PPF, Ceramic Coat or Both?

[Border411]

Honestly, for me, the Turtle Wax "Flex Wax" has been nothing short of amazing for keeping all of my vehicles looking good. I use it as a drying aid. A few prominent YouTube detailers have tested the Turtle Wax line and have been very impressed, especially considering the price. I also have used their yellow and green label coatings/spray on protection products and they are also good, but that was prior to them coming out with the Flex Wax .

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[cc1999]

Just my 2 cents.

I use ceramic coating to protect the paint from stuff like bird droppings, bug guts, and UV rays.

I use PPF to protect the paint from chipping in particular, I use PPF where the vehicle is prone to rock chips like the rocker panels the rear fender bulges and the hood or nose of the vehicle.

 

[ba15996X50]

So I have been wanting to make a post for awhile about cleaning, ceramics, and things as I have been deep in the sauce about this lately because I'm bored. Please understand everything here is very subjective. There is no standardization within the industry and very little detailed testing, so a lot of it is trial and error or personal opinion.

The answer to your question is how much protection do you want. Generally speaking for the best results you will want both options as they protect against different threats.

PPF:
Its primary use is to simply prevent rock chips. It becomes the sacrificial layer to bug guts, rocks, sticks, road grime and such. There are lots of different PPFs, some can self heal, some wont, some are "harder" then others, some have UV protection in them. Regardless of what you choose here you will have to maintain it going forward. Any cleaning products you use need to be marked safe for wraps/ppf and every X years you will need to get the PPF replaced.

If you dont replace PPF you essentially will never be able to remove it as the car ages. It will basically become permanently bonded and removing it will run a very high chance of damaging the paint. The other issue is that, the paint under the PPF once removed basically will never be able to match the non-ppfed paint because of natural marring and such.

For most vehicles PPF is only needed or wanted on the high abrasion areas. Think the front of the truck, doors / fenders where rocks or things will fly up on to the truck. Unless your car is an extreme exotic, its generally not worth PPFing the entire car, though that is an option.

You will want to have PPF done ultimately before the ceramic coating and the coating applied on top of it.

Ceramic Coatings:
There is a lot to walk through on this as the market is in generally saturated with ceramic products for almost all products. The reason for that is for the high amount of protection you are providing to the paint or surface of the car against molecular degradation. Ceramic coatings wont protect against rocks, they are designed to protect against normal wash marring and chemical abrasion.

There are lots of different types of Ceramic "coatings"/products.

• You have professional level coatings that can only be applied/bought if you are licensed and trained for that particular product.
• You have consumer grade coatings.
• You have ceramic soaps.
• Ceramic detail sprays.
• Ceramic sealants

Pro level Ceramic Coatings:
These are ones that a vendor must be "certified" in using. They can not be purchased otherwise. You will find that "certification" ranges from simply buying the certification to having to actually have gone through training to use the products. You will also find an extreme amount of different opinions from people online. As formulas for things change often, looking at reviews past a year or so become irrelevant. Just like Oil and Oil Change intervals, people will have a variety of opinions on whats good or not, or knows a guy who knows a guy who had something and it stole their tractor, their girlfriend and their dog, and caused his vehicle to to explode.

All Pro-level coatings will last several years, but require topping up each year along with normal wash maintenance. Some coatings are going to be better in specific areas of the country as the durability of coatings is all over the place and the driving environment.

Consumer level Ceramic Coatings:
Anything in this category is going to be stuff the average person can get. They work well and generally last about a year or so. The major difference is generally down to ease of use and idiot proof type stuff compared to the pro level coatings. Companies dont want to be blamed for customers applying stuff incorrectly and making a mess of the paint, so anything at the consumer level is going to generally be more designed with that in mind.

Soaps, Sprays, Sealants:
Think of these as specific tools to accomplish specific desired results to augment anything above. Coatings above are designed for a limited use of ranges where anything in this area either covers specific gaps, or provides additional accompanying properties or protect to the above.

My Advice:
I would recommend everyone to get a ceramic coating. Do some research on the product the installer uses. Remember stuff written online will generally always trend negative as users without issues tend not to say things are great.

