Mega Coating Test: Application

Konnichiwa! Finally these coatings have been applied, main contenders such as GTechniq, Optimum and CarPro are here together with other Japanese coatings. Ready?…FIGHT!

Hey guys, some friends were over while I was applying these coatings and also helped me to polish the paint, thanks AEDetailers!

Osren’s senior technician testing his prototype compound.

The bonnet of the Mitsubishi Colt was polished and coated with GTechniq C1, mmmmmmm.

Mr. AEDetailers in action.

Posed shot went wrong.

That’s better.

Now may I present to you, King Henry the VII, God of Polishing.

Hahaha, pardon my over-dramatization, that soundtrack has been stuck in my head since the Porsche Cayman S detail.

So after the guys left, I proceeded with the coating application.

Paint was corrected with M105 Ultra-Cut Compound and GTechniq P1 Nanoscopic Polish.

After polishing the roof, boot and bonnet, I washed the car with car shampoo and Osren multi-clean, to completely strip off any polishing oils that may remain. I also polished the glass while I was at it.

Enter the contenders.

From left to right:
Rainaway Silcoat, Willson A+B, CarPro CQuartz, AR-1T, AR-NV, AR-1K, GTechniq C1, Optimum Opti-Guard.

Panels were split accordingly,

One interesting observation was whether the cloth used to apply hardens (i.e. coating crystallizes), and whether it was clear, whitish or yellowish.

The next day, the applicator cloths used that hardened was willson, Gtechniq, Opti-Guard, CQuartz, and AR-1K, the rest did not harden. Some coatings also showed some yellowish staining on the applicator, which was CQuartz and Opti-Guard, some did not show any colour, like Gtechniq C1 while some left some whitish residue, such as Hybrid Glass Sealant.

Here’s a short video showing the water beading and sheeting.

All coatings does darken the paint and has the usual lensing(another layer of clearcoat) effect, but C-Quartz seemed to darkened the colour of this BMW’s dark metallic blue/black even more than the rest. Application wise, C1 is probably the most difficult, followed by CQuartz/Opti-Guard/AR-1K. The rest buffed off pretty easily with no fuss.

Almost all coatings repelled water very nicely except for AR-1T and Rainaway Silcoat, could be due to wrong method of application or could be the nature of the coating. I’ll keep an eye on these both.

Links to the manufacturer’s page of each product:

Rainaway Silcoat (unavailable)
Willson A+B Glass Guard
CarPro CQuartz
AR-1T (unavailable)
AR-NV (unavailable)
AR-1K (unavailable)
GTechniq C1
Hybrid Glass Sealant ONE
Optimum Opti-Guard (not avail on optimum’s website, linked to autogeek)

That’s the end of this post. Subsribe via email (link on the right sidebar) to receive posts automatically so you won’t miss any updates of this test!

Next update for this test will probably be in a month’s time as the test car is parked indoors and may take longer for the coatings to suffer any deterioration.

Till then!