Are waxes and sealants obsolete?

**The Guz** · 08-04-2018, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by Swanicyouth

I went on a whole rant on AGO why waxes & sealants are NOT obsolete IMHO. Mainly, they have a lot of benefits:

1. Cheaper than coatings.
2. Easier than coatings
3. No special equipment, environment, maintenance products, or prep products needed to use.
4. Realistically, yr average car wash Sunday guy / non Auto Geek guy isn`t going to coat his car - at least successfully
5. Renewing them is as easy as layering another coat.

Reminds me of when they said everyone would be in flying cars by the 1950s. It never happened. Sure, some people can fly airplanes around - but the bottom line is there is too much investment, knowledge & risk required for the average person when they can just drive in a car that can be operated by any teenager fairly well.

For me the future is he super durable spray sealants. Not the Reload type coating a bottle - but the stuff like Rupes P808, OCW, Sonax BSD, Prima Hydro Max. Technology is pushing these so manufacturers are claiming 6 mos durability.

While I think 6 mos is nowhere near realistic at this point - even if you get 2-3 mos, application is a 10 minute wipe down on a clean car. There is no chance of really doing it wrong if you have a clue and no hundreds of dollars initial investment. The majority of people want cheap, fast, and easy these days. These products tick all the boxes.

I get what you are saying. But at the same time there is no need to use any "special equipment, environment, maintenance products, or prep products needed to use." with any coating. Remember the buzz word is recommended. One is perfectly fine washing and drying. The same thing can be said about waxes and sealant. Such as I need a spray wax or I need a drying aid. So it goes both ways.

I typically just wash and dry use no spray toppers. It all comes down to not overly complicate the process. People get to hung up on I need to use this and need to top with that. That is when trouble occurs and then someone starts to become jaded.

Spray sealants are great. The one`s you listed are easy to use and won`t last as long as the claimed "up to X months". I posted this on AGO that the key words are "up to". If the product lasts a month it still meets the claim. I get that they are easy to use and cheaper to use. But for me I don`t have to worry about having to apply over and over. Often times I have other things better to do that worry if I have protection on the paint. But if I can go 2 years then in most cases that is fine by me with very little maintenance work such as decon wash once a year.

The ongoing battle of what is the best product is always going to be there. You will have people like me who are pro coatings and then those who are pro sealant.

I will say that I think Gyeon has it right with a product like Cancoat. A product right smack in the middle of a sealant and coating. Expensive up front but multiple applications with very good durability that has exceeded the claimed durability for me.

**Swanicyouth** · 08-04-2018, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by Accumulator

It`d be nice if OCW performed like FK1000P except for longevity...but much as I do like OCW, it`s nowhere *near* the FK when it comes to protection/etc. I`ll probably end up FKing my wife`s A8 instead of sticking with the oh-so-convenient OCW

I`ve never used FK - but I`m sure you are correct. IMHO OCW is the least durable of these spray on products. The other products seem to work much better for me. Actually, my truck was polished with GPS & then topped with OCW this week. Just because I`m trying to use up the last of my OCW. Once it`s gone - it`s gone. I`ll use the other spray sealant products.

When I throw away an empty bottle of something -`it`s like a victory to me. I have so many redundant products - I love when I actually get rid of something. And, because I have so many LSPs - it`s kept me from buying FK. My rule now is no more more products searching for the latest and greatest until I`m completely out of what`s similar - which will likely be never. Stuff just takes up too much space and takes too long to go through.

I think the big thing with coatings and why real ones will never hit the shelves at Pep Boys is because the polishing / prep / skill required to install correctly and the cost.

The average consumer just doesn`t care enough about their car to go through that or invest the time. And for the Autopian world, the big reason why people use coatings is for their supposed durability and for good feels for using the latest and greatest high dollar stuff on their car. The problem is - real world durability seems to be a crap shoot with these products for who knows what reason - this can be extremely frustrating to someone paying a premium just to obtain high durability.

Someone will always find something wrong in your process if your coating fails: wrong soap, environment was too hot when installed, environment was too cold when installed, wrong prep product used, too much / too little product used, some mysterious environmental contaminant, - etc...

So the manufacturers respond CYA style. They come out with "toppers" which "rejuvenate" the coating. They all have it now. But, in reality - the topper is just some sort of spray sealant that has good beading that temporarily covers up where the coating you spent a lot of money for went bad. You could have just used the spray topper sealant from the get go, saved a lot of money / time - and have been done with it.