PPF is going to be based more on your driving habits and area. If you live in a rock quarry, get ppf. If you offroad, get pff. Do you need to get the whole truck done, no, you can focus only on specific areas to add the additional protection.

Regardless of what you choose you will have to be careful above what you use to clean and protect with. You will need to pay more attention on any given off the store shelf product will have an ill effect on the coating or ppf.

Great advice thanks for all the information. My truck was built in early September. Just took delivery of it. Any particular paint prep I need to do before ceramic coating? Is there really anything on the paint right now besides dirt?

 

[SubaruRaptor]

Great advice thanks for all the information. My truck was built in early September. Just took delivery of it. Any particular paint prep I need to do before ceramic coating? Is there really anything on the paint right now besides dirt?

I assume you are going to do it yourself? If so yes theres a whole process to get it ready. Its basically the same process that a "pro" will go through.

• You will want to do a full wash instead of a maintenance wash
  • Degrease step
  • Pre Foam / pre-rinse - Make sure you foam/pre-wash has no protective / coatings / ceramics in them, just a PH based soap.
  • Contact Wash - Same thing here, you want a soap that has no protective additives.
  • Tar / Iron Remover - Make sure you get paint safe Iron remover.
  • Clay - you'll want to use a clay spray that has no protective elements.
  • Polish
  • Panel Clean
  • Coating

You are probably like but the car is new SubaruRaptor, I would say yes in the ethereal since that you took ownership of it, but not from a since that it has existed as a unit on our flat disc of a planet mother Earth. It will already have some bug guts, road grime, brake dust, and road grime on it. it may not be a lot, but since a ceramic coating is a molecular bond to the clear coat you need the clear coat to be as clean as possible to achieve the maximum life of the coating, strong bond, and to not trap anything.

The good news is while this looks like a lot of steps, its not really. The only long steps would be the clay, polish and the actual coating step. Everything else is maybe 2 hours max for a whole vehicle. As its just a lot of spraying things on and off and such.

If you are taking it to someone to get coated, they should include all this prep in the install price and will do it for you.

 

[ba15996X50]

I assume you are going to do it yourself? If so yes theres a whole process to get it ready. Its basically the same process that a "pro" will go through.

• You will want to do a full wash instead of a maintenance wash
  • Degrease step
  • Pre Foam / pre-rinse - Make sure you foam/pre-wash has no protective / coatings / ceramics in them, just a PH based soap.
  • Contact Wash - Same thing here, you want a soap that has no protective additives.
  • Tar / Iron Remover - Make sure you get paint safe Iron remover.
  • Clay - you'll want to use a clay spray that has no protective elements.
  • Polish
  • Panel Clean
  • Coating

You are probably like but the car is new SubaruRaptor, I would say yes in the ethereal since that you took ownership of it, but not from a since that it has existed as a unit on our flat disc of a planet mother Earth. It will already have some bug guts, road grime, brake dust, and road grime on it. it may not be a lot, but since a ceramic coating is a molecular bond to the clear coat you need the clear coat to be as clean as possible to achieve the maximum life of the coating, strong bond, and to not trap anything.

The good news is while this looks like a lot of steps, its not really. The only long steps would be the clay, polish and the actual coating step. Everything else is maybe 2 hours max for a whole vehicle. As its just a lot of spraying things on and off and such.

If you are taking it to someone to get coated, they should include all this prep in the install price and will do it for you.

@SubaruRaptor thanks for all this great information. It's people like you that make this forum invaluable!

5.5 years ago I used GTECHNEQ'S EXO and Crystal Serum Light on 2 of my weekend sports cars and I can say after washing one last week for the first time in 6 months the GTECHNEQ products are still working strong. Now it helps these two cars spend a vast majority of their time out of the sun and elements but the fact water is still beading like it was when first applied is very impressive. Just an FYI for the group.

 

[SubaruRaptor]

@SubaruRaptor thanks for all this great information. It's people like you that make this forum invaluable!

5.5 years ago I used GTECHNEQ'S EXO and Crystal Serum Light on 2 of my weekend sports cars and I can say after washing one last week for the first time in 6 months the GTECHNEQ products are still working strong. Now it helps these two cars spend a vast majority of their time out of the sun and elements but the fact water is still beading like it was when first applied is very impressive. Just an FYI for the group.

