ilogikal1

Yes, they do a glossifier top coat as well as single-stage gloss black these days.

You may have already considered it, but Plastidip could be a viable non-permanant alternative. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it yet, but Zippypooz is your man for all things wrapped.

I'm warning you now, if ou've spent £12k on a f**king 'Teg, we can't be friends anymore.

That’s seatism, you seatist! You're going to make us wait to find out, aren’t you??

This.

https://www.daqua.co.uk/divessels.htm I went for the 11 Litre DI vessel filled with MB-115 resin In a lovely twist of coincidence, this 6 year old post includes me talking about both the DI filter and the Sidekick. But there's more useful information here too.

Yep, I'd highly recommend them to anyone who lives in a hard water area for sure - avoid the in-line ones though, they tend to be a false economy, and go for a tank instead. Much easier to rinse with filtered water and just walk away, especially on hot days.

I used to have the Sidekick myself - mostly useful for those water trap areas, door shuts and such. Got rid of mine when I got my DI filter and stopped drying the car at all. Now I've gone back to towel drying (temporarily) I really miss my... DI Filter actually. Drying is effort.

Nissan looked at the cost of meeting emissions regulations in UK and Europe and at their mounting debts and thought sod that. They won’t have got anywhere near looking at sales of the ‘70 (or the Supra) before it was already a complete non-starter. When (if) Nissan’s financial situation sufficiently improves for them to reconsider spending that kind of money to bring the Z here, then, and only then, will they look at sales volumes. And will probably then think sod that again. Also, by then, you won’t be able to buy petrol powered cars in the UK, because the UK government never changes its plans…

Possible? Yes. Likely? No. They couldn't "have" one dealership import the cars either. Any dealership wishing to import one would have to do so independantly. Otherwise Nissan are selling the car in a market they have many reasons, two of which being poor sales and high cost, not to sell a car in but at exceptionally low volumes and exceptionally high cost. Speaking of - why would they ship a car over a country without any intention of ever selling it there when they just invite the press to place where the car is for the cost of an email or two instead. Or - what Dan said.

I threatened pictures if it rained. It rained. Here be pictures. There's currently not much between Hydropel and Lockdown - still marginally more sheeting from Hydropel, but that's about it. When (not if) it rains again I might get some better pictures. I might not. You'll have to make do with what you get. If anything.

Nissan: We’re definitely not taking it to Europe for emissions and cost reasons. Renault: But… we want you to. Nissan: Oh, okay then, we will. Seems legit.

I really should pay more attention, y'know. Here's hoping that the durability is at least adequate - it's not a faff to apply by any means, but I'm still hoping durability can be measured in months rather than days! I'm alright with hijacking. In the right context, that is... Anyway. Short version to address your query: I've not used Water Block. But to address your issue; try a different applicator if you were using the supplied one and focus on spreading it as thinly as is humanly possible as that's what made the biggest difference with Fusso. Fusso (and possibly KoG actually, I don't remember) did spread a lot further than even I expected it to, so prime suspect for me would be too much product, followed by leaving it a touch too long. Longer version, which eventually explains the above in a verbose manner: I have used Fusso a few times and found it fussy to use - easy to over apply and and **** to remove where it had been. If you can get it thin enough, it was was fine (except when used in direct sunlight but not allowed to bake on, then it became a **** again). QD helped, but applying more wax helped more - I found it was best to apply to two panels then return to the first, apply again and buff straight away before repeating on the second panel was the best way. Then I discovered that the applicator that comes with it is s**t. Switching to a better quality applicator - I'm told a finer pores are the key here, but [shrug] - made it easier to spread more thinly, and thus it was easier to remove (although still not the easiest wax to work with). Fusso looks and acts just like FK1000P, marginally less durable though not by much - never lived up to the 12 month promises! More fussy to use. Twice the cost for half as much wax, too. But the bigget difference was the lack of shark on the tin. Deal breaker. I'm sticking with the shark. I've also used King of Gloss, but only once. Wasn't blown away by it - it wasn't any better than FK pink wax, for example - and no idea on actual durability. It was okay to use (with a good applicator). Dusty at times though. All in all, I would use either again but I would buy neither. I'm in no rush to try any of the rest of the range.

I know! I was sorely tempted to buy another DI filter, but I’m moving (hopefully very) soon - to a place where washing the car at home will become infinitely more difficult, so my current filter might be re-homed to my sister’s place instead In the meantime, I’m just making do with what I can really. At least I’ve achieved something then.

