[dnachmerp]

Hello there. I’m new to ceramic and graphene coatings. So I’m looking for a spray on easy to apply one and I’m debating whether to get adams polishes Graphene Ceramic Spray Coating or the Chemical Guys Hydro Speed.

Which is better and why. Thanks

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by dnachmerp

Hello there. I’m new to ceramic and graphene coatings. So I’m looking for a spray on easy to apply one and I’m debating whether to get adams polishes Graphene Ceramic Spray Coating or the Chemical Guys Hydro Speed.

Which is better and why. Thanks

This belongs in the detailing forum.

That said, as for graphene vs ceramic, it's like asking which glass of water is wetter.

As for brands, just get Turtle Wax Seal-n-shine; all things considered it's the best bang-4-$ water-based polymer spray out there.

And, just FYI, probably ignore Chemical Guys anything.

But for sprays there's really no reason to spend more than Turtle Wax SnS and, if you want mind blowing gloss, top it with their Spray Wax.

As for every other chemical, no reason to buy more than Superior Product stuff from O'Reilly's.

Road Warrior for pre-wash & wheels
cherry foam for shampoo (dirt buster is the bucket wash)
green all for an APC
pink perfection for a bug removing shampoo

if you're into rinseless wash, and you should be, then its mckee's n914

[dnachmerp]

opps... sorry about the wrong forum thing.

So just curious, what's the deal with chemical guys? why avoid them? what's the backstory?

thanks

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by dnachmerp

opps... sorry about the wrong forum thing.

So just curious, what's the deal with chemical guys? why avoid them? what's the backstory?

thanks

their stuff generally sucks.

Most all chemical brands are simply marketing companies that go to the same 1 or 2 chemical mixers, specify a color & scent, and then put it in a fancy bottle with their branding and then pay youtubers $20k to give it a good review and buy online advertising.

So what you're paying for is 95% marketing & influencers and 5% the actual product.

This is why there's no reason to buy basic chemicals from anywhere costly. All anyone needs is Superior Products stuff you can order from O'Reillys (I have nothing whatsoever to do with either of them) which you can buy in 5 gallon jerricans on sale during the holidays, and it's concentrate so that's like 20+ gallons of product for ~$40 shipped to your door. How much would 20 gallons of Chemical Guys wheel cleaner cost??? And if you're using SP Road Warrior, then it's both a wheel cleaner and pre-wash.

In fact my move is, if the car has been toasted in rain, foam down with Road Warrior, let dwell, then wash using the Garry Dean method, then rinse, then rinse again with McKee's N914 rinseless, then towel dry.

And there's no reason to pay ANY attention to marketing BS like "ceramic" when it comes to water-based sprays.

For example, TW Seal-n-Shine can be as low as $3 / bottle on sale or $12 if not, whereas TW ceramic Hybrid Flex Wax - which is great - is like $30. Is it 2x better because "ceramic"? No. In fact it's less durable!

There are some spays that might be worth it like NV's Nova Lustre, Anglewax, and Griot's stuff is ok but is it THAT much better than a $3 special TW SnS? Nope.

[BlkGS]

Chemical Guys is just very mass market stuff. Not bad but not great.

The spray versions of these coatings are much weaker than the glass bottles. They're not THAT .much easier to apply either, the real hassle of application is polishing and perfecting the paint finish beforehand.

I've used the Adams stuff. It's good. The glass bottle coating is really good too. Graphene helps prevent water from drying on the car, just a little bit. On a black car in Florida that matters more than a white car in the north would.

Turtle Wax has a TON of great options. Their graphene spray coating is great. Meguiars Hybrid ceramic is too. But the glass bottle stuff is a lot more durable.

[BruinMan]

Yeah the detailers forum is in the universal section.

Grussgott is probably the expert here. I’m a newbie and a big Adams Polishes fanboy. Plus they have a lot of How To YouTube videos, a nice store and detail center nearby.

Their Graphene Ceramic spray could last 6 months or more. But you need to prep your paint before using this. Wash, clay bar, polish, IPA and then apply the spray coating. You might even need to use their Iron remover and if you have scratches, you need to apply a correction compound as one of your steps. The glass bottle version is the best, but you need to be skilled to prevent high spots when you apply.

If you want some paint protection and want the water to repel; this is the way to go. Use an Ego leaf blower and watch the water fly off.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by BruinMan

Yeah the detailers forum is in the universal section.

