Guitarist302008
06-10-2013, 03:57 PM
As some of you may know, I have opted to try 22PLE VX1 pro on my car. As I am doing the prep work I decided that I would do a comparison of the two panels in as unbiased a way as possible.
I started off by doing my front driver door prep work. Since I live in a town where the PPI level is through the roof, I bought a few gallons of distilled water and put it in a sprayer along with some ots super clean. The ratio... well I can`t tell you exactly but it was about 10:1 +/- 1 or 2. It wound up being a pretty good mixture, as I could see it getting old oil and such off of the garage floor lol. I figured it was good enough.
I sprayed the door I was going to polish. I let it soak and then rinsed with more of the distilled water and started polishing. I had done enough of the next door in order to not get any contaminants on my pads of course (I am doing this one panel at a time due to some back problems so 1 or 2 panels a day is all I can muster).
Before I started I figured I would take a shot of a freshly polished door and an opti-coated door, so to be as fair as possible to the opti-coated side I sprayed down the door with the super clean and let it soak... doing this three times while I polished the other door. The polishing took me 1.5-2 hours to do. It was done (as David F. suggested) with Meg`s 105 on a meg`s yellow pad and the menzerna SF 4500 on a blue pad.
I finished that up and then moved on to the door that had been soaked several times. I will say that the dirt shedding has diminished quite a bit over the last 12-15 months. Here again though to be fair... the OC is 12-15 months so we`re not talking about a fresh coat of the stuff. I when ahead again and sprayed down the door with the distilled water... much of the dirt came loose during the soaking and off when I rinsed it, there were some spots however that are stuck on there quite well and even with a MF towel it did not come off. That door will be clayed tomorrow when it is polished.
To the opti-coats credit as you will see in the picture, marring was very little and overall after getting a good cleaning, it still did look good. I didn`t take dark pics with my halogens on these panels because this is what we would see in a real world setting but anyone who has done a lot of polishing such as most of us here, can spot marring in most lights anyway looking at it from different angles as well as the overall dullness of the paint that it brings.
So both panels are now cleaned, one polished and OC removed, and one with the OC cleaned pretty well as clean as one would get it.
First is the opti-coated rear door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5692_zps3b23f905.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5692_zps3b23f905.jpg.html)
Next is the front polished door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5693_zps66dbd042.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5693_zps66dbd042.jpg.html)
Again the opti-coated rear door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5694_zpse4792d12.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5694_zpse4792d12.jpg.html)
the poished front door again:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5695_zpsf857d473.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5695_zpsf857d473.jpg.html)
Overall my conclusion would be the does opti-coat look bad? Nope, not at all. Does it live up to all of it`s claims? Not completely. The beading on the doors has become very relaxed and if you had not OC`d it, you would not know it was there, the dirt shedding also falls short of what it was at first. HOWEVER! The marring resistance still holds strong from what I saw between the 2 panels. The difference isn`t in the pics as much as in person and while it`s not a HUGE difference, it`s enough to say "hey, on my DD that would be great to have", but it does not compliment your polishing work as much as a standard sealant or wax.. there is just that LITTLE bit of gloss and wow factor that gets taken away by the OC that other types of LSP`s seem to compliment or even enhance in some cases, but in fairness, your sealant or wax isn`t going to hold marring off after over a year either, so it`s a trade that IMO most would/should be willing to deal with. Polishing it off takes a bit of time, but you can feel the difference when wiping a polished panel vs an OC`d one... the OC panel is more, almost bumpy might be the word, but not quite... hard to describe.
Overall, for most here that are car and product crazy it`s more us who want to try the new latest and greatest thing and have told ourselves that the look is less than stellar, it is less, but THAT much less than we think? No, more of the urge to try something new than a lack of opti-coats ability.
I will update when all of the cleaning and polishing is done and once the 22PLE is applied.
I started off by doing my front driver door prep work. Since I live in a town where the PPI level is through the roof, I bought a few gallons of distilled water and put it in a sprayer along with some ots super clean. The ratio... well I can`t tell you exactly but it was about 10:1 +/- 1 or 2. It wound up being a pretty good mixture, as I could see it getting old oil and such off of the garage floor lol. I figured it was good enough.
I sprayed the door I was going to polish. I let it soak and then rinsed with more of the distilled water and started polishing. I had done enough of the next door in order to not get any contaminants on my pads of course (I am doing this one panel at a time due to some back problems so 1 or 2 panels a day is all I can muster).
Before I started I figured I would take a shot of a freshly polished door and an opti-coated door, so to be as fair as possible to the opti-coated side I sprayed down the door with the super clean and let it soak... doing this three times while I polished the other door. The polishing took me 1.5-2 hours to do. It was done (as David F. suggested) with Meg`s 105 on a meg`s yellow pad and the menzerna SF 4500 on a blue pad.
I finished that up and then moved on to the door that had been soaked several times. I will say that the dirt shedding has diminished quite a bit over the last 12-15 months. Here again though to be fair... the OC is 12-15 months so we`re not talking about a fresh coat of the stuff. I when ahead again and sprayed down the door with the distilled water... much of the dirt came loose during the soaking and off when I rinsed it, there were some spots however that are stuck on there quite well and even with a MF towel it did not come off. That door will be clayed tomorrow when it is polished.
To the opti-coats credit as you will see in the picture, marring was very little and overall after getting a good cleaning, it still did look good. I didn`t take dark pics with my halogens on these panels because this is what we would see in a real world setting but anyone who has done a lot of polishing such as most of us here, can spot marring in most lights anyway looking at it from different angles as well as the overall dullness of the paint that it brings.
So both panels are now cleaned, one polished and OC removed, and one with the OC cleaned pretty well as clean as one would get it.
First is the opti-coated rear door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5692_zps3b23f905.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5692_zps3b23f905.jpg.html)
Next is the front polished door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5693_zps66dbd042.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5693_zps66dbd042.jpg.html)
Again the opti-coated rear door:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5694_zpse4792d12.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5694_zpse4792d12.jpg.html)
the poished front door again:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a353/Methodical4u/IMG_5695_zpsf857d473.jpg (http://s15.photobucket.com/user/Methodical4u/media/IMG_5695_zpsf857d473.jpg.html)
Overall my conclusion would be the does opti-coat look bad? Nope, not at all. Does it live up to all of it`s claims? Not completely. The beading on the doors has become very relaxed and if you had not OC`d it, you would not know it was there, the dirt shedding also falls short of what it was at first. HOWEVER! The marring resistance still holds strong from what I saw between the 2 panels. The difference isn`t in the pics as much as in person and while it`s not a HUGE difference, it`s enough to say "hey, on my DD that would be great to have", but it does not compliment your polishing work as much as a standard sealant or wax.. there is just that LITTLE bit of gloss and wow factor that gets taken away by the OC that other types of LSP`s seem to compliment or even enhance in some cases, but in fairness, your sealant or wax isn`t going to hold marring off after over a year either, so it`s a trade that IMO most would/should be willing to deal with. Polishing it off takes a bit of time, but you can feel the difference when wiping a polished panel vs an OC`d one... the OC panel is more, almost bumpy might be the word, but not quite... hard to describe.
Overall, for most here that are car and product crazy it`s more us who want to try the new latest and greatest thing and have told ourselves that the look is less than stellar, it is less, but THAT much less than we think? No, more of the urge to try something new than a lack of opti-coats ability.
I will update when all of the cleaning and polishing is done and once the 22PLE is applied.