Prep frustrations...

[Brewder]

Help.  I'm getting very frustrated.  I'm prepping to re-coat my car this time with Adams Advanced ceramic coating.  I'm having trouble, believe it or not, with the Surface Prep product.  Here is where I am in the prep process:

 

• Dawn soap wash to strip layers detail spray and tire dressings
• Iron remover / rinse
• 2nd wash with Dawn soap used as a lubricant with the clay mitt
• Mechanical paint correction using One Step polish
• Buff residue with MF towel
• Sprayed Surface Prep and wiped down with a high gsm (very plush towel)
  • It was getting late and I was outdoors in the shade with a good breeze (probably where things went wrong).. when I pulled the car into the garage i could see the entire car was terribly smudged.  The surface prep appears to have dried on the car.  Perhaps the high GSM towel was wrong?
• The next morning (today), I re-washed the car again with Dawn soap to try and remove the Surface Prep
• Most of the surface prep appears gone, but there are some spots (hood of course) where you can see the cloudy residue

 

So now I don't want to coat the car since the paint prep still isn't perfect.  I'm worried about trying surface prep once again (indoors with a different towel this time?)... and I certainly don't want to re-polish the car.

 

Any suggestions for me?

//Brew

[RayS]

Hi Troy,

I've had plenty of vehicles brought to me that were cloudy of just not shining to find out the owner used dish soap, most often dawn.  While it is great dish soap, it doesn't help the paint surface on a vehicle.  As for the Surface Prep, make sure you shake the bottle before using it and do small sections at a time.  I generally use mid-GSM microfiber towel, in the 440 range, the Adam's Borderless Gray work very well.

 

Working outside always has its risks with pollen, dust, bugs, etc., so once I wash and iron remove a vehicle it goes inside and does not come out again until the coating is complete and cured.

[Brewder]

9 minutes ago, RayS said:

Hi Troy,

I've had plenty of vehicles brought to me that were cloudy of just not shining to find out the owner used dish soap, most often dawn.  While it is great dish soap, it doesn't help the paint surface on a vehicle.  As for the Surface Prep, make sure you shake the bottle before using it and do small sections at a time.  I generally use mid-GSM microfiber towel, in the 440 range, the Adam's Borderless Gray work very well.

 

Working outside always has its risks with pollen, dust, bugs, etc., so once I wash and iron remove a vehicle it goes inside and does not come out again until the coating is complete and cured.

 

I can say it definitely was not the Dawn soap, but it ultimately was a self inflicted mistake.  In my haste, I  didn't buff all of the polish off prior to using Surface Prep.  After re-washing (again with Dawn), 90% of the cloudiness was gone, except on the hood where I used an exceptional amount of polish.  Again, my rookie mistake.

 

I re-machine-polished the hood and it came out great.  I then coated the car and it looks fantastic.  I don't have pictures as it's a miserable/rainy day but definitely turned out great after I got past MY mistakes.

 

//Brew