Unenthusiastically trudging along…

Started the day repairing some rock chips in the paint with a touch-up kit from DrColorchip. It’s not as easy as they make it look in the videos, and it’s also quite time consuming. After a while I decided that I can live with a few tiny chips in my paint. I took care of about six that were really obvious and that was it.

I then wiped down the car (again) with isopropyl alcohol to get rid of all residue from the polishing before coating the paint with CarPro CQuartz UK Edition. From the manufacturer’s website:

This coating is not some special edition gimmick. This is the easiest to apply coating on the market while matching or raising the already high standards of gloss and scratch resistance found in CQuartz.

The exclusive new 70% SiO2 with 99.9% purity formula made for hot or cold temp environment applications. CQUK is based on the same technology as the original Cquartz with some interesting tweaks. Current glass coating products had 20% of SiO2 in the product however CQUK has 70% SiO2 with 99.9% purity. This is the first ever nano silica coat which has this concentration! The pure percentage ensures the most transparent glass coat film over the surface. This guarantees long lasting coating with extreme strength resistance and water-repellency. Once the liquid meets the open air it cures and forms a ceramic quartz hard coating on the surface with extreme hydrophobicity.

I’ve researched these newfangled next-gen paint coatings for quite some time. They’re supposed to act almost like a sacrificial (2 years+) layer of clear coat on top of the factory clear coat, giving great protection, gloss, and slickness. I decided on CQuartz because it had many great user reviews and seemed like the most idiot proof of the offerings out there. I coated the hood with no issues at all, but the result, frankly, was a bit underwhelming. After all the hype maybe my expectations were too high. The paint looks nice and all. It’s glossy, but no more so than the un-coated panels, and it’s not even very slick, certainly nothing like what I can get from a good carnauba wax.

Oh well, it is what it is. Maybe it needs to cure or something. It’s been one of those days. I’ll do the rest of the car for tomorrow.

Update 10-15-15:

So I went through my phone and found some video clips of me applying the paint coating. It’s not much, but you get the general idea how it’s done. I know I mumble a lot; pay attention and maybe you’ll learn something. Or not.