Video of OptiSeal Beading and Sheeting at 3+ months

BlackElantraGT

New member
Preface: This car has never been properly polished. It hasn't been clayed in more than a year and in the past year, it really hasn't had much protection besides NXT (which didn't last very long) and then 4 mos after the NXT, I applied Perfecar's beta wax #25 to the hood and used AquaWax only thereafter. Prior to applying Opti-Seal, all that was done was it got a paint-cleansing wash using Citrus Wash n' Gloss at the recommended paint-cleansing dilution of 2 oz to 1 gal.



I don't remember the exact date, but it's been at the very least 3 months since Optiseal has been applied. It's been washed about once a week at most using a pressure washer each time. No QD or spray sealant has been applied and it's hard for me to go this long without applying any AquaWax, but I really wanted to see the longevity of this product because I was a bit skeptical considering how easy Optiseal was to apply. When I took this video earlier today, the car had not been washed yet, just rinsed with the pressure washer.



 
Wow nice. Where can you get this stuff? Is it layerable by itself, or can you put down multiple layers of carnauba wax on top?
 
MikeWinLDS said:
Wow nice. Where can you get this stuff? Is it layerable by itself, or can you put down multiple layers of carnauba wax on top?



Plenty of reputable places sell Opti-Seal, such as Danase.com, ExcelDetail, Autogeek, TopOfTheLine, PakShak, etc.



To be honest with you, I can't answer the question about layering because I only applied one coat and I haven't topped it with anything. There are more experienced users of this product that can chime in about this.



Correction: I remember now that there are actually 2 coats done about 24 hrs apart, not 1 like I previously stated. The reason why I do remember is because I generally do not QD, and since I had just washed it the day prior, I thought it would be a good time to try out my bottle of DG's Fast, Clean, & Shine.



Also, this is 3 months on a car that's parked outside 24/7.
 
Bunky said:
The beading and sheeting is considered good ?



For comparison, here's 2 coats of NXT Tech Wax on the roof of the same car at roughly 4 months:

DSC01232copy-1.jpg




Here's the trunk of the same car, never polished and never protected since my father-in-law purchased it back in 2000:

DSC01236copy-1.jpg
 
Looks pretty good. Thanks for the video.

OS keeps tempting me to purchase it.

How is your bottle lasting? It seems like a promising product.
 
I'm sorry, but that last picture of a car that has had no love in 7 years is really an indictment of the other beading pics. If no care in 7 years can still bead that well, then a freshly protected car, no matter what the LSP, should have high round beads like Zaino, Collinite, or #16.



Your NXT beading isn't really any better than the unprotected, which of course means that NXT is quite dead at 4 months (which anyone who has used it knows).



Let me recap...if that trunk can bead that well with 7 years of no polish/LSP, then any semi-Autopian regimen should result in stellar beading....ipso facto if any LSP has crappy beading after a few months--it's dead dead DEAD, because you can get crappy beading with 7 years of no LSP.



Flame suit on!!!
 
Well, I just wanted to know if OptiSeal is treated as a sealant or what, since you don't wax and then put on a sealant, but you can put on a sealant and lay wax on top.
 
I got 7 coats of Opti-seal on my silver mazda for over 5 months now and it still beads like crazy and shine is holding up very well in the Florida weather, and it's park 24/7 outside. Use it on all my customer cars and works great for my needs, but next month i'll be trying out Utlima on my mazda. And yes you can put wax over it or under it.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
I'm sorry, but that last picture of a car that has had no love in 7 years is really an indictment of the other beading pics. If no care in 7 years can still bead that well, then a freshly protected car, no matter what the LSP, should have high round beads like Zaino, Collinite, or #16.



Your NXT beading isn't really any better than the unprotected, which of course means that NXT is quite dead at 4 months (which anyone who has used it knows).



Let me recap...if that trunk can bead that well with 7 years of no polish/LSP, then any semi-Autopian regimen should result in stellar beading....ipso facto if any LSP has crappy beading after a few months--it's dead dead DEAD, because you can get crappy beading with 7 years of no LSP.



