Another mod project this past weekend. I applied a Carbon Ceramic coating to the car. I do a lot of driving, 16K so far and 11 months old. Most of the driving is freeway, so the car has picked up some road debris.
I decided to add some paint protection. I really wish I did this when I first bought the car. It came out great, and while is is a lot of work, it was fun and I picked up some knowledge and tools along the way that can be used in the future.
I do not actually have a lot of photos of the process. So, I just plan to describe the project.
I looked at a few different companies and decided to go with Chemical Guys (CGs). It is a high-end brand. What I love most about this choice is that they offer all the products and have videos and application guides for everything. I feel like I can actually detail my own cars now, rather than pay $200 every couple years to get a mediocre detail. You should also know that Summit Racing sells the full line of the products for the same price. CGs will often have a 20% off sale, but they did not have the Carbon C9 Flex coating in stock when I was buying the other stuff.
I found myself investing almost as much time into reading and learning about the process as I did on the project itself.
I want to start with a desricption of what a ceramic coatings is then I will lead into the project steps and discuss the products I used and what I liked or did not like about them.
So, ceramic coatings (or carbon ceramic) protect your vehicle paint similar to protective film. However, it can be done at home, vs film which is expensive to wrap a whole car and needs special cutting to apply. Ceramic coating gives brilliant shine and repels mud, dirt and water extrememly well. There are many products on the market and most advertise 1-3 years of protection. Good wax gives you about 3 of months protection. Applying a ceramic coating requires a lot of prep work. You need to apply the coating to a properly prepared paint surface. Any inperfections, swirls, bug debris, etc will be permanently sealed under the coating if you do not get the paint properly prepared.
To learn more, the best place to start is here:
https://www.chemicalguys.com/blogarticle?cid=blog-article-detailing-flow-chart
There is a complex chart followed by a list of steps to follow. It took me awhile to figure this out, but basically you can pick and choose what you want to add from this list. Everything can be layered. So, you can do everything on the list as long as you remain in that order, or you can choose the options best for your application.
Here is the process I chose and some of the products and tools I chose to buy.
Tools:
Torq R1 Foam blaster - $40. This uses standard garden hose. I thought this product sucked. It sprayed soapy water on the car, but not a true foam. I am returning this.
Karcher K1800 Pressure Washer - $100 on sale at Sam's Club. I was trying to avoid a pressure washer, but wow, this thing works great and I no longer have to spend $5 at the local car wash for this step. Attaching a foam cannon to this will work much better than garden hose option or the built in soap container which comes on the Karcher.
Ryobi Foam Cannon - $40 from Home Depot. I needed this in a pinch and it works much better than the R1 with garden hose. The biggest problem with this is the container size. It is small and you have to race around the car before it runs out of soap.
MATCC Foam Cannon - $20 from ebay. This is on order. I have not used it yet, but tons of reviews that compare it to the high end Chemical Guys Foam Cannon for $80.
TorqX Random Orbital Dual Action (DA) polisher kit. $160. This is a real beast and I love it. I have used many cheap polishers in teh past including those monster 10" pads. I hated all of them and was not convinced I needed a polisher to do this job, but wow was this easy and fun to use. It has a dial to change speeds and the CG. All the CGs products have recommended speeds for each product. Again, very cool and easy to follow. Everything is spread onto the paint with speed 1, then higher speeds are used to buff into the paint. Each product has a different recommended speed. Very easy to do and follow.
Dirt Trap - Buy 2. $10 each and get different colors. I use black for dirty and green for soap. This traps dirt and prevent you from putting dirt on the car and scratching your paint. I used regular 5 gallon buckets that I had already.
Chenille Microfiber Wash Mit - $10. Green. Same color as my soap water dirt trap, so I know this goies into the soap bucket with matching color trap.
Fatty Super Drying Towel - $10. I only bought 1 but recommend 2. It gets wet fast. I like to use two towels to dry the Forester. I bought 2 similar but different style towels from Autzone and none perform as well as the Fatty.