Grussgott is probably the expert here. I’m a newbie and a big Adams Polishes fanboy. Plus they have a lot of How To YouTube videos, a nice store and detail center nearby.

Their Graphene Ceramic spray could last 6 months or more. But you need to prep your paint before using this. Wash, clay bar, polish, IPA and then apply the spray coating. You might even need to use their Iron remover and if you have scratches, you need to apply a correction compound as one of your steps. The glass bottle version is the best, but you need to be skilled to prevent high spots when you apply.

If you want some paint protection and want the water to repel; this is the way to go. Use an Ego leaf blower and watch the water fly off.

The Adams glass bottle stuff is so easy even a moron could do it. Wipe it on with a cross hatch pattern, then come back and level it off with a microfiber. You can't like, apply it to the whole car or anything silly like that, but a panel at a time is doable in most cases..I did half a panel at a time because I'm in hot and humid FL and it would flash almost immediately here.

I have a bottle of their spray stuff too. It just isn't really worth it considering the effort is all in the prep. If you've got like a silver car or something that you can't see swirls, maybe it's worthwhile to just spray it on and enjoy. But if you're doing it to make the car look it's best, all that prep up front polishing, claying, iron removing, etc is where the time is, not the coating itself.

[bubbajk]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

The Adams glass bottle stuff is so easy even a moron could do it.

As a confirmed moron, can you link to the exact product you are referencing 😂? Looking at this all online makes it difficult to tell all of these different products apart, glass or otherwise!

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by bubbajk

As a confirmed moron, can you link to the exact product you are referencing 😂? Looking at this all online makes it difficult to tell all of these different products apart, glass or otherwise!

https://adamspolishes.com/products/graphene-ceramic-coating%E2%84%A2-advanced?variant=39450748092513

I bought the kit with the light, I'd probably skip the light. I didn't use it and it takes a ton of batteries.

[LuckyBrand]

Turtle Wax has a TON of great options. Their graphene spray coating is great. Meguiars Hybrid ceramic is too. But the glass bottle stuff is a lot more durable.[/QUOTE]

I've used the Turtle Wax graphene spray and love it. Got a bottle for like 20 bucks and can do many, many cars with it and the coating lasts many, many months. Super easy on and off.

[dnachmerp]

thanks for all that info. i will definitely look into these other products.

[Alan l.]

Lots of great info in here already and agree with them. I've used a TON of car detail products over the years and i'm always changing things up.

Most spray on type coatings lasts about the same. From all the online tests turtle wax lasts the longest and the most resistant to harsh chemicals but I don't particularly like the shine it leaves (lack of). I use it as a topper over my glass bottle coatings after my car washes so the longevity doesn't really matter for me.

For more long term bottle coatings I've used cquartz UK for years as my go but recently found a new favorite. GTechniq CSL and EXO are unbelievably easy to apply and remove while leaving the surface slickest i've ever felt. Its so slick that even my wife commented how slippery her door handle was after it cured. Honestly its not much more work to apply and remove than those quick detail style coatings but this lasts much longer. Even their C2V3 quick style coating is very good in terms of slickness and shine.

Alan

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Alan l.

turtle wax lasts the longest and the most resistant to harsh chemicals but I don't particularly like the shine it leaves (lack of).

Not shiney enough?

[LuckyBrand]

Now thats a great color combo.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

The Adams glass bottle stuff is so easy even a moron could do it.

Adams does make good stuff overall, you just pay more for it than you need to for things like shampoo, wheel cleaner, et al but IME it is probably near the best you can buy.

For example, Adams wheel cleaner works better than P&S Brake Buster or Adams cherry shampoo might be the best out there.

I find the Superior Products stuff to be nearly equivalent for much less, so I buy that, but Adams is great.

Originally Posted by bubbajk

Looking at this all online makes it difficult to tell all of these different products apart, glass or otherwise!

Well here's the thing with the glass bottle stuff, i.e., resin-based vs water-based:

GOOD
* lasts longer, usually WAY longer
* looks just a bit better than the best water-based spray-ons

MAYBE NOT GOOD
* Doesn't prevent marring, so if you ever plan to polish (and you should) you have to polish it off; no biggie if it wasn't $$$ though
* Can be time intensive and/or leave high spots and/or water spots

And this is a good time to mention there's generally 2 kinds of polishing:

* Enhancement Polish:
No risk, super easy for noobs, removes zero clear coat, is the biggest factor in gloss, WAY more than any spray or coating, removes spider webs and light marring. Rupes white foam pads w/ pure polish

* Correcting Polish
Some risk, removes clear coat, can take some skill, removes even deep scratches but with risk. Rupes blue or yellow pads, blue or yellow polish

I mention this because if your goal is high gloss you're much better off doing an enhancement polish 1x / year and using a spray-on coating than using glass bottle ceramic


TBH, I can only think of two places where glass bottle ceramic is the right choice: Car is full PPF'd. The other is wheels.

In short, I'd much rather buy a Rupes polisher, pads, & polish than a ceramic bottle unless it's for the wheels since they don't/won't get polished easily.

[BlkGS]

A few clarifications...

All.pishing removes clear coat. We aren't talking a lot here, but a thing that is improving gloss is removing clear coat and making it a flatter surface. It's basically crazy high grit sanding.

The amount of clear coat you take off polishing is DIRECTLY related to two things, how bad the surface is and how close to perfect you want. On a brand new car a veryight polish is usually good enough (unless the dealer wash monkey touched it). On a car that's been washed with old rags and sat outside for years, a more aggressive polishing will be needed. In these cases, sometimes it's just not worth going for perfection, in both time and saving the clear coat.

Spray sealants offer one advantage, they're easier to apply because you basically spray wipe and buff. A glass bottle coating you dab, wipe, and buff.

Spray coatings are worthwhile as a topper, or as a trial. You can spray on something and see if you notice a difference and then decide if you want to put the effort into a full paint correction and coating. Meguiars hybrid ceramic spray excels here, because it's loaded up with fillers and will make your paint artificially look much better, giving you an idea of how good your can can look with a good polishing.

Glass bottle coatings are superior to sprays in other ways, like water contact angle, bonding, chemical resistance, uv protection, etc. They're loaded with a higher amount of the actual coating, vs a spray product that is heavily diluted to be able to spray it.

Spray coatings are a great gateway drug. Try them, like them, move on to harder coatings and ruin the rest of your life chasing that perfect gloss. Or don't be a little sissy and go right to the hard stuff

[FastMarkA]

I used to love detailing my cars, but then I found boats...so any manual labor this old body can offer, it's going to my boat.

That said, I absolutely love these products, and they work on cars just as well...

https://yachte.co/

Founder/owner is a kid who grew up washing boats, so it also feels nice to give money to a start-upish company.

[P1]

Thanks to GrussGott I just bought two bottles of Turtle Wax ICE Seal N Shine (they had a coupon!).

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

All.pishing removes clear coat. We aren't talking a lot here, but a thing that is improving gloss is removing clear coat and making it a flatter surface. It's basically crazy high grit sanding.

Enhancement polishing is rounding the edges of the small light scratches in your clear.

What correction polishing is doing is taking all of the clear coat around the scratch down to the bottom of the scratch, i.e., removing clear.

You can measure it with a depth gauge - I've been enhance polishing cars for 20 years and never seen a single time where the clear moved even a micron.

Originally Posted by BlkGS

Spray sealants offer one advantage

Most of this is kinda wrong: there is no **functional** difference between a good water-based spray sealant applied monthly and resin-based ceramic coating EXCEPT ONE: duration. The water-based has to be applied monthlyish.

This is why resin-based coatings were developed. Let's get nerdy!

Little glass bottle coatings have 3 basic components:

(1.) Resin = silicone-based polymer that's the core of the coating
(2.) Solvent = to suspend the resin during application
(3.) Additives = to help with other stuff like application, curing, heat, et al

PDMS, or polydimethylsiloxane, is the most popular core by far and it's also super cheap! (Not coincidentally, just like water-based ploymer spray coatings) Like you can just buy a 4oz bottle of the stuff for $14 on Amazon:

Compare that to a 3.3 oz bottle of Car Pro CQuartz UK which is 10x more expensive @ $150

Ok, so why not just buy $14 of PDMS and be done? Well you could.

But, it turns out that PDMS on its own doesn't stick around for too long if you just applied it directly which, not coincidentally, should sound very much like the behavior of a water-based spray coating! They're samsies!

Ok, anything we can do to make PDMS stick around longer? Yup!

You add some something like silane which helps it bond to paint (or plastic) to last longer. Like WAY longer! way wAY WAY longer!

Ok, What about other qualities like high heat resistance in, say Car Pro, Dlux? Or fast curing? Or easy application? Or insane hydrophobics?

