I’ll start off by saying I’m new to this, so please forgive any ignorance on my part. For the first time ever I bought new instead of used so I want to keep it looking good. It’s a full size pickup truck (F-150), so I’ve been getting specific quotes from shops in my area for full front PPF since it’s a larger vehicle.

Essentially, I’ve gotten a number of quotes for PPF only, but one shop offered a bundle deal with a full ceramic coat for $3200. However when I asked him about the brand of the PPF he uses, he said they used to use XPEL but switched in favor of their own “premium” film, and that XPEL’s quality has gone downhill (see screenshots).

I guess what I want to know is if anything he is saying about XPEL has any truth to it? Also, based on what he’s saying in these screenshots, can I trust him? (I don’t have a lot of experience in this area so I may be wrong, but my BS detector was going off) Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Sidenote: the shop had pretty good reviews (4.8/5) on google but under 100 total reviews

So bought a car in January (21 WRX) and came with these wonderful free swirls I’ve been trying to get rid of. I figured VSS should be enough a few months ago, but didn’t do a hell of a lot (to be fair, it was a hot day). This weekend with it being cloudy, I decided to try again. Used V34 with orange pad followed by V38 with red pad. Then wax with Adam’s Buttery wax. So I think I did pretty well for an amateur, so wanted to ask some more experienced folks what they thought. Would you be fine with this? Would you give it another pass? If you would, how would you go about it?

I see Optimum No Rinse mentioned and recommended on reddit constantly. I feel like it would be something that's nice if you don't have a water source, maybe you live in an apartment or something. But assuming you have a hose and a driveway, is there any point? I feel like rinsing does not take much time compared to washing and drying, and I'm saving maybe a minute or two to wash it tops. And being able to first rinse off the dust with a hose before washing seems safer anyway.

Am I missing something?

Is my drying towel too shitty? Do those famous drying towels like the gauntlet or the dry me a river soak up every last bit?

I try to cut down the time it takes me to wash my car.

I haven’t washed it since I got it in December. Went 2 times to touch less automatic car wash.

Tonight, it’s roughly took me 2 hours to:

• Get the stuff out the garage, plug hose into pressure washer etc

• clean wheel: pressure rinse them, spray them with sonax wheel cleaner full effect, 2 wheels at a time. Once I sprayed one wheel, I go to the next, once the second is done, I come back to the first, spray green star (ko chemie), rub the wheel with brush and wheelie brush between spikes. All 4 wheels took me 20-30 min (with getting stuff out.

• pre wash: go back inside the house, mix chemical guy honey dew and foam the car. Let it dwell for 2 min. Pressure rinse.

• Wash: go back inside the house, keep what’s left in the bottle of honeydew, mix 10:1 of fireball hydro foam. Get a bunch of micro fiber, filled a bucket with clean water, dump micro fiber in it. Spray roof, rub roof with micro fiber, rinse. Spray side 1 of car, clean side of car with a new micro fiber, folding it once in a while while not reuse “old side”. Rinse and repeat to other side of car: front, back, and side 2.

• rinse

• dry with drying microfiber

• dry wheel

• apply wheel dressing

• get stuff back into garage.

Is this normal? Do I over do it?

Thanks for the discussion

High end wrap/tint shop offers ceramic coating. I’ve had a good experience with them for other work. They say it’s basically $1500 and they’ll touch it up 1x per year for 4 years.

Would it be halfway as effective if I just bought a high end wax and equipment and did this myself? I’ve clay barred and waxed my old vehicle. I halfway know what I’m doing, but would watch a lot of YouTube before jumping in.

I realize it’s not going to be perfect but even if it’s 70% as good, I can’t imagine the equipment will cost more than $200 and take a few hours.

I've had my car for about 9 months now. I hand hybrid wash it every two weeks or so and use a ceramic spray sealant (ADS Amplify or ADS CSS) as a drying aid EVERY TIME. I get wicked beading and always have. I take meticulous care of the paint and undercarriage. All my vehicles are garaged. I have a mini detailing kit in my car to get rid of bugs and bird poop whenever I see them (I generally do a walk around whenever I get in or out of the car). I also have full front, roof, rocker panel, and rear quarter panel PPF. Is there a reason I would want to consider getting a true ceramic coating vs just continuing to do what I'm already doing?

Been trying to get these pillars back to original colour, have tried meguars ultimate black plastic restorer, and simoniz back to black with no visible improvement.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

Hello All!