Misc other microfiber towels for product application and buffing.
Detailing Process:
Step 1 - WASH: The car was very dirty and I had a lot of bug debris and pine tree sap. So, I did two washes (Deep Clean and then Decontamination) with a foam cannon to apply the soap and a two bucket method wash to scrub the car. I used the same soap in the bucket that I had in the cannon.
Wash 1 Deep Clean was done with CGs, Bug and Tar wash. Later I bought CGs Citrus Wash & Gloss and I like this one better. I used it on my wife’s car.
Wash 2 Decontamination was with CGs Clean Slate. This strips all the wax, sealants and oils that are on the paint. Removing this is necessary to get to the bare paint level before moving forward. This step is also the most important. All the bugs and saps must come off before applying the next steps, otherwise you will seal them under the coating. To be honest, I had some bugs and sap that I could not remove entirely. I did not want to risk using a razor blade as I have done that before and no matter how careful you are, you will cut the paint.
Step 2 - CLAY BAR – There is an optional chemical decontamination that can be done after the clay bar treatment. I opted not to do this. It may have worked better on the sap spots, but I only had two and they were not that bad. This step was the most satisfying part of the process. I used the original yellow clay. You only need to use a small piece at a time and if you drop it (I dropped 3 times) you have to throw it out. The clay will remove any grit on the surface. You have to spray with CGs Clay Luber to wet the paint, then just rub in straight lines. When you run your hand on the paint it will be super smooth. You also get an amazing reflection after this step. This was the most fun.
Step 3 – PAINT CORRECTION – I considered my paint to be in moderate condition. I had a couple long but superficial scratches from driving offroad around bushes. I also had some swirls caused by local car washes, which are not gentile. I used V36 compound and Orange Hex cutting pad on speed 1 to spread and 5 to cut. I treated the scratches and hood with V32 / orange pad. In the future I bought CGs VSS and plan to use this instead of the V32 for deep scratch and swirl. I was able to remove swirls, but did not fully remove the two long scratches.
Step 4 – SURFACE CLENSER – I used CG’s Wipe Out. This removes any oils from using the polishing compounds. Spray on and wipe off. Very fast step.
Step 5 – PROTECTIVE COATING – This is where it gets fun. The pre-steps are pretty much required for every project. Moving forward you have options. You do not need all the steps that follow the coating. I used CGs Carbon Flex C9 coating. This is an easy step. Wipe on with applicator then go back and buff it all off. I was surprised on how little of this product gets used. I can probably do two more cars with this bottle of carbon ceramic coating. The paint looks a little shiner after application and feels really hard after an hour. Before moving forward you need to let the coating cure for 24 hours. I left the car in the garage and waited the full 24 hour period. Great excuse to drive the wife’s turbo-charged car.
Step 6 – WAX – I chose to skip the glaze and sealant options. I am actually planning on going back to add Black Light glaze. A glaze adds more protection and covers imperfections in the paint. It is supposed to make dark colors shine and sparkle. It sounds like a perfect match for that Dark Blue Pearl paint, which I have on the Sport. This glaze is supposed to make metallic flake sparkle like nothing else. However, I did not have it at the time, so I went straight to one coat or Butter Wet Wax. I applied this with the DA polisher with black pad (should use red pad, but I did not have it at the time) on speed 1 to spread and 3 to buff. Wipe off and I was done.
Step 7 – QUICK DETAILIER – I do not plan to use these sprays. Instead my plan is to wash the car as required with foam cannon and 2 bucket wash method with the Carbon C9 Wash. This will keep coatings and wax in place and provide some additional protection for those layers.
Overall this project took two days. About 6 hours per day. It was much more fun then I thought it would be. I really enjoyed using the foam blaster, clay bar process and all the polishing steps with this super-cool DA Torq polisher.