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Awesome job Dan! Nothing warms my cold, black heart like someone stepping up for a helpless animal. 

Hope she finds lots of love in her new home! 

Welcome man! Love the GTI. My daily is a '16 Golf R with Unitronic Stage 1. My first VW and it is awesome. 

Honestly, you are in the perfect spot to ceramic coat them and be done with it. They are brand new. The biggest challenge to applying the ceramic coating is that you need the wheels 100% clean and polished and you wont need to worry about that. I spent 2 days on the wheels on my wife's car to get them perfect before ceramic coating but they had 20k miles on them. 

The ceramic will hold up to the heat where as wax will not and will make cleaning them much easier. Unless you just like to wax wheels, get the coating lol

The short answer is paint sealant and ceramic coatings have very little in common. Long answer below  

Sealants are basically synthetic waxes which offer a longer amount of protection (months) over something like Buttery wax or the paste waxes Adam's offers. They have to be reapplied every few months, depending on conditions, and offer no scratch protection or additional "hardness".

Ceramic coatings are a completely different animal. They are super long lasting (read: years) and are bonded to the paint and form a glass like layer of extra hardness. They help resist scratches and swirls, bird poop damage, fall out, whatever, to a much higher degree. They are hydrophobic meaning they basically repel water. They require your paint to be perfect before you apply them or you just lock in the damage underneath the coating for years (unless you want to polish it all off and start over).

Once the coating is on, no more wax or anything on top as it actually impedes some of the benefits of the coating. Just use the "Boost" when the coating no longer feels super slick, thats it for maintenance basically. 

Ceramics are the latest, greatest tech and honestly, when done right, are amazing. You can definitely apply them as a DIY as I am doing it myself. I have a black Z06 now and I am correcting it as we speak to get ready for the paint coating. I have already done the wheels on my wife'a Audi because that thing makes brake dust like you wouldnt believe...

Adam's offers different coating kits depending on what you want to coat along with videos on how they work and how to apply them. Give it a shot, I think you will be quite surprised. 

Nice job man and thats a great looking SQ! The coatings are really awesome products. You need to do your wheels and calipers next. Those big Audi's produce a lot of brake dust and are a no fun to clean up. How do I know? My wife has a Glacier White '14 SQ5 with the 21's. She loves it...Sometimes I even get to drive it  

The Flex is an awesome machine and even though it's a shorter throw than the big SK, it is forced rotation and IMO has its place in the world. 

Money being no option, keep them both. More tools are always better and will make you a more versatile detailer

Now the mini, that guy is a must have. So many areas which were difficult or impossible to reach with your Flex (or any larger polisher) will become easy with the mini. The pad size is just right and combined with the long throw, it makes it a very versatile machine. 

Welcome! I am just down the road from you in Georgetown!

It works GREAT on smooth plastic. The trim around the windows on my Camaro is smooth and it looks fantastic.

 

However - this is not "polished" plastic.  I have some of that on my F150 pickup between the windows. I will treat that with paint sealant just like the rest of the polished surfaces.

 

I did not put the trim sealant on the soft, rubber door/window seals.  I don't believe that is what this product is for.  I will continue to clean those soft parts with Tire and Rubber Cleaner and treat them with sVRT.

Thanks man! It seems it can be used on the rubber sealant but the prep is critical to success. I think it's a "proceed with caution" situation. Either commit to getting it perfect or don't do it at all.  

Following this closely as I asked a similar question about rubber trim in the FAQ thread yesterday. I think I will do a small test area after a thorough prep to see how it looks before committing to the entire trim. My wife's SQ5 has a lot of rubber trim around the windows which I was hoping to use this on but I want to be sure I know what I am doing  

So far, it seems every example I have seen of this has been on textured plastic surfaces. How does this do on very smooth plastic? Does it still apply evenly? 

Also, what about rubber window trim? Is the coating as effective on it and is the durability impacted? Got mine in the mail already but I havent had a chance to try it yet. 

I have been using SVRT on the door panels of my C6's for several years. For some reason, the rubber\vinyl door inserts on a C6 will tend to turn blotchy\chalky in areas over time. TID and other interior products just cant resolve it so I tried SVRT once and loved it for this application.

