Recommendations for paint protection

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linkinpark

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Hey guys, what do you recommend for paint protection on a new car? I've been researching a bit and seen ceramic coatings, clay applications (same as ceramic?), full body wraps, and other waxes. But are any of them worth it? How often does it need to be done?
Thanks.
 
linkinpark said:
Hey guys, what do you recommend for paint protection on a new car? I've been researching a bit and seen ceramic coatings, clay applications (same as ceramic?), full body wraps, and other waxes. But are any of them worth it? How often does it need to be done?
Thanks.
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Clay is a "recovery" thing for damaged paint and not a protection layer at all.

Whether it's worth it all really depends on the car, I've personally never bothered outside of good upkeep with washing and waxing and the odd polish.

My last car was professionally glazed when it was near the 10 year old mark and that's about it.
 
Ceramic coating from a proper detailer. Dont let amazing glaze touch your car. You will end up with holograms etc in your paint.

It wont be cheap. Budget between R5k to R10k depending on how much restoration is needed on your paint before laying down the ceramic.

This wont protect from paint chips though. Just swirls and minor scratches. PPF will be what you need for paint chip protection.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Clay is a "recovery" thing for damaged paint and not a protection layer at all.

Whether it's worth it all really depends on the car, I've personally never bothered outside of good upkeep with washing and waxing and the odd polish.

My last car was professionally glazed when it was near the 10 year old mark and that's about it.
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Clay does nothing for damaged paint. It only extracts contamination out of the paint, allowing light to pass through and reflect better giving the paint a better shine. Restoration is done through applying an abrasive compound with a polishing pad to cut down your clear coat to be as level as possible removing swirlmarks which are what dull the shine in paint.
 
ubercal said:
Which Amazing Glaze branch did you go to ?
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Amazing glaze are not detailers. They are essentially make up artists. They apply a glaze which fills in the swirlmarks and give the illusion that your paint has been corrected. Once that glaze fades away in a month or 2 the swirls are present again.

Also they use rotary polishers which easily inflict holograms in the paint if the user does not know what they are doing. I have no confidence in their polishing capabilities. A dual action polisher is much more forgiving as the movement is random and lessens the risk of burning through your clear coat unlike the rotary
 
What paint detailed by a detailer looks like
f8e364a1d97620e1abfbadda3cf89317.jpg
 
An example of the swirlmarks that were present on the car before detailing. Glazes just fill in the fine scratches. Polishing flattens the surface around them until they are gone. The detailer needs to use a paint thickness gauge to measure just how much clear coat they can polish away to safely remove the swirls and not burn right through the clear coat.

This detail took 36 hours or so. For your R750 or so at Amazing Glaze do you believe this level of attention to detail is being given? Nope. They just putting make up on an ugly girl to make her look semi decent.
dc9b5239a00d3796a584a473d56cd5ff.jpg
 
50/50 comparison of polished section on left vs unpolished on right. Note how cloudy the right looks. The swirlmarks are hampering the passing through and reflection of light thus it looks duller.
c3c5ef698e1ffb21197bb9d69d808a6e.jpg
 
Ecko_1 said:
Clay does nothing for damaged paint. It only extracts contamination out of the paint, allowing light to pass through and reflect better giving the paint a better shine. Restoration is done through applying an abrasive compound with a polishing pad to cut down your clear coat to be as level as possible removing swirlmarks which are what dull the shine in paint.
Click to expand...

Sorry "damaged" was maybe the wrong word. I meant contaminated or dirty.
 
Ecko_1 said:
An example of the swirlmarks that were present on the car before detailing. Glazes just fill in the fine scratches. Polishing flattens the surface around them until they are gone. The detailer needs to use a paint thickness gauge to measure just how much clear coat they can polish away to safely remove the swirls and not burn right through the clear coat.

This detail took 36 hours or so. For your R750 or so at Amazing Glaze do you believe this level of attention to detail is being given? Nope. They just putting make up on an ugly girl to make her look semi decent.
dc9b5239a00d3796a584a473d56cd5ff.jpg
Click to expand...

eish ... maybe they only do good jobs on the fancy porsches' and lambos
 
Ecko_1 said:
An example of the swirlmarks that were present on the car before detailing. Glazes just fill in the fine scratches. Polishing flattens the surface around them until they are gone. The detailer needs to use a paint thickness gauge to measure just how much clear coat they can polish away to safely remove the swirls and not burn right through the clear coat.
Click to expand...

You do realise that you can only do a proper detail once or twice in the cars life? You are literally wearing away at the extremely thin clear coat.
 
genetic said:
You do realise that you can only do a proper detail once or twice in the cars life? You are literally wearing away at the extremely thin clear coat.
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Yeah. It depends on the thickness of the OEM clearcoat and how far you have to cut to correct the paint. With that black Polo I had one proper detail done and maintained it with proper wash techniques thereafter. 2 years later it was mostly swirl free. Pointless detailing properly and then sending the car to a normal car wash.
 
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