alapin

Is anyone familiar with PDP (Professional Detailing Products) Ceramic Coating? pdp.biz ? I requested that the dealer use Ceramic Pro 9H product and recently found that they used PDP Perpetual 9H product instead which is a completely different manufacturer than the one that was discussed and paid for. Ceramic Pro 9H is a well known product while I can't seem to find a single discussion in reference to PDP Perpetual 9H. Ceramic Pro offers life time warranty on their product if used a # of set coats while PDP only backs their product for 5 years. As far as I am concerned it seems the dealer tried to pull a fast one and essentially did a bait and switch. Furthermore I paid for 5 coats and dealer only installed 3. If anyone is familiar with this product please give me your feedback as I am livid considering Ceramic Pro products were specified, quoted and presented. Dealers installer tried to give the run around that all ceramic coatings are same.

Nice Ride

Wow! in general, and I say that lightly, the Ceramic Coatings are very similar. Anything that you can purchase over the counter is more forgiving. The MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE JOB is the Prep. Most money is made from the hours put in to properly Detail ( Paint correction ) before applying any coating. a good paint correction can be 10 to 20 hours. If that is done poorly, putting the coating on top will just cover over the defect ( Spider Web, Orange Peal, Dents, Dings ). No coating will really be lifetime. Ceramic will scratch just like the clear coat, just not as easy. Over time, it will have to be redone in general. There is no easy way to redo ceramic, it will need to be sanded off then re-applied. Really depends on how you keep your car. Car Wash, Garaged, etc.... As far as the Hydrophobic coating, you can purchase RELOAD, do a 50/50 mix with distilled water, after your wash, give the car a light spray and wipe off with a micro fiber, bingo, watch the water roll off even without the Ceramic.
Its all in the prep!

superangrypenguin

Because the W222 crowd is an educated one I will actually entertain this discussion. I, am NOT, in the camp that supports SIO2, or these stupid ceramic coatings. Here are my reasons, and feel free to school/educate me.

1) The thickness of SIO2 is not thicker than if one uses a paint sealant. It doesn't provide ANY benefit to a vehicle over a paint sealant with the POSSIBLE exception that it may last a few months longer.

2) If one needs to remove the SIO2 coating, have fun with that. That process is not easy, and it does require special chemicals.

3) SIO2 does have to be 'topped up', and using those easy spray SIO2 stuff does not provide the same protection as with a manual application like when the product is first applied to a car. The equivalent of this "in the old days" was when someone would top up their paint sealant with a spray wax. It's not the same thing.

4) I can easily apply paint sealant with little to no effort, and I can't screw it up. If I do screw it up, out comes some palmolive and water, and I can start back with a clean surface.

All this to state, I believe the SIO2/ceramic coating stuff is nothing more than a cash grab.

I'm making this post with the full understanding that someone may try and rip my arguments to pieces, and I am making this post with the expectation that someone is going to be harsh with me, and I'm also hoping that perhaps someone can convince me that I'm wrong.

Have at it

Robert Reust

@superangrypenguin yes you are right about the ease of use with a paint sealant. Both sealants and ceramics have come a long way in just the past few years. That being said a ceramic coating is not a cash scheme a ceramic coating is on a completely different level in terms of hardness. With the ceramic coating I use I can take a lighter and smack a coated panel with the plastic end and it will not scratch the panel, there is no sealant in the world that can handle that abuse. Also the dirt and debris a vehicle is subjected to while driving will be repelled for a lot longer of a period than a sealant. You DO NOT need to use special chemicals to remove a ceramic coating, as time goes by any sealant or ceramic will wear away. If you properly prep the vehicle before applying the ceramic there should be absolutely no reason to remove the coating in the first place, and most sealants only last 6-12 months IF THAT and you have to reapply over and over if you want long term protection where a ceramic is applied once and it’s good for 5 or more years (depending on the product) and applying a topper coating is not necessarily a must, yes it does help and if your vehicle is coated with a good ceramic the topper just glides on and wipes off effortlessly but you DO NOT HAVE TO use a topper. They have several diy friendly ceramic coatings such as DPC Armor (Dallas Paint Correction) it’s good for a year and gives you the protection of a 9H Ceramic Coating in a easy to use formula. I have a spray ceramic coating that lasts 2 years and it just wipes right off and is 9H hardness. There is not a single paint sealant that can offer a level of protection that a true ceramic coating can plain and simple. If you park 2 vehicles side by side and I use a 9H coating on one and a paint sealant on another you will see a clear difference in the gloss level, slickness of the paint and it will withstand much more severe abuse. I have a test panel at my shop that was coated with System X Diamond SS 9H Ceramic Coating which is a professional grade product and it was coated 3 years ago when I moved to my current location and I can still to this day take and spray paint the panel, let it dry and then wash it off with soap and water, you can’t do that with any paint sealant. You can’t make all of these assumptions if you don’t first do research. There are thousands of videos on YouTube demonstrating the difference between ceramic coatings and paint sealants and they can’t have the results the do by faking the video. And the ceramic manufacturers would be bankrupt from lawsuits if they were selling a bogus product that didn’t stand up to their claims. I have been detailing for 15 years and have used my fair share of different paint sealants and ceramic coatings. If you like sealants then that’s fine but if you want longer, more durable protection and the freedom to not have to wax or apply another sealant on your vehicle for years not months like sealants than you should look into ceramics. But a really good spray sealant I use is Turtle Was Seal and Shine and it’s cheap and can handle some tough abuse and goes on easy, yes I’m sure there are better products that cost more and last longer but this sealant can handle several attacks of all purpose cleaner and still sheet wanted nicely.

superangrypenguin

I would ask you to prove it, but you've been clearly contradicted not only here, but in a ton of other videos. At best, ceramic coating may resist swirl marks from washing better than a paint sealant, but if you take anything sharp, like a key, a screwdriver, or whatever, you're going through that microscopic layer of ceramic coating


Here's another: