Ceramic failure in a month

I have been using coatings for about 5-6 years. At first I used Optimum Gloss Coat and did all my personal cars and my parents cars etc and had great luck about 18 months on daily drivers and on my moms car it is still going great at 3 years but she only has 12,000 miles (she`s 89).

I recently decided to change and try Car Pro Cquartz for no particular reason, I actually ordered Uk Edition but it was mixed up and I got Cquartz then I also used Gloss on top. Here are the exact steps I took on two vehicles a few weeks a part. I also did this same process on a brand new vehicle about 4 months ago except I didn`t polish it with Essence because it was new and didn`t require any correction.

Wash with Reset,
Iron X
Wash
Tar X Bottom panels only.
rinse
Spray with detailer spray and clay bar.
Dry
Polish with Car Pro Essense
IPA Wipe Down
Cquartz. 2 layers on hood only
Wait and hour and top with Gliss
Wait one hour and wipe down with Reload.

The vehicle which is a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee (burgundy ) stayed inside a garage for a day or two and was driven as normal.
As soon as the first rain came I noted that the beading wasn`t that great but after washing it came back a bit. But its NOTHING like my new Ram 1500 that has the exact product on it and same steps. I have washed it a few times and each time the beading is worse and worse.

I did the same prosess on a 2017 White Subaru about 2 weeks ago but its been sitting in the garage and not driven at all so I dont know how it will do in the rain tomorrow.

I am not an expert but I have been detailing as a serious hobbies since the 80s and even did it as a business for a while a few decades ago. So did I miss something in the prep?

The differences I can think of this time vs on my new truck a few months ago is the addition of CarPro Essence on the Jeep and Cherokee. Also the same bottles of material were used on all three vehicles except on the Ram 1500 months ago the bottles were new. Then they sat in an inside dark closet for a few months and then I used the balance of the same bottles on the Jeep.


So is this related to the use or incorrect use of Essense? Or did the coating go bad in storage before use? I have stored coatings before for a few months and never had a problem before now.

Something is different for sure though. Any ideas

Well Essence is the coating prep polish so you`re not really supposed to IPA after it. I doubt that`s what the problem is but that`s what stands out to me.

Gliss has a minimum wait time of 4 hours after the last coat of cqaurtz. This could have been the issue.

Also Reload is not that great in hydrophobic behavior. You could be seeing. Mask the coatings behavior until it fades away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RZJZA80

Well Essence is the coating prep polish so you`re not really supposed to IPA after it. I doubt that`s what the problem is but that`s what stands out to me.

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now that you say that it does make sense. If the Subaru is also dead I bet that’s it. Also as for the time wait on the ram 1500 I parked it inside and did that project over a week period so ever coat of cauartz and every coat of gliss had a day cure time in between. The Jeep and Subaru were each done in a long one day session per vehicle so the cure time in between coats wasn’t much

I missed that but an eraser wipe. It won`t harm the coating from bonding to it. You are essentially removing in of the residual oils that are left behind the polish. I eraser wipe down after using Essence and have not had any issues doing that. It will not remove the SiO2 left behind. See my previous post.

Aren’t you suppose to wait 24 hours before applying over essence.... or you need to do ipa/panel wipe. I may be wrong but I thought there was some sort of wait before putting any coating over essence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by William_Wallace

Aren’t you suppose to wait 24 hours before applying over essence.... or you need to do ipa/panel wipe. I may be wrong but I thought there was some sort of wait before putting any coating over essence.

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2 - Do I have to use Eraser between Essence and CQuartz?

If your using Essence by machine and you wait until the vehicle is finished then you can apply Reload or CQuartz after you finish the vehicle starting in the same direction you polished. If you want to be ultra safe you can still Eraser but in our testings to date we have not seen any failure when we skipped Eraser.

If your using Essence by hand then we recommend you use Eraser before coating.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Guz

2 - Do I have to use Eraser between Essence and CQuartz?

If your using Essence by machine and you wait until the vehicle is finished then you can apply Reload or CQuartz after you finish the vehicle starting in the same direction you polished. If you want to be ultra safe you can still Eraser but in our testings to date we have not seen any failure when we skipped Eraser.

If your using Essence by hand then we recommend you use Eraser before coating.

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I machine applied Essence and then did the IPA wipe after and then it was likely an hour when I started the Cquartz application in the same direction as I did the essence. So if that is the correct method then it must be something else that caused the short failure

You either went wrong by applying Gliss to soon and not during the recommenced window or Reload is masking it as I mentioned in a previous post.

You can do ash with Reset and wait until Reload wears off and see if you get hydrophobic’s back.