Unwanted ceramic coating

[otolith]

Just bought a second hand car from a car supermarket and part of the weird haggling process amounted to “we can’t move any further on the price but we can give you the cost to change that you want if we give you free GardX”. Whatever. They must have applied it in about 40 mins while valeting the car and I got a big bag of products in the boot.

It looks fine, if you haven’t got a sunlamp and OCD, but it would definitely look better for a machine polish and waxing. Which would remove the nominally expensive but cheap to them and negative cost to me coating.

Can’t decide whether to do it now or wait for it to wear off then do it. And wonder whether the stuff in the bag is actually any use for anything.

[somouk]

If it was applied that quickly then it wasn’t prepped properly and it’s not a ceramic despite what they are calling it. Just a sealant of some form.

Personally I would decontaminate the paint, prepare it properly and the coat in something worth while to protect the paint.

The only reason these things are ever worth having is if they come with the lifetime guarantee for stain removal on the interior or similar if you have kids or pets.

[otolith]

Oh, it comes with some sort of guarantee, I haven’t read it because I didn’t care. I expect the product is fine, just another silicone polymer sealant like all the other “ceramic” products, but without correcting the paint first it’s protecting something that isn’t all that great to begin with. It’s a £10 product applied with no prep, and nominally charged at the price of a £10 product and a day of prep.

[johnoz]

Give it a few weeks and it will be gone.

My son had it put on his BMW for free it soon vanished.

[otolith]

I think I will just wait for it to wear off.

[broncoupe]

Simple answer products are ok application is rubbish therefore product falls away somewhere in the first 3 mnths
i really cant believe you comment regards guarentee
most people dont have the heart to complain simple as that
The companies no that and rely on it

[otolith]

I don’t care about the guarantee because I didn’t want the coating in the first place, but for some reason they couldn’t knock off the money I wanted unless they threw in the coating. Quite bizarre. For me, a coating applied without correcting the paint first is basically worthless.

[Pica-Pica]

GardX was included on my new BMW as part of the negotiating process. 5 3/4 years on, it’s neither here nor there. The paintwork seems fine, whether it would have been worse or better without it, I can’t really say.

[Blue62]

I'm really sceptical about ceramic coatings, unless applied by a qualified, experienced detailer. I had it on my last Audi and after three years it still looked good after a wash, but my previous DIY attempts yielded nothing like the same results. Personally, I like to clay, clean, seal and polish with something decent like Swisswax, but I have to hide the receipt from Mrs B.