Part 2 also comes with no pictures - although that may change if it rains soon! I also revisited Hydropel on the Renault. It has been applied to some of the car, including paint, plastic trim, chrome plastic trim, glass, gloss plastic trim, polycarbonate and exterior rubber seals. Well, it did suggest it can be used on most exterior surfaces, so let's see. I did reserve some control areas, for testing purposes (and because it's f**king huge, the roof is a pain to reach in its entirety - mainly that, actually). I basically made up my own method of application for this - namely, spray directly onto the panel, spread with a damp microfibre cloth, repeat panel-by-panel, then buff the entire car with a fresh damp cloth. I still observed no hazing. I still wasn't able to over apply. I still think Hydropel smells delightful. I still haven't noticed much added gloss (although I may accept the argument that my expectations have been set unrealistically high by SiO2 coating-based LSP's, such as... well, almost everything Gyeon related actually). What I did notice with this method is that Hydropel doesn't exactly leave a slick feeling finish - it's not grabby (it's nowhere near as bad as Sonax BSD, for example) but the surface felt a little rougher when buffing treated sections than untreated. Visibly, there's no noticeable difference in appearance though so it's something I can easily live with. Depending on how I feel in 8 hours (or tomorrow) I may or may not apply a second coat to random areas. For testing purposes. Unless it rains first, then I won't. But you might get pictures instead. If you're really lucky, I might do a 2nd coat before it rains tomorrow and you get the best of both worlds. Or I might not and it might not rain at all, then you get nothing. Except more words. But that's the chance you take by visiting my thread.

I spent this morning mostly having a lie in. All hail annual leave! But after the lie in, I revisited Car Chem Ceramic Suds and SPP Hydropel; this time on my sister's family wagon - a Renault Grand Scenic. It's not grand but it is f**king big. This is relevant. The car wasn't filthy, but it's a done a few journies up and down the motorway more recently and therefore had a traffic film and some bug splitter on it. I did the usual snow foam pre-wash - note to self, one's foam lance is in dre need of a tear down and thorough clean before the next use! I then moved onto Ceramic Suds. Now, Car Chem have been known to "bribe" (or reward me, depending on how you see it), but then I'm a proper Gyeon fanboy. So naturally I want Car Chem's Ceramic Suds to be every bit as good as Gyeon's Bathe+. So this time, I went a bit easier on the Ceramic Suds and used the recommended 50ml (ish) in 10 litres (ish) of warm (ish) chalk... sorry, water. I say "ish" because nothing was measured. Standard 2 bucket wash, but this time I also rinsed regularly - and by regularly I mean almost panel-by-panel; although I did do the sides in top half and bottom half rather than by panel and the windows were done seperately first. In fact, for those interested, I did the roof (in left and right halves) then rinsed, entire back end then rinsed, side windows, a pillars and windscreen then rinsed, etc, etc. The sides were done down to the swage line first, rinsed, then below the swage line and rinsed again (the lowest, dirtiest part below the silver trim - effectively the sills - were done seperately and last, for those interested), and it should be noted that rinsing was thorough, using a pressure washer and the 15 degree nozzle. I mention all of this because the intention was to avoid streaking. For the most part, I succeeded as well. For the most part - I noticed a little streaking on the bonnet when drying the car (yeah, I do that again now) but it was a vast improvement over the Z. I'm not what the difference was on the bonnet - it was the same shampoo mix, it didn't dry out at all, wasn't in direct sunshine (certainly less than other panels which didn't streak), the panel wasn't any warmer than others or anything tangible that I can place. Fortunately I still have plenty of product left to experiment with! I also mention it because of the durability. The sudden drop off in protection was all the more noticeable on the vertical panels - the top half of the doors were noticeably slower to sheet than the freshly treated lower section of the panel, so I can conclude, categorically, that the protection Ceramic Suds adds barely lasts longer than the wash. Which is disaapointing. It's true that Bathe+ isn't durable enough to be considered an LSP in it's own right, however it's sufficient to last a few days at least. Ceramic Suds, however, seems like it would struggle to outlast the first shower even if you don't rinse it all off when washing. I alsomentioned that I've resorted to drying the car after the wash again - this is more due to the liquid chalk that comes out of the taps around here than anything else, the intention was to minimise water spotting, which sort of worked. I wasn't quite quick enough to eliminate all water spots, but they were limited and the residue was minimal - similar to swirls, the majority of the population wouldn't notice them, but if you look they're there. Ideal world, a quick pass with a paint cleaner would have done nicely, but meh. There's also a reason why I mentioned this. That reason being that on the lower panels, my drying towels picked up some dirt. Now it's absolutely true that I could have been more thorough when washing (inasmuch as there are dirt traps that I really didn't hit thoroughly) but I was vigilent enough that the dirt picked up calls into question the cleaning ability of Ceramic Suds. Which, again, is disappointing. As mentioned, I have plenty of Cermic Suds left to test further, so I'll continue to play with it and will report back. Hopefully, durability aside, everything else (streaking, the cleaning issues) come down to user error and I just wasn't as thorough as I thought I was. It's possible after all. However, interim conclusion: stick with Bathe+.

