waterspots after ceramic coating

[Slickit]

First off, Hello everybody!

 

History:

I have a 2019 F-150 that I took to a company to get ceramic coated.  Due to weather constraints it did take them about 4 days to ceramic coat my truck with Adams Ceramic Paint Coating Kit. I had a good feeling from the person that did actually do the coating that he knew what he was doing and seemed to care for doing a good an correct job.  Once I received my vehicle I will say it looked great but I would rate the job done as a 90% (I'm picky)  there were spots where it looked like the coating was not thoroughly worked in.  

 

Current issue:

Fast forward 3 weeks to my first wash.  Got all my stuff together and started to attempt a touchless car wash with the foam gun and drying mostly with air.  But before I could even get the drying towel out I noticed a absolute massive amount of water spots on my truck.  I even pigged my water hose to remove any contaminants in the hose.  Also I have a $7K water filtration system cause I hate hard/acidic water.  It was a cool day with no breeze to speak of and overcast, I decided to wash again using a pressure washer to rinse and better "scrub" to maybe help with the spots.  Alas pressure washer wont start.  I spend the night fixing that and in the morning I begin to wash again, no difference with the pressure washer so I setup and go for the two bucket method to get all the dirt off the truck and hope the water spots will go as well.  NOPE.  So then while the truck is wet I get the H20 G&G out and start wiping down panels, kinda buffing with the HGG to easily rub out as many spots as I can.  This helps with many of the spots that I can reach and did great taking the spots off the vinyl stickers on the truck but the spots are not completely gone.  Unfortunately I did not take any before pictures but below are some after pictures, there are more spots than in the pic but die to the lighting I couldn't get them all with my cell phone camera.  I really did expect more from the coating to stop these spots from forming, especially with it being so very very fresh.  Am I being ridiculous for expecting more or are my after pics what you would expect to get after lightly polishing with HGG?

 

Edit: meant to post this in general but I guess this section is ok as well.

Thanks for any help, advice or tips.

The windshield pic is the best depiction of what most of the truck looked like before the HGG hand "polish/buff"

 

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Slickit

[Dan@Adams]

Ceramic coatings can water spot just like a wax, sealant, quick detailer, etc, especially on completely flat surfaces where the hydrophobic properties may not be able to help push water droplets from the surface. Graphene does provide a higher contact angle though, which tries to shed water droplets even more.

It rained earlier this morning at my house, and I purposely left my car out in the driveway to compare the trunk (UV Paint Coating) to the hood (Graphene Ceramic Coating). These are completely unaltered images, other than to crop them next to each other.

Trunk, UV Paint Coating, very flat surface, significant water spotting after a quick rain and hot, humid day to dry the water quickly:

Hood, Graphene Ceramic Coating, curved, still some water spotting, but drastically less:

[RayS]

6 hours ago, Dan@Adams said:

Ceramic coatings can water spot just like a wax, sealant, quick detailer, etc, especially on completely flat surfaces where the hydrophobic properties may not be able to help push water droplets from the surface. Graphene does provide a higher contact angle though, which tries to shed water droplets even more.

It rained earlier this morning at my house, and I purposely left my car out in the driveway to compare the trunk (UV Paint Coating) to the hood (Graphene Ceramic Coating). These are completely unaltered images, other than to crop them next to each other.

Trunk, UV Paint Coating, very flat surface, significant water spotting after a quick rain and hot, humid day to dry the water quickly:

Hood, Graphene Ceramic Coating, curved, still some water spotting, but drastically less:
 

Hi Dan,

While water spots are unavoidable when it rains and dry's quickly - in my opinion - the item I have always focused on is the effort to get them removed.  I've found that with waxes like Americana, if you catch them within a day, Detail Spray or Waterless Wash makes easy removal.  If it has been a couple of days in the sun, then you might need Brilliant Glaze.

 

While I have not tried Graphene yet, the Ceramic Spray can go a few days after a rain and either Ceramic Waterless or CS3 takes the water spots off with very little effort.  The worst I have had so far was over a week of sitting outside in the South Carolina sun and the water spots were almost baked on.  I started with Ceramic Waterless, but it was taking too much rubbing, so I did a two bucket wash with Rinse & Coat and they were all gone with no more effort than any other wash.  

 

For the water spots on the Graphene area of your car, how was the removal effort and what did you use?