro2 over the whole car and used Reload on the hood (trying to keep the bug guts at bay) and the car sheets and beads much, much better where I did not apply the Reload.

I may have to just use what's left of my reload on the front nose of both my cars. Have used it but did not like the water spot issue on the vehicles that were coated with it. Both my cars seemed to be impacted heavily. I can make it work on the nose clips though in effort to reduce bug guts sticking.

[Riff]

Hello all,
I want to share my experience with this product and also, this is my first post so... HELLO EVERYONE!
My experience definitely compelled me to write a post so no one will have to go through what I did. I have a 2014 BMW 328i X Drive and it is a beautiful red color called Melbourne Red. I had received a couple samples of this product, enough to fill a 32 oz. spray bottle when properly diluted as directed. CarPro has usually impressed me with their products so I fearlessly applied per the instructions. It came out great! I loved it. The durability was impressive when you look at the ease of application, and it is really, really easy. That being said, my confidence level went way up for this and decided to offer it on a detail after I explained to the customer how awesome it was. He had been having a problem with water spots and he wanted something that would make water bead and sheet off his car.
It was an overcast day in Columbia, SC a couple days before Valentine's day this year and he arrived in his 2012 Honda Civic SI which was a brilliant bright blue color. I had done a one step detail on it a few weeks prior and there were some stubborn water spots on the window that needed attention. I ordered some things to address them and told him if he came by, I would give a quick maintenance wash for him after eliminating the water spots on the window. He travelled frequently all over the nation and there must have been some hard water he was frequently exposed to. I washed the car via foam cannon and he had requested a glossy shampoo finish since I would be applying the silica sealant post wash cycle. Looking back, I guess my experience made me feel too comfortable applying the Hydro2 so I haphazardly washed the car using Snow Soap from CarPro with a Foam Cannon on my a pressure washer. I added some CG Glossworks to the soap mixture because I had always had good results in reglossing a vehicle the I previously had detailed. There is fine print in the instructions saying not to use "gloss" shampoos and I had apparently overlooked this.
I always do the wheels first before I do the car. Upon finishing the wash while the vehicle was still wet, I started applying the Hydro2 just as I did to my own car. I did small sections at a time and rinsed promptly as directed. I even did the rims the end of this cycle. The sun was not out at all and it wasn't warm really at all, it was February. As I was re-rinsing the whole car to show him the sheeting and beading action it had we both noticed a haze almost that was not seeming to wash off. I grabbed a wash mitt, soaked it appropriately and tried to wipe off the hazard found out that stubborn whitish slime was over the entire vehicle and it was not coming off easily. I compare the difficulty removing it to a time when I applied Collonite945 to a vehicle and I got sidetracked and failed to remove the wax right away. I knew it would come off, Id just need some elbow grease or apply a bonnet to 6.5IN LC Yellow cutting pad and use my PC. This goop was not coming off at all, and it was all over the rims and the windows, the whole dang car! I was dumbfounded and made no excuses to him and told him I would take it off no matter what it took and I would not charge him at all for the mishap. I basically had to aggressively repolish the whole car, including windows, and re do the rims/tires. So basically a 1 hour wash and seal, turned into a 9 hour ordeal trying to remove the stubborn slime and put a sealer on it. I used BF SRC compound cause the BF finishing polish did not bite enough to remove it. Of course after using the SRC, I followed with BF FP, and sealed it up with BFWD. The bad thing also wasI never got a chance to look at the car in the daylight because I worked till after midnight trying to undo the sludge that formed on the car. I do have multiple 1000W light stands in my shop, but I always like to see the car in the daylight because it often exposes many things you just don't see when you work on a car indoors. I did the best I could and he could not wait any longer because it was really really late.
It was a nightmare experience! The lesson I learned was read all the product information on a product, and read it often. In the past, overlooking something that causes an issue was sort of how I got experience over the years. In my younger years I found out most all the stuff not to do, lol. I was just not expecting that using a gloss shampoo, or a shampoo with gloss enhancers would be so so so unforgiving. We should never stop learning or trying to get or be better, and learning from others mistakes is always a plus since you don't have to go through bad situations yourself. I have not heard back from this gentleman, and lucky for me he did not live here long or know too many people in the area so I got lucky in that my name and reputation were not tarnished by this mishap. I was so embarrassed but learned a valuable lesson. SO PEOPLE, IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE HYDRO2, USE IT EXACTLY AS DIRECTED, AN UNDER NOOOOOO CIRCUMSTANCES USE A CAR WASH THAT HAS ANY GLOSS ENHANCERS IN IT. I can only assume that is what caused it because that was the only small (actually BIG) thing I accidentally overlooked. Hope this does not happen to any of you! HAPPY DETAILING TO ALL and I think I will really enjoy this forum.
GOOD DAY!
Jeremy

Thanks for posting this! This could save someone a HUGE headache.

👍🏽

[JeffM]

prep all would possibly have worked.