dmaleck

19 hours ago, shane@detailedreflections said:

So...with water spots sometimes you can polish them off and it’ll look amazing. But when you put the vehicle in the sun they come back. You should heat cycle to make sure they’re gone. They may not have been truly gone before ceramic coating. 
 

Or with your water spots it could be something with your water. Water spots are usually formed by contamination in the water or hard water. What’s your water situation like?  I’m guessing if they rubbed off you have something going on with your water supply. 

I know for sure I got them all off during the polishing phase, I pulled my car out into the sunlight multiple times to check for this. It could be from my water.. But It was about 60 degrees and I washed in the shade, there definitely was not enough time for the water spots to dry and harden. Its weird because before the coating, I didn't have any when I would wash.

8 hours ago, Yo-Yo Ma's Cousin said:

Like @shane@detailedreflections said, it could have been from hard water in your water supply.

It could also have been from the rain. It's pretty common for ceramic coatings to show waterspotting.

 

There's a other factors that might be considered:

How long ago did it rain?

How long ago did you coat?

Do you live on a dirt or gravel road?

 

I found that it helps to have a bottle of Waterless Wash in my car and I'll give it a quick wipe down after it rains on the surfaces where water tends to sit.

I did drive in the rain a few times, was real crappy for few days. Like I said above.. I never had any problems with waterspots until I did the coating. Now in the sun it looks like crap everywhere!

25 minutes ago, Rich said:

Don't use Detail Spray on the Ceramic Coat. Use the Ceramic Boost.  

I forgot to put that in there, after the 24 hour cure time and the ceramic coat, I put the ceramic boost on aswell. Doesn't explain why there are hundreds of water spots though?

Long story short...

Put about 20-30 hrs Polishing my Black Silverado to perfection (or close), Very few swirl marks, absolutely no waterspots, paint was glass. Followed it up with ADams Ceramic coat, let it cure for over 24 hrs, everything looked great, felt great, water beads right off.

Just did my first wash on the truck, foamed it up, scrubbed her down, washed off and boom... waterspots all over the place. Tried to use detail spray and they come off but it takes quite a bit of force and rubbing to do so. What did I do wrong?? I thought with the ceramic coat the waterspots would come right off? The truck did get rained on a few times while driving ect, but can't imagine they got stuck on that bad.

Please let me know!

Thanks!

I was thinking the same exact thing the other day. I haven't seen customer service like Adam's in my life. 

Welcome Derek, I am also stationed in Germany..In the Air Force..and my name is also Derek!

Nice car! Is it a xc90 hybrid?

Thanks! it's unfortunately not the T8 which is Hybrid. It's the T6 R-Design. Has a 2.0 supercharged/turbo engine. 

From Germany!

I figured it needs to go somewhere, so why not my car to resoak it before the rinse lol.

I also did this 

Even the WC?! Maybe your nose is broken.

Ok, maybe not WC. haha

The conditioner smells like a new leather jacket to me. You might want to try another bottle. Or maybe your body receives the smell different than others. You may never like the smell.

I'll give Adam's a call tomorrow, I don't think I have ever smelt a leather jacket that smells like my bottle.

Maybe my nose is broken? I love the smell of every other product Adam's has...

Thanks for the reply! Yeh, I gave it a good shake, 2 guys at work agreed with me in that it smells like a watering hose. I'll give them a call, I know their customer service is the best I've ever seen!

Hello all, I have been using Adam's for almost a year now and everything I use is absolutely fantastic, It's actually become somewhat of an addiction .

One question I have in regards to the leather conditioner...It really doesn't smell like leather to me, the best way I could describe the smell is if you were walking through the gardening section and home depot and walked past the rubber water hoses. Has a very distinct chemical smell. Is it possible that I just got a bad one?

I want to condition the leather in my 2017 XC90, the original leather smells fantastic and I don't want to lose that smell, if I use Adams conditioner it will definitely hide the original smell.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

I'll be here until next May, so not too bad.

Thank you!

Yea to be honest it might be about the same cost to get a carbon fiber hood for it !

Unfortunately can't get one of those shipped here    Sucks being overseas sometimes!

PDF is the Adobe document he posted above. Acrobat PDF file.

 

Well that is too bad on the hood.  I am guessing it has had paint work done on it and not GM paint.

 

The bad part is it will need stripped off to repair it. And because of color it will probably require the fenders and any other panels that meet the hood to be blended in as well.