Like others have said, just go over with a clean dry towel to remove some gloss and that "slick" feeling it can leave behind. 

Your routine looks good. Mine is very similar. A for time of day, due to the direction my house faces, I have to either start early 7:30-8am or late in the evening, 8pm or so. Neither of them are ideal but I can generally get the wash done quick enough so that I can pull in the garage to finish up the smaller details. 

Be careful with the leaf blower dry. I know it seems safer than drying with microfiber towels but if it is unfiltered air you are blowing out, it could be like a sandblaster to your paint. Also, if it is gas powered, you could potentially get oil or other contaminants on the paint. 

Excellent job man! Definitely a labor of love. 

I just bought a black 06 Z06 that need a little touch up. Would you say the paint is "hard" like most GM's? I didnt polish my blue Vette (in sig) as it was in excellent shape when I got it so I have no experience with polishing Vette paint. 

Hello and welcome from another "Justin in Kentucky"! What part are you from?

I live in Georgetown...15 minutes north of Lexington. Work in Lex. 

That's a cute pup. I say spray the old man until he learns to manage the towels properly lol Give the dog a treat  

Great write up! Just about to so the very same thing tomorrow on my 2015 STI. Time to put her snow shoes on as we are expecting 2-5" Sunday night...

I am 31 so my list isnt too long...yet lol

98 S-10 ZR-2 (new)

2002 Acura RSX Type-S (new, traded S-10) 

2004 Nissan Titan King Cab 4x4 (new, traded Acura)

2001 Camaro Z28 (bought in 2006)

2005 GTO (bought in 2008, still own)

2006 TBSS AWD (bought in 2009, traded Nissan, still own)

2011 Nissan Titan Crew Cab 4x4 (new)

2007 Corvette coupe (bought in 2012, still own, sold Camaro)

2014 Sierra All Terrain Crew Cab (new, taking delivery this weekend, traded 2011 Titan)

we laid out by the pool this weekend, high was upper 80s 

Nobody asked you to come in here and show off... 

Winter has been awful here in central KY also. Worst we have had in several years. 

As a Corvette owner, this is a very sad day for sure. I also happen to live just a couple hours from there and frequent the museum. I have been in that area so many times its not funny. 

Hopefully some of the cars are salvageable but it's way too early to tell. 

How do you think most cars make it to the dealership?

None of 'those" cars are ours though.  We can't control what happens to them before they are in our possession, but we can once we sign the check.

It's pretty funny when I hear people (90% of the time, Corvette owners) say that their car had never seen rain or been dirty LOL Maybe not after they owned it but I guarantee if it sat more than 8 hours in the marshalling yard at Bowling Green, it did lol KY weather can be crazy...

Anyway, always sad to see them go but MAN do you have a nice replacement. That makes it much better 

I love they ID that.  I don't love they carry CMagic.

My dad recently picked up a new C7 from Museum Delivery and in talking to the head detailer/prep manager he told me in not so many words he is NOT impressed with CMagic...

We need to get the museum more on board , If only Adam's were the official product of the museum...........

I have been trying. Living only a few hours away, we frequent the museum and store. They definitely have a display of Adams products now and I am glad to see that. My goal is to get them to PREP the cars with Adams when they do deliveries...Start'em off right!!

Apparently, some contract with CMagic is in place but rumor is it may be expiring soon  

Man I wish you luck with it. We bought a used TBSS a couple years back which had been smoked in. After two days on an ozone machine, it was better but still lingering smells.

I had the carpets and seats shampooed and scrubbed the head liner but it was never completely gone. It was still in the HVAC system even after a thorough cleaning. Maybe others can offer some better options aside from replacing the interior lol

I know people can do whatever they want in their cars but please, stop ruining good cars for everyone else with your bad habits lol

Looks great man! Nice job

Where did you get the overlays? I would like to do something like that on my SS I think. 

Living in America there are NO easy solutions for preventing these type of shootings.

Not sure what you are implying here...But carrying your own gun doesn't hurt.