The front reminds me of a Peugeot. It doesn’t matter which one, that is never going to be a good thing!

It's been many, many years since one has even been accused of merely attempting such a thing...

Okay, using waterless wash was a major league f**k up... but it ain't a £12k+ 'Teg league f**k up! Don't. Just, please, don't. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm slightly not for that daft idea.

Wolf's Nano Wheel Cleaner (Clean & Coat) - DW review. It deosn't last forever, but if it's just for topping up duty it pretty decent, and removes a 'then' from clean then protect... Failing that pretty much any spray sealant would work for topping up, tbh. If you've got a decent base on there, I wouldn't see the need for a dedicated product - throw your Hydropel at it (that's easy enough to use and should be durable enough for regular topping up).

Firstly, I simply must provide a caveat, because that's the world we live in these days. Also, it's kinda what I do in these posts now... As I may have mentioned, the paint isn't especially clean right now, which is likely to affect durability and potentially beading as well. However, I have plenty of both left to do a proper durability (and beading) test following a full detail. For reference, two thirds of the bootlid is currently wearing Hydropel over Neutral Enhance, one third has Lockdown over Neutral Enhance. The bonnet is a similar mix and match; one third (passenger side) is wearing straight Hydropel, one third (middle section) is wearing Hydropel over Lockdown and the final third (driver side) is wearing straight Lokdown. The rest of the car is wearing lockdown. Roughly 1 hour 48 minutes after application, the garden hose did a thing that looked like this: Hydropel sheets a fair quicker better than Lockdown, hence there being more beading on the Lockdown topped section. That said, Lockdown sheets quite well itself. Gloss-wise, Lockdown definitely added more gloss (or glaze) than Hydropel did, although it's difficult to show on the pictures. This angle also shows the sheeting difference. Lockdown Hydropel Still Hydropel Back to Lockdown That's your lot. I'm done. I know I've let you all down, but in the incredibly unlikely (!) event that it rains during a British summer, I will probably spam with beading pics, just because I can now. I will also update as and when the sealants fall off.

