Ceramic coating vs vehicle wrap.

[GoGoGadget]

I live at the end of a 1 mile gravel road. So every day I drive a minimum of 2 miles of dirt road. Needless to say every vehicle I have gets pretty dirty. So far I have been ok with them being dirty and running them through a car wash every now and then. Now that I am looking at buying a Mach 1, I want to keep it looking good. I have hard water at home so hand washing is a pain trying to avoid water spots.
Which would hold up better to a car wash and/or not show water spots as easily?

 

[TGYNYY]

If you live at the end of a gravel road, positively do not wrap your car

 

[Labradog]

Rock blockers and PPF my dude. Vinyl wraps aren't thick enough to protect from rocks. Good paint or drive through car washes: pick one.

 

[Madtel4]

The Ceramic coating I had said never wash the car without drying to avoid permeant water spots. The car was very easy to wash and dry the water just fell off.
Lee

 

[16COEBM]

PPF over the entire car would be a good option for protection. Not sure how that would jive with the decals on the Mach 1, you would have to ask someone that installs the stuff. Cost could be a major hurdle. A friend of mine had his Chevy SS sedan completely, and i mean completely, wrapped in clear self healing PPF and it was just shy of 10K. On the up side he can clean his car with quick detailer and a dirty rag and it looks brand new.

 

[Kristian87]

Quite the dilemma! I also have extremely hard water, but this doesn't mean you can't maintain a car well.

You can get water filters that attach to your hose set up, not too expensive and really helps with hard water. Second, you ideally need to be able to wash in the shade, that's also a major factor for water spots.

PPF may be the way to go for protection against the gravel road, even if you just have certain panels protected. Ceramic coating will help with cleaning in general. But has been known to be a pain to deal in relation to water spots, again - shade.

IMHO, getting PPF/ceramic and then taking the car through an automatic car wash is counter productive. Take it real slow and easy on the gravel and invest in good cleaning equipment, and you'll be fine.

 

[kilobravo]

Kristian: I will have to respectfully disagree on the hard water vs. filter. Filters remove particulate matter that are in suspension." Softening can only occurr if minerals in solution (calcium and magnesium) are removed chemnically and it is their removal that creates soft water. So, you are certainly getting much clearer water due to the filters but the hardness is not affected. THAT IS, unless one of the pre-liquids have mineral removing salt. JMO.

 

[FreePenguin]

Big fan of PPF myself. but as others said, you have those vinyls, not sure how they play together.

 

[Kristian87]

Kristian: I will have to respectfully disagree on the hard water vs. filter. Filters remove particulate matter that are in suspension." Softening can only occurr if minerals in solution (calcium and magnesium) are removed chemnically and it is their removal that creates soft water. So, you are certainly getting much clearer water due to the filters but the hardness is not affected. THAT IS, unless one of the pre-liquids have mineral removing salt. JMO.

Happy to be challenged I'm by no means an expert, only a solution I've been thinking about. I was under the impression some of the "filter" solutions were also able to chemically soften the water?

 

[kilobravo]

Nope, no filter can soften water, it's a chemical process requiring free electrons to charge little itzy bitzy teeny tiny beeds of resin. :=) And it is they who pull the calcium and magnesium out of your hard water as it goes flowing by on the way to the tap, shower, dishwasher, wherever.

 

[Blwnsmoke]

I live at the end of a 1 mile gravel road. So every day I drive a minimum of 2 miles of dirt road. Needless to say every vehicle I have gets pretty dirty. So far I have been ok with them being dirty and running them through a car wash every now and then. Now that I am looking at buying a Mach 1, I want to keep it looking good. I have hard water at home so hand washing is a pain trying to avoid water spots.
Which would hold up better to a car wash and/or not show water spots as easily?

Best water filtration out there. Zero spots and can let it air dry in the sun. Been using it for 2 years.

I bought the DIC-20

https://crspotless.com/product-category/spotless-water-systems/

 

[GoGoGadget]

Best water filtration out there. Zero spots and can let it air dry in the sun. Been using it for 2 years.

I bought the DIC-20

https://crspotless.com/product-category/spotless-water-systems/

Looked at those a few years ago, but never bit the bullet. Guess I will now.

 

[Blwnsmoke]

Looked at those a few years ago, but never bit the bullet. Guess I will now.

They are amazing. It was funny, I had a mobile detailer come over to the house to clean up my wife's Explorer and we were talking about water filtration. He showed me what he uses (bolted in his Ford transit van).. it was the DIC-10 lol. I went into my garage and rolled out the 20, twice as big. Had a chuckle over it.

Worth every penny when you can wash it anytime, don't have to worry about finding shade or rushing to get a towel to dry it off.

 

[cactus_kid]

I have a similar issue. 3 low water crossings that are gravel. 100 yds either side. Add to that my gravel driveway which is 600 some feet long. The '21 ST Explorer has ceramic coating. So far, the FJG Mach 1, nada. I simply use a no touch car wash as needed.

 

[friedmud]

Kristian: I will have to respectfully disagree on the hard water vs. filter. Filters remove particulate matter that are in suspension." Softening can only occurr if minerals in solution (calcium and magnesium) are removed chemnically and it is their removal that creates soft water. So, you are certainly getting much clearer water due to the filters but the hardness is not affected. THAT IS, unless one of the pre-liquids have mineral removing salt. JMO.

Nope, no filter can soften water, it's a chemical process requiring free electrons to charge little itzy bitzy teeny tiny beeds of resin. :=) And it is they who pull the calcium and magnesium out of your hard water as it goes flowing by on the way to the tap, shower, dishwasher, wherever.

Quite the dilemma! I also have extremely hard water, but this doesn't mean you can't maintain a car well.

You can get water filters that attach to your hose set up, not too expensive and really helps with hard water. Second, you ideally need to be able to wash in the shade, that's also a major factor for water spots.

PPF may be the way to go for protection against the gravel road, even if you just have certain panels protected. Ceramic coating will help with cleaning in general. But has been known to be a pain to deal in relation to water spots, again - shade.

IMHO, getting PPF/ceramic and then taking the car through an automatic car wash is counter productive. Take it real slow and easy on the gravel and invest in good cleaning equipment, and you'll be fine.

What Kristian is talking about are de-ionizers (often called “DI”). These are actually different than softeners because they _remove_ calcium ions from the water instead of just exchanging them for other ions.

Examples are the CRS system above. Personally, I bought this one:AQUATICLIFE Deionized Spot-Free... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H8MQTMD?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I liked that you could visually see when the deionizer resin is used up (turns brown) and that you can manually reload the canisters by buying the resin in bulk.

I definitely highly recommend that anyone with hard water gets a deionizer. I use mine just for rinsing - and it makes a huge difference.

As for protecting your car from gravel, my recommendations are:

1. Paint Protection Film (PPF): put as much of it on as you can afford. Start with front bumper and front of the hood and mirrors (cost me $600). If you can do more go to the whole hood, A-pillars, the front of the roof, and the fenders just in FRONT of the rear tire (might run you $2k or so). Do the most you can afford.

2. Ceramic coating: this will help keep the car really clean. One side-effect of this is that it’s easier to get dust/gravel off the car so that it doesn’t scratch while cleaning it or drying it. Many people do this coating themselves - I chose to pay a professional to do it.

3. RokBlokz. There is another thread on here right now discussing this. They do really help - just gotta figure out if/which will work for your car.