Flame suit on!!!



The only LSP this car has had prior to Optiseal has been NXT, Perfecar's Betawax #25 batch, and AquaWax. AquaWax has never beaded this well and I've seen it start to die off around 1-1.5 mo. Perfecar's betawax beaded REALLY well for the first 2 weeks but a little over a month the beading was gone. NXT, even at less than 1 week, it's beading wasn't even comparible to AquaWax, which is pretty pathetic considering AW is just a spray wax/sealant.



I'm not disputing any of the other durable waxes/sealants and I would think they would perform just as well, probably even better considering their track record with most users. Maybe a more fair assessment of this test was if I did a video at the 4 month mark? I personally don't think OS will die off to NXT's level in 1 month's time.



3 months isn't all that long and may not seem amazing to most Autopians here, but considering this car was not the Autopian standard to begin with when the product was applied, for me I am sold. When I first purchased this, I felt that I was settling for a lesser product. I've been itching (still itching) to try out Zaino's lineup, but their prices have kept me away. Add to that the fact this was a new type of sealant (wax on walk away) and I was really skeptical how long this product would last. If the product were to be dead at this point, I'd feel satisfied because the price was right and application of OS was a breeze.
 
I was really inferring that the claims about "the beading has changed to sheeting but the product is still there" are just fantasy if you can have beads that good with 7 years of nothing on it....or did I completely misunderstand you and you have had NXT, AW, etc. on that panel (trunk) before?
 
Setec Astronomy said:
I was really inferring that the claims about "the beading has changed to sheeting but the product is still there" are just fantasy if you can have beads that good with 7 years of nothing on it....or did I completely misunderstand you and you have had NXT, AW, etc. on that panel (trunk) before?



Sorry, I must have misunderstood you previously.



When the pic of that trunk was taken (about a year ago), it had never been polished or protected. I had clayed it a few months prior to that but that was all. I never got around to putting any protection on it.



I also don't buy into the beading changes to sheeting BS. NXT lost it looks after the 2nd wash. OS has kept the same look so far after all this time without anything to boost in between.
 
UPDATE:



About a week after the SoCal wildfires began, I gave this car a quick wash and noticed the sheeting and beading had greatly diminished. This was at 4+ months.



Since then I haven't had the time to wash the car until today (now at least 5+ months). Sheeting and beading on horizontal panels was practically gone, just slightly better than the previous pic I posted of NXT @ 4 months.



But, I also noticed that the protection only seem to be gone on horizontal panels. On panels where there are curves or angles down (like the fender), there was some protection left. On completely vertical panels (like the doors), beading and sheeting doesn't appear to have changed at all since at least the 3 month mark when the video was made.



So based on these observations, I have a feeling had the fire not taken place, Optiseal would probably still be going strong. It would have been nice to know how much longer it would have lasted, but at the same time I'm glad I don't have to hold back on topping the car with a QD or LSP. It was hard enough going for more than 5 months without adding anything that could compromise the test.



All in all, I'm satisfied with my purchase of this product. I thought the price was a bit high when I initially heard it was going to be $25 for 8 oz, but after using it I feel the product was priced just right to steal any potential sales that might have gone to Zaino CS. Prior to using it I thought 8 oz didn't seem like that much product, but you use so little to do one car that 8 oz feels like an eternity to use up. Had Optiseal not gone into market, I probably would have bought Z-CS. Ultima PGP on the other hand is still out of my price range.



I love AquaWax because of it's price, ease of use, and decent protection for a spray sealant and OptiSeal reminds me of AW on steroids (at a slightly higher cost of course). The main complaint I have about OS is that with the foam applicators than came with the AG purchase, it's a bit grabby against the paint which causes me to hold the applicator in an uncomfortable way to prevent me from dropping the applicator on the ground.



Also, because you don't buff it off, whenever it started to dew I would get spots on the car wherever it was applied first or sprayed on first. I don't know if buffing it off with QD soon after it was applied would have resolved this problem, but I didn't want to do that as the main reason I bought it was because of it's wipe on walk away capability.
 
Back
Top