Scuffs under ceramic coating

[Gad-Westy]

My Lotus is covered in turtle was ceramic sealant. Prior to sealing it I used turtle wax's hybrid ceramic polish. In my reasonably well lit garage, the surface looked pretty good so I went ahead and sealed it as well. The car saw daylight for the first time since yesterday and I can see that there are some swirls and scuffs on the paint that I didn't clean up with polishing.

I presume the best course of action here is just to wait it out for a few months and then have another go at polishing?

I must admit, impressive as the turtle was stuff has been, I think I might just stick to it for the daily wagon and other half's car and go back to regular stuff for the Lotus that's little less permanent.

[SeeFive]

Gad-Westy said:

My Lotus is covered in turtle was ceramic sealant. Prior to sealing it I used turtle wax's hybrid ceramic polish. In my reasonably well lit garage, the surface looked pretty good so I went ahead and sealed it as well. The car saw daylight for the first time since yesterday and I can see that there are some swirls and scuffs on the paint that I didn't clean up with polishing.

I presume the best course of action here is just to wait it out for a few months and then have another go at polishing?

I must admit, impressive as the turtle was stuff has been, I think I might just stick to it for the daily wagon and other half's car and go back to regular stuff for the Lotus that's little less permanent.

I just did the same on the wife’s Merc SLC over the weekend. The TW ceramic polish is a very light cut and really needs to be worked for a long slow time with a DA to remove heavier swirls after decontamination of course.

I decided that I was happy with leaving a few marks rather than chasing perfection (no paint depth gauge!) so just did a one stage over the majority of the car. But if you have remaining paint damage, I’d recommend a two stage with something like Megs 105 on a Hexlogic orange pad (Merc paint is hard - not sure on Lotus) followed by refining with TW ceramic polish to make the process a little shorter. In fact, I had to do a two stage on the nose cone and a couple of places where it seemed shopping bags had hit the corners of the car and scratched moderately as TW wouldn’t touch it.

As I understand it, you can remove TW ceramic spray with a medium cut polish, so something like Megs 105 again - two birds with one stone if you are lucky

Worth remembering you can use TW Ceramic polish in direct sun, so it helps to see how you are progressing with refinement if your garage lights are lacking. I actually lack a garage at all, so I have no option

[Gad-Westy]

SeeFive said:

Gad-Westy said:

My Lotus is covered in turtle was ceramic sealant. Prior to sealing it I used turtle wax's hybrid ceramic polish. In my reasonably well lit garage, the surface looked pretty good so I went ahead and sealed it as well. The car saw daylight for the first time since yesterday and I can see that there are some swirls and scuffs on the paint that I didn't clean up with polishing.

I presume the best course of action here is just to wait it out for a few months and then have another go at polishing?

I must admit, impressive as the turtle was stuff has been, I think I might just stick to it for the daily wagon and other half's car and go back to regular stuff for the Lotus that's little less permanent.

I just did the same on the wife’s Merc SLC over the weekend. The TW ceramic polish is a very light cut and really needs to be worked for a long slow time with a DA to remove heavier swirls after decontamination of course.

I decided that I was happy with leaving a few marks rather than chasing perfection (no paint depth gauge!) so just did a one stage over the majority of the car. But if you have remaining paint damage, I’d recommend a two stage with something like Megs 105 on a Hexlogic orange pad (Merc paint is hard - not sure on Lotus) followed by refining with TW ceramic polish to make the process a little shorter. In fact, I had to do a two stage on the nose cone and a couple of places where it seemed shopping bags had hit the corners of the car and scratched moderately as TW wouldn’t touch it.

As I understand it, you can remove TW ceramic spray with a medium cut polish, so something like Megs 105 again - two birds with one stone if you are lucky

Worth remembering you can use TW Ceramic polish in direct sun, so it helps to see how you are progressing with refinement if your garage lights are lacking. I actually lack a garage at all, so I have no option

Cheers. Might give polishing it a go then. Garage is generally quite well lit but it's not even so it is hard to spot things. In the past I was probably more comfortable with some sort of glaze with filler rather than chasing perfection. Used to use black hole a lot and was always happy with that. The TW stuff seems really good but clearly it's far more important to get the surface prep bang on before you seal it in.

[SeeFive]

It is tough to see issues in a well lit garage. Sometimes a torch can help, but the ambient light tends to mask issues.

Gratuitous pic time - my work station! I polished the thing so hard the number plate digits came off



Hmmm, the 2 meg pic limit has removed all the detail. Looks crap compared to the original picture, it is basically wet glass with the odd long straight scratch deliberately left behind as I have no idea how much clear I have to play with..

[Gad-Westy]

SeeFive said:

It is tough to see issues in a well lit garage. Sometimes a torch can help, but the ambient light tends to mask issues.

Gratuitous pic time - my work station! I polished the thing so hard the number plate digits came off



Hmmm, the 2 meg pic limit has removed all the detail. Looks crap compared to the original picture, it is basically wet glass with the odd long straight scratch deliberately left behind as I have no idea how much clear I have to play with..

Looking good!

Thinking on this further. My thoughts are to leave it as throughout summer and then tackle this in winter while it's hibernating but that leads to another question.

When people talk about coatings lasting 3/6/12 months or whatever is that generally being exposed to normal use or do they degrade with time anyway? If a car sits in the garage for 12 months after being ceramic coated, will it be as protected as the day it was done or will there be nothing left?

I noticed when I took the car out last night, it is definitely not beading as much as I'd expect so maybe the coating is starting to degrade a little.

[SeeFive]

It is the first time I have used a coating on one of our cars, so no real world experience. Previously I have been using nano polishes, which last reasonably well. Real world reviews of ceramic spray on a daily use car suggest a 3 month lifespan which of course can be topped up by other products in the TW ceramic range. That is my new regime!

The degradation is reported to come from the sun, attacks by the usual road use contaminants and cleaning products such as TFR and the like. I also noticed the Merc is not beading today as strongly as it was when just using the ceramic wash, but maybe there are still some residues left behind from the work.

I will give it a wash with the ceramic wash and also use the ceramic drying aid at the weekend (weather permitting) and see what happens. It lives outside next to the sea and has about 40k miles on the clock, so I do wash it frequently to maintain it. The neighbours think I am nuts and most of them have shouted across at me that “I will wash it away”.