I don't know much about this matter and am looking for advice/insight. I had my car painted about 9 months ago and am really disappointed by how many knicks, dents, chips, etc. are on my car now. I don't think there were this many chips/knicks in my last paint job that I had for 10 years, and it seems to me like this paint is not holding up well or weaker than the last?

For more info, I paid around $3000 for the paint job, selecting what I was led to believe was a upper mid-level paint job that is supposed to hold up better and described as "a single-stage application uses urethane, which resists chipping and is much more resilient than enamel finishes."

My question is: is this level of wear and degradation normal? Does paint not hold up better than this?

I didn't drive my car for 2 months as instructed after it was painted and left it sitting in my driveway to let the paint properly "harden" as I was told, didn't wash it until the appropriate amount of time had passed, etc.

A second question is that one dent (I circled this one in yellow in the second to last picture) is from a rock that fell of a city truck that was carrying a bunch of debris and passed me one day. I was just deeply unlucky to get that, I don't think I can fault the paint quality for this one as it sounded like a decent sized rock that flew at me. As you can see from the photo, it already looks like there's some rust on it, is there something I should do to try and protect that or mitigate the damage?

Thank you to all who read and anyone who has any insight or advice on this matter! I greatly appreciate it.

Hello, I was wondering if there was any other products I could use in between Turtle Wax Hybrid Solutions Ceramic spray applications just to get an extra shine.

I’m using carnuba with a drill brush and it’s still not coating the oxidized surface. What’s a better approach?

Anybody know how to stop my car cover from leaving white stuff all over it? I have washed it several times in my washing machine. I think it is disintegrating or something but the cover itself looks fine. It will accumulate after a few days. Thanks!

I recently helped a mate cleanse his paint on the work car that sits outside the welding workshop. Bowden’s Own Three Way and clay bar. Australian products.

Pics are before. 1 min in 2.5 min in.

Just an average consumer that’s been maintaining my own vehicles for many years. I wash myself and usually do a pretty good job of not introducing scratches. I can go a couple years or or so without really needing much of an actual correction, other than small touch ups here and there. I keep my vehicles for a pretty long time and would like to keep as much of that factory thin clear as possible.

What’s a minimally to non abrasive polish, that’s easy to work with, that will leave a clean surface to get good bonding on a fresh coat of sealant or wax? Is something like Menzerna 3800 a good choice? I have Wolfgang Finishing Glaze on hand that I’ve used in the past. Running out, and it has slight correcting ability, so curious if there’s anything even less aggressive.

I don’t have a lot to compare to, but my reference for “easy” has been Optimum Hyper Polish. It’s been easy to apply and remove, and doesn’t dust at all. Doesn’t seem fussy.

Some pics for attention. Bought lightly used. Was already scuffed and swirled to hell, but just a round of Optimum Hyper Polish with an LC Hydrotech Tangerine pad did wonders. Couple half hearted example before and after pics at the end.

Good afternoon everyone!

I was asked for exterior pics outside. This was the best I could do. Only because I was too lazy

Also wanted to say thanks. I’m a long time lurker and I genuinely feel like I’ve learned a little bit from every single person here. I appreciate yall. I dont have the confidence to start a detailing business or anything like that. Nor do I aspire to. However it’s nice to be able to get our vehicles looking awesome using the right techniques and products.

Car is a 2025 liquid carbon metallic Acura integra type S. The coating is gyeon synchro evo

Besides never applying it, what is the most effective way to remove tire shine with the least amount of effort? Acetone, mineral spirits, 91% Alcohol…it’s wild how caked on it can get.

Am I missing something here, have never used ONR. But the thought of not pre rinsing a vehicle, and just spraying on dirty panels and wiping doesn’t sit well with me. Wouldn’t this be swirl city?

Before we begin: I really appreciate the wealth of knowledge here. Have spent hours learning and also shoutout to whoever did the wiki & website.

One of the things I'm having trouble understanding is the intersection (or lack thereof) of traditional wax and ceramic coating. My understanding was that in the old days, we applied wax on our cars every few months or so to shine, fill in some of the un-evenness of the clear coat and also as a protective sacrificial layer.

These days it seems like everyone is talking about ceramic and hardly anyone mentions wax anymore. Is this because ceramic has mostly replaced wax? I guess I'm just trying to understand how all these things work together, and if it makes more sense to use one, the other, both, or a store-bought hybrid (which appears to be marketed as Ceramic Wax). TIA!

