Car paint protection coatings

The current craze for car owner is the car paint protection coatings. there are several types of coatings, glass, ceramic, titanium and carbon. The most popular being the glass type because it gives off a bright shiny effect like glass but it is a short term solution that requires regular maintenance to maintain the shine or gloss. Many of the glass coatings originate from Japan, Korea or China. Despite the hype and over selling that goes on at more car coating shops, the owners of the shops fail to tell the customers that the glass coating is not as durable as one thinks.

here are some of the pit falls of glass coating:-
- the extreme hardness of the glass coating claimed by the vendors are not durable and being extremely hard means that it is not soft enough to move with the surface since the painted car body will expand and contract slightly due to heat and cold. In tropical climate the extreme heat and sudden rain in the afternoon will cause the glass coating to crack and flake off over time.
- not all glass coating can repel water or is resistant to acid rain which results in staining.
- the shine does not last as long as claimed, many merely last 3-6 months rather than the 3-5 years as claimed (you can call it extreme exaggeration during the sales pitch).
- glass coating is old technology and the difference in grade is enormous since you can get glass coatings from as much as $100 per car to $1000 per car!
- all claims to be scratch, stain and dirt resistant but this appears not to be true since many of the low grade glass coatings have a lot of stains build up on the car.

Ceramic coating:-
- is newer in technology compared to Glass and is meant to be more durable as ceramic is known to be but is more expensive than glass
- claims to be scratch resistant but the jury is out on this one!
- heat resistant but not proven yet
- some vendors claims to be selling ceramic coating but it cracks like glass coating over time so no one really knows if the vendors are selling real ceramic coating or glass coating.

Titanium coating:
- no real test was done to prove that it is truly titanium!
- similar claims to ceramic and glass but suppose to be more durable
- not as easy to apply as glass coating

Carbon coating:
- still relatively unknown and could be a fancy name slapped on glass coating and sold at inflated prices.
- durability is still unknown since only very few vendors are selling this type of coating.

The simple advise here is to do thorough checks before investing your money on such coatings. Many are making wild claims just to sell their products. Be ware of their 5 years warranty program which require you to bring your car back to check annually. The "check" is really to top up the coating which you already paid for. The danger is that the company that is selling the coating may close down before your 5 years warranty is over leaving you with a patchy looking car. It is better to pay less for a shorter so called warranty period and pay to top up the coating if necessary. this way you are not in danger of over paying and potentially not getting what you paid for.

In all fairness if the coating is good you will be able to see a good level of gloss, is truly stain resistant (meaning it is very easy to clean with minimal use of chemicals or can easily be wiped off with water and a cloth), will not crack, looks cleaner than other cars despite not washing for 2-3 weeks and will not look dull under the sun.