By which I mean the white one. Otherwise known as this; Car Chem Lockdown. About which, the much more concise website says: I have to admit, following the rather emphatic marketing campaign surrounding the "sample campaign" and subsequent launch of this (it's fair to say Car Chem are somewhat proud of this product), that I was excited about testing this. Also, I will be testing it all proper like when I've managed to give the car a proper detail as well, but for the time being it's put head to head with Hydropel for literally no other reason than I happen to have both sealants to hand. Again, there's a claim of forming a glossy protective barrier. Whilst not hugely glossy, this did seem to add something - not much, but not nothing either. There are, again, claims of easy application and removal. The website instructs: Whereas the bottle instructs: At least there's some consistency here. Now, obviously I followed the instructions to the letter... I sprayed Lockdown directly on a microfibre cloth. I worked in a cross hatch pattern, one section of a panel at a time. I allowed to cure for approximately 1 minute. I did not let the product dry fully (before buffing. I did after buffing...). I buffed with a clean microfibre cloth. I left to cure for 1 hour 48 minutes before applying water and taking pcitures of beading. Becuase I didn't apply a second coat. Again, very easy to apply - just keep buffing until all (non-shampoo) streaks are worked out before moving on and it's straight forward wipe on buff off sealant. I can only imagine it'll easier still applying with a ceramic sponge, because they make application of anything easier. By spraying onto a pad, cermic sponge (or even a microfibre cloth) means it's quite difficult to over apply, but even if you do manage it you just keep spreading and/or buffing. It doesn't smell as nice as the blue one though - Lockdown is very checmically with no added scent. It's not solventy, like coatings are though, so it's not unpleasant to work with. In an effort to maintain complete transparancy, I also didn't feed this after midnight either. And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Let me (try to) make it up to you, to myself and to the inanimate object that literally could not give a toss either way. By which I largely mean, ignore the whole incident and pretend it didn't happen. The first step of ignoring it and pretending it didn't happen is to reference the post where I publicly documented the thing that didn't happen. Specifically the bit about a sealant I have used before and a sealant I haven't. Because there was nothing before that bit to reference. Obviously. Having washed the car with Fairy washing up liquid and a scouring pad to get a good, deep clean (I didn't), and having no SRP on hand to make the surface dusty I moved straight onto sealing in the swirls instead. I have two sealants to hand, a blue one and a white one. Starting with the blue one, otherwise known as this; A redefinition of tradition. Or Super Polish Pro Hydropel. About which, the website did gone done say: Ahem. Erm, I mean the website says this: Benefits & Features include: Materials tested on include paint (check) and polycarbonate (whatever the opposite of check is... uncheck I guess) "ensuring" that enitre parts of my car will be protected from all manner of autumn elements. Hydropel could not remove any exisitng wax or sealant, because there wasn't any (Fair washing up liquid, yo). In fact, existing protection from Cermic Suds could be enhanced. Also The premium barrier was applied in single layer. Partly because 8 hours is a long time. Largely because I'm half-arsing it. Despite it being simple and fast to apply. And Not so sure about the surface glaze - although, as previously mentioned, the car is dire need of a deep clean so gloss was limited. However, it does specifically state that it creates a surface glaze, which I cannot say I noticed at all. And this is a guy who regularly applies very similar waxes side-by-side to spot the visible variables, so I unless you're a gloss-meter, you probably won't notice the claimed surface glaze. But then I applied waterless wash to automotive paint, what the f**k do I know anymore... Anywho, the instructions (which I totally read before use, obviously) on the website say: Whereas the bottle label shouts: Now, it turns out I'm (currently) the kind of guy that follows the instructions on the bottle... when I'm conducting a head-to-head test and want to make sure I'm applying the product in the way the manufacturer wants me to rather than however the hell I want to, which is typically how I apply products. Also I'm not the (currently) the kind of guy who checks the instructions on the website until writing about it on the interwebs. So anyway. The website insists on a cool panel. I did not check for that because the bottle suggests no such requirement. The website insists on spraying Hydropel directly onto the surface whilst the bottle demands I SPRITZ HYDROPEL ACROSS MY PANEL AND ONTO MY MICROFIBRE. I will admit, I spritzed the panel but sprayed the microfibre. The website instructs that I use a clean Microfibre cloth. The bottle shouts... well, that thing I just said that equates to a primed microfibre, not a specifically a clean one mind you. Also as mentioned, I loaded the microfibre with product. I'm not sure if that counts as clean or not at this point. Technically it's unclean with product. The website did gone done say to gently wipe the area clean. The bottle yells to WORK INTO THE PAINTWORK IN A CROSS HATCH MOTION. I gently wiped in a crosshatch pattern. The website then directs to use a 2nd microfibre cloth to lightly buff any residue. The bottle, meanwhile, bellows to ALLOW A FEW SECONDS TO HAZE. BUFF TO A GLOSSY PROTECTED SHINE. I allowed a few seconds for Hydropel not to haze (that I noticed anyway) and lightly buffed with a fresh cloth. Now, the bottle mentions nothing about 8 hours between layers (or layers... or anything else barring a warning about serious eye irritations for that matter) and neither bottle nor website mention anything about curing time before getting it wet. So, like Gizmo, I figured there was no timeframe to introducing water. I also didn't feed it after midnight. But this is Hydropel, not a Mogwai, so I have exposed it to sunlight. I can confirm, sublight does not kill Hydropel, which makes it less high maintenance than the (literal) monster from the 1984 comedy horror film. Topical references aside, I can tell you the following things about Hydropel. It's a blue liquid that smells rather delightful actually. I have resisted tasting it. So far. It spreads very easily across the surface. It doesn't seem to haze, but does buff quite nicely. It's really easy to use and seems almost impossible to overapply. I say almost because if you over apply you just spread it further until it dries out, so unless you're pouring this stuff over the panel it's virtually foolproof. I'm not convinced by the claims of adding gloss (or glaze), but it does add protection. Pictures will follow after a brief interlude and a message from our sponsors.

Fair.

Look, sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of science. I'm not proud of it. I'm not happy about it. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned and things will most definitely improve going forward. Now we all just have to accept this and move on. Also, Really, this is all your fault(s)...