About a year or so is really all they say they last.

 

Ethos' Graphene coating touts a 5+ year lifespan.

GT CSL+EXOv4 touts 3-5 years.

CQuartz UK 3.0 says 2-3.

 

 

Can I shoot lazerbeamz at it? :P

Re: graphene - I haven't read anything definitely positive about it, other than marketing materials. Plenty of skeptical (i.e. "does it actually do anything") comments from high profile people in the detailing world, though.

 

graphene in consumer products is just a marketing buzzword at this point.

 

I'm talking about consumer coatings. Like you said, it all depends on the quality of the prep, proper application and curing and how its cared for. I've gotten 3 years out of the 22ple HPC using automatic carwashes, and I'm very satisfied with that. Your experience with CQ UK 3.0 is a very unusual experience.

 

The way I see it, you can buy expensive packages, or you can simply spend $4-6 on a bottle of Scratch-Out.

 

Scratch Out is not a paint protection product.

 

hahaah. give it time.
soon enough, you won't give a crap about swirls.

however, you should wax and seal regularly if you plan to own it over 10 years.
I use a grout sponge to wash my cars. These sponges are designed to trap dirt in the pores and less likely to drag dirt on the paint.

My oldest car is almost 18 years old, and the clear coat is completely peeling on the top surfaces, parking outside all the time.

Considering this experience, if I had a new car, I wouldn't worry about polishing swirls out. I would just use seal and wax to hide the swirls.

If you get OCD about swirls, and you always wanna polish the paint, soon you will have no clear coat left, and you will speed up clear coat peeling because it's gotten so thin.

I wish cars came with extra layers of clear coat.

 

No, but if Och has the kind of scratches I think he does (and I've seen them before), it is a simple and inexpensive way of dealing with them.

 

CQuartz UK is the only one they sell to consumers I believe. CQuartz Finest / Finest Reserve is only available through approved detailers and has a longer promised life. UK is very outdated at this point

 

He needs the whole car machine polished. Scratch Out isn't designed for this sort of thing.

 

What would you reccomend for me when I re-coat mine, or if I get a new car, coat that?

 

Yes, next time I take it to the car wash, i'll ask them to detail it including polishing and apply some sort of protection. I don't want to go too crazy about it, but at least something to preserve the paint for a while.

 

I use it all over my car about once a year or so...but I agree that it's not designed for a whole car to be quickly done in just a few minutes...you have to go over it by hand, panel-by-panel.