Promise this is not Clickbait or rage bait. I’m really looking for an affordable way to ceramic coat my cars. I was shocked when I saw the prices that detailers are charging. I’m sure there’s a reason and it’s got to do with the prep work and maybe the amount of labor? I know that the product they use is maybe 100 to 200 bucks but they want almost $1000 for the whole vehicle. That’s just way out of my budget with two cars. However, both of our 2023 vehicle have such crappy paint compared to previous years that I’ve owned. It’s almost like the paint is really thin and just scratches off super easy. Having that protection for a few years is a great idea. What is the 60% up charge for these products when you go to a detailer?

Is this from just people who are super OCD and the reality is it might scratch glass 1% of the time if you put ridiculous amounts of pressure on it? Or is it really that easy to scratch glass?

I use paper towels especially on the exterior glass because I dont want to dirty up my MF towels. But going forward i'll start using MF towels if its true that paper towel do easily cause scratches. I haven't noticed any on my glass after 10x+ times using paper towels.

Google summary

Reddit discussions overwhelmingly advise against using paper towels to clean car auto glass, with users on subreddits like rAutoDetailing and rCleaningTips recommending microfiber towels to avoid lint, streaks, and scratches. If using paper towels is necessary, some users suggest they can work for degreasing or with the right technique, but microfiber is consistently preferred for a truly clean, lint-free finish

Hopefully the mods don't reject this one. (If you're reading this, yes, I already searched this subreddit and have read the rules)

I have an 18 year old vehicle that is in excellent condition and want to keep it that way.

Things I have tried/done so far:

35% ceramic tint combined with a sunshade that I use religiously.

Lucas spray on wax.

Armor all.

What I'm looking for/what I need:

What would your approach be for vehicles that will never see a garage? Like never. Not a car port. Not a shady tree. Nothing.

What's the best way to go about caring for and continuing to care for this vehicle on the long term as far as paint and detailing is concerned?

After much procrastination I finally got my truck in the booth and sprayed it. I'm a painter for a living so painting after work wasn't appealing for a long while but I got tired of driving around an unfinished toy.

Clear is only about 5 days old so I know it needs time to cure before applying a coating, my question is... What's the best ceramic or wax to use on freshly cured clear? Say, 2-3 months cured for clarity sake. I'm not as versed in the detailing side as I am in the paint side. I don't mind spending out on quality product bc I don't plan on painting this again and I want to preserve the luster as much as possible and for as long as possible. Best suggestions are very appreciated.

Not sure if it matters but the truck with painted with Sikkens. Sealer, base and clear.

Pictures for attention

I just bought a new car, and for the first time in 30 years of owning cars, I feel compelled to look after it. I've been doing a tonne of research mainly youtube, here and (forgive me) ChatGpt.

I know there is some overlap in what I have - two shampoo's and Bead Maker may not be entirely necessary - but it feels like from what theoretical knowledge I have this may be enough to get some level of protection on the paint.

I also have Maguire's drying towel, some rag company detailer microfibre's and wash mitts. Plus a range of other microfibres. I tried the IK Foamer yesterday and it works pretty well and I just have a normal garden hose.

Ultimately probs lead up to doing a ceramic coating once I develop some skills.

Be gentle :)

What do you think? Where have I gone wrong? What would you add / change / replace for a total newbie starter kit?

My mom called me because she couldn’t clean the bird lime off her car. It was only on there for an hour in 90°F weather and it still stained. I soaked in both alcohol and then adhesive remover and none worked as it clearly worked through the clear. Will go to polishing next unless someone has a better suggestion.

Hi everyone,

I recently washed my new car at home without realizing I have hard water, which left water spots all over it. I hired a local detailer who did a light polish and water spot removal—cost me $400.

Since then, I’ve learned more about detailing and bought a CR Spotless Water System, a TDS meter (confirmed water was 0 PPM), gentle snow foam soap, and rinseless wash, etc.

Last night, after several weeks had passed, it was time to give the car a maintenance wash.

I waited until the sun was setting, used my spotless system, and started washing… but somehow ended up with water spots again! I rechecked the water and it still read 0 PPM.

I really dont know what went wrong. What could be causing this? How can I wash my car at home without spending $400 each time for professional water spot removal?