Yup, we can tweak the resin-based OR water-based polymer coatings to do any of that with various additives and formulations, but there are always trade-offs ... no coating has it all

And the trade off of water-based polymers is, they don't have the bonding ability of added silane & solvent, so they're gonna wear off faster. But if you don't care because you're putting them on every month or two anyway, then that downside doesn't matter.

Said differently & TLDR:

• Like-for-like, if someone applied a water-based polymer every 3 weeks and another person applied a resin-based polymer once, and then you tested both 2 years later, nobody could tell you which was which; i.e., the amount of polymer is more in 24 applications of spray than 1 of resin, BUT
  
• If one applied the water-based polymer once, and resin-based once and you tested 2 years later there'd be no signs of water-based spray despite there being more polymer because it bonded less so wore off faster.

You can test all this for yourself with an older car or spare panels.

If you look at my car above, which is plain ole water-based Turtle Wax Seal-n-shine and took 10 min to apply, do you really think it'd look better with a resin-based coating?

Having tried it myself on other BMWs, that's a firm nope. Wheels on the other hand, they always get 2 coats of resin-based DLux and 2 coats of Gliss since there's no way I'll be topping them up every 2 months!

[BlkGS]

I think we are saying basically the same thing. The spray sealant won't last as long, meaning you have to go in and mess with it again. And every time you touch the paint, whether it's washing, or spraying on something and buffing, you're opening yourself up to potentially introducing swirls to the paint. I try to minimize the amount I touch the paint, to minimize the swirls. So a product I know I'm gonna reapply once a quarter or even twice a year is less preferable to me than something that I won't have to apply again for several years, possibly ever with a good boosting and topping regime.

Some people like to have something to do on the weekend. I used to wash my car once a week and wax it monthly or more. Now I've got kids and don't have that kind of time, but I still want my car to look great. So a one time correction to perfection, and a good coating application is my speed. I can then just wash with a product that's got some ceramic boosting or a wash and wax, and minimize how much I touch it.

I've got a crapload of products, and some of the sprays are really impressive for what they are. But they're not superior to glass bottles, and if you're trying to maximize your appearance while minimizing your time, they're not that great. To be honest, if I was gonna clean the car "for enjoyment", I'd use a nice paste wax. That process always feels nice IMO, but it takes a while.

[starlights]

I tried Wolfgang Concours Series WG-5500 Deep Gloss Paint Sealant last weekend and thus far I am really liking it. I have a shelf full of polishes and coatings but this was the first I used a Wolfgang product - a bit pricy though. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AGELUJE


I normally wash my vehicles in the garage using a gallon of distilled water and a couple of capfuls of ONR (https://www.amazon.com/Optimum-NR201.../dp/B00D8DR0AO) - takes about 20 mins, then follow it up directly with polish/wax without drying - another 15-20 mins. Using store bought distilled water ensures minimal water marks if I miss a spot while drying/polishing. This routine has worked well for me for the last 6-8 years.


If you go this route, arm yourself with a hefty supply of clean microfiber towels - one towel by panel normally and one folded side per stroke to pick up and trap surface dust. Once all folds have been used up the towel gets dumped into a wash basket - never dipped back in the distilled water solution.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

I think we are saying basically the same thing. The spray sealant won't last as long, meaning you have to go in and mess with it again. And every time you touch the paint, whether it's washing, or spraying on something and buffing, you're opening yourself up to potentially introducing swirls to the paint. I try to minimize the amount I touch the paint, to minimize the swirls. So a product I know I'm gonna reapply once a quarter or even twice a year is less preferable to me than something that I won't have to apply again for several years, possibly ever with a good boosting and topping regime.

Some people like to have something to do on the weekend. I used to wash my car once a week and wax it monthly or more. Now I've got kids and don't have that kind of time, but I still want my car to look great. So a one time correction to perfection, and a good coating application is my speed. I can then just wash with a product that's got some ceramic boosting or a wash and wax, and minimize how much I touch it.

I've got a crapload of products, and some of the sprays are really impressive for what they are. But they're not superior to glass bottles, and if you're trying to maximize your appearance while minimizing your time, they're not that great. To be honest, if I was gonna clean the car "for enjoyment", I'd use a nice paste wax. That process always feels nice IMO, but it takes a while.

I'm saying there's zero functional difference between a water based polymer & a resin based one.

Which means you still have to touch the paint just as much if you want a clean car.

Further, resin-based polymers have a HUGE downside: they're expensive & semi-permanent

It's like using duct tape vs track tape on your car for a track day: sure, duct tape bonds WAY better & will last WAY longer, but do you want it too??

Probably not.