Oh gotcha. I thought he PDF was some sort of detailing acronym haha. 

Well, As bad as I don't really like wraps, I might just wrap the vinyl wrap the hood.  It would probably cost me a small fortune to pay a German to paint and blend ect. I really appreciate all of your help!! other than the hood, the car is coming out great!

Nice PDF there.

Not sure what PDF is? 

Just got done with another 2 hours of polishing....these cracks do not go away.  I went over them at least 10 times with no improvement that I can tell.   I guess this means the clear coat failed for some reason.  Not sure why it would only be on the hood though.

Looks like clear coat failure to me, and the only way to fix it is a repaint.

 

http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/pdf/Troubleshooting_Guide_English_PDF.pdf

I had a feeling it would be worst case scenario. Definitely don't' want to pay German prices for a repaint over here.  Still going to attempt the buffer some more and see what I can do.

Sounds good. I will Update ASAP!

I will give this a go tomorrow, I am stationed in Germany so its midnight here   Trunk is completely normal, no weird scratches.  Is there a good how to video on properly wet/dry sanding? I am very new to all of this.

If you felt the scratches to start then it tells me they were in the clear.

 

You can do a lot of buffing with an orbital without damage.  But I am guessing you are going to have to make several passes with the first step before moving on.  Add the tape line so your progress is obvious.

Ok i'll try that, I appreciate your help.   What has me scratching my head is that I felt the scratches before..now I cant feel them.. But I can't see any improvement.. How is this possible? Unless its under the clear coat 

 That looks pretty bad. I would try taping off a line and spending time with the correcting polish and microfiber pad. Go over it many times and see if you are making headway. strip and claybar it first?

Forget the finishing compound for now until you can see progress. 

Yep I stripped and clay bared first, I can spend more time on those areas...I just wasn't sure how long and how much I can focus in a spot without doing damage.

Is that a fiberglass hood?  That's all I can think of.

Nope, Stock hood.

Hello all, Have a bit of a problem I could use some help with!

I got my PC kit in the mail the other day and got a little time today to hit my hood for a bit.  The hood on my CTS-V is definitely the worst part of the entire car..its pretty beat up.  I thought what I had was tons of tiny scratches all over the hood, mostly closer to the windshield. I am not sure where these all came from to be honest. The car has definitely been neglected to say the least.  The steps I took are as follows, followed by some pics of what I am talking about.

1st- Hit the hood with correcting polish on the cutting pad.

2nd- Correcting polish with the correcting pad.

3rd- finish polish with the finish pad.

All steps were done on speed 5.

Now my hood is almost like glass, smooth as can be and I can't catch my finger nail on any of these little scratches. Is it possible to have some sort of stress cracks in the paint underneath the clear coat? As you can see from the pics there are thousands of these cracks you cant really see them looking straight down on them but from an angle they are very visible.

Please help and fellow car enthusiast!!

I can defnitely catch a finger nail in some of these scratches  Am I SOL?

Hey all!  I decided it would be a good idea to finally join the forums instead of lurking around constantly.  Like the title states, I am currently stationed in Germany at Spangdahlem AB, originally from Wisconsin. I own a 2006 CTS-V that has definitely seen better days! This is partially my fault, before Germany I was stationed in PHX and owned (well still do) a 2001 Z06..the Z06 got most of my attention and the caddy kind of got put on the back burner .  Since I am now storing the vette in PHX, I brought the caddy here with me and now its time to bring it back to life.  I purchased Adam's interior kit a couple of weeks ago because my tan carpets were literally destroyed....For the longest time I was looking for a full black interior to swap out the tan because I thought it was unfixable, that's when I found Adam's.  I couldn't believe how well the interior cleaned up, it was almost like magic. I almost got every stain out of the carpet and since then I've decided to never purchase another product from anyone else.

You could say that once I got the interior cleaned its been a uphill battle with my bank account( that's another story in itself)...I am now looking at the exterior, I am looking at getting  a full kit. Most likely the portal cable one...I have never attempted to do any sort of buffing and paint correction before so this is going to be quite the learning experience. I have a ton of scratches and swirls and all kinds of stuff going on with my paint so I am hoping to clean it up.  I've attached some pics of the hood to show what I am talking about. I hope these scratches are not too deep and I can bring my paint back to life!! these 2 pictures are the worst of the paint so if I can fix these it should be downhill from there  Please let me know what you guys think! 

I also threw in some before and after of a piece of my carpet...Unbelievable