So a coating that old, if you did a decontamination on it, it will probably jazz the coating back to life a bit more as well because over time the coating will get "clogged". Some folks will treat this as the coating failing because it will look like that, but a lot of times its just clogged.

Do an alkaline pre wash and/or 3ph foam soap, then a neutral mechanical wash, then an iron remove like the following one. https://theragcompany.com/products/iron?_pos=16&_sid=3959fbcdc&_ss=r

 

[MPSinATL]

Did the Gtechniq ceramic. turned out great, washing it is easy—-can’t take it through a Carwash though. Dry it off with a leaf blower, and looks showroom ready!

 

[Johnny 5]

My wife and I are still contemplating this stuff. After one 18 month inspection it's guaranteed for 15 years. Because its new and the claims they make will put the other coating out of business, we are waiting for more concrete info on it.

iconrocklear.com

 

[SubaruRaptor]

My wife and I are still contemplating this stuff. After one 18 month inspection it's guaranteed for 15 years. Because its new and the claims they make will put the other coating out of business, we are waiting for more concrete info on it.

iconrocklear.com

 

[Johnny 5]

So who do you believe is what it comes down to. Do physical investigation and make your decision.

Here's a reddit article that states the same thing but read the replies as well. All Im saying is get hard data, go physically look at the ones you apllier put it on, look at youtube videos, positive and negative, talk to some owners. I wouldn't make my decision off one. Negative article.

 

[SubaruRaptor]

So who do you believe is what it comes down to. Do physical investigation and make your decision.

Here's a reddit article that states the same thing but read the replies as well. All Im saying is get hard data, go physically look at the ones you apllier put it on, look at youtube videos, positive and negative, talk to some owners. I wouldn't make my decision off one. Negative article.

Agreed. Just like you cant read the 5 star reviews on amazon to understand if a product is good or not you have to look at the context and multiple threads to make a determination if something is actually good.

There is enough shadyness if you keep looking at this product to avoid it though. If it was as good as folks saying, you would see it recommended vastly more along with detailers and competing brands developing their own. If something is good, people will clone it.

 

[Johnny 5]

Agreed. Just like you cant read the 5 star reviews on amazon to understand if a product is good or not you have to look at the context and multiple threads to make a determination if something is actually good.

There is enough shadyness if you keep looking at this product to avoid it though. If it was as good as folks saying, you would see it recommended vastly more along with detailers and competing brands developing their own. If something is good, people will clone it.

I just got off the phone with my local installer and asked them about the product and asked if I can come in and look at the vehicles that they're doing. They said they got one coming out every day and with 0 complaints, people are actually extremely happy. And they did say they were only applying this stuff for the last 6 months. It's new to them as well, but it's just unbelievably better, they are saying, than everything else they'veused. They do all the other coatings in these forums as well. So I'm probably gonna get my windows thermo tinted from them before winter and then this spring, I may dive into this, if my gut tells me to. I'll send pictures and give everybody an update if I go with it. See how it goes from there, but sounds pretty good to me. I told them I want to come in there and See several different ones and we'll go from there. They said they are looking forward to me seeing this stuff. I've got to be 100 % convinced before I take any chance with it.

 

[SubaruRaptor]

I just got off the phone with my local installer and asked them about the product and asked if I can come in and look at the vehicles that they're doing. They said they got one coming out every day and with 0 complaints, people are actually extremely happy. And they did say they were only applying this stuff for the last 6 months. It's new to them as well, but it's just unbelievably better, they are saying, than everything else they'veused. They do all the other coatings in these forums as well. So I'm probably gonna get my windows thermo tinted from them before winter and then this spring, I may dive into this, if my gut tells me to. I'll send pictures and give everybody an update if I go with it. See how it goes from there, but sounds pretty good to me. I told them I want to come in there and See several different ones and we'll go from there. They said they are looking forward to me seeing this stuff. I've got to be 100 % convinced before I take any chance with it.

Sounds good man. Let us know how it goes.

 

[AMGRAPTOR]

Both. Xpel PPF and Gtechniq crystal serum ultra/light and Exov5

 

[Johnny 5]

Looks sweet ! Do you have info on the coating ?

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