I stopped using it on boat seats as it is water based and seemed to be gone the first time it got wet or even after I wiped seats off from morning dew it seemed to go back to looking sad and dull. I dont like wet shine but I do like healthy glow (darkening effect) from my seats and my plastics, Now I use Wolfgang Cockpit and trim sealant. Wolfgang dries in under an hour and once it does I get 3-6 months depending on how much physical wear that surface gets (seat bottom where my fat butt slides in and out daily wears quickest). Looks fresh feels slick cleans easily, Also on boat seats I love it because water seems to have zero effect on its appearance, 303 used aggravate me because if you got few drops water on the door panel from opening the window it would make water spots where it seemed to have diluted or removed the product even after you dried it it would look like a water spot on paint.
Read this:
"Over the last few months I have noticed quite a number of comments from folks who say they have used 303 aerospace protectant and it seemed to wash off onto their paint when it got rained on or exposed to other water sources. I have also responded to a couple of threads discussing the off gassing effects of plastics and the haze that owners` have experienced on the inside of windows. I really had not experienced these problems with my Miata and just had to know what might be causing others to have difficulty. Therefore, I picked up the phone, called the 303 Products people, and asked them whether or not the stuff runs off onto the paint when it gets wet. In addition to hearing it from the source, I also got a bunch of information that made sense about the “getting wet and running on the paint” as well as the “off-gassing inside the windows.” I am going to use the 303 Aerospace protectant the way Roger Dyer of 303 Products suggested in the future.
He politely suggested that I read the instructions on the 303 product container very carefully and follow the directions (which I haven’t done since I bought the gallon jug). If I had read the directions I would have found out that:
1) The 303 should be sprayed on the surface being treated. Yes! Sprayed on!! Like with a shield in one hand to keep the spray off other parts of the vehicle. Alternatively, like with a completely saturated cloth that is dripping wet with 303. But NOT sprayed onto a fine white 100% American made towel and then wiped onto the surface in nice rotating movements! It gets sprayed on, and if you like, it can be moved around and into the surface you are working on with your fingers! That`s recommended too! Especially if you are treating a dash and do not want that spray all over the inside of the windows. I made a shield out of an old sun protector just for this use.
2) Once you got it on the top, dash, or whatever, now the second part that I did not understand needs to happen. Take one of those fine white towels and start getting the excess off the top or the dash or whatever. This stuff actually wants you to towel it and buff it until the dash or top is completely dry! It really needs for you to remove those annoying "unbonded polymers" completely. If you do not, as this is a water-based product to start with, you will indeed wash those unbonded polymers right down onto your paint job. A trick Roger told me to make sure you have gotten the surface dry is to get down real close, look across the surface at an angle, put your fingertip on the vinyl, and twist it a bit. If it leaves a smudge or you can still see the finger mark when you lift the finger, it is not dry enough. Bring out another one of those white towels and keep working until it is COMPLETELY dry! This stuff likes being
buffed! The chemical work was done when you correctly applied it to the surface. Now it wants all the excess gone!
If you follow the manufacturer`s instructions and do these simple steps above, he tells me that you will not have any run-off onto the paint surfaces and it will reduce the off-gassing of the plastics onto the inside of your glass windows. I never used any of the more popular silicone-based vinyl care products on Cartman, so I did not face trying to get the old stuff off. Mr. Dyer suggests that if you start by wiping off the old stuff as much as you can and then spray on the 303 and do the mush it in with the fingers trick, that after a few months it may help reverse what the silicone stuff had started."
[This message has been edited by dr_eggs (edited 10 August)
