Nanolex Professional Paint and Ultra Glass sealants extreme testing from Finland

This is a realtime report I've been updating on another forum. I've translated it all and thought I'd share it with all of You Here we go.

This long term test was a bit of a challenge and the brainchild of myself and mr Florian Kessler himself from Nanolex. We met up at the very first training day ever in Finland with an actual manufacturer or even a professional as a trainer. Of course we chatted all day long just about anything and everything. Somewhere along in the chatter we happened to talk about the finnish winter and detailing at that time of the year.

Let me give you a bit of a background. It's usual that we get freezing temperatures for about half of the year in the south. More so in the north. Temperatures usually go as low as -20C/-4F and stay there for a few months, can go as low as -35C/-31F for a week or two every now and then. We have snow usually about four months of the year. And when it comes, it'll be somewhere around 10-20cm/4-8inches at once. This winter we've seen the highest at 70cm/27inches.
What makes this all more fun, is the fact that when the temperatures are close to 0C/32F, they start spreading salt solution on the roads to keep them from freezing. They'll do this all the way down to around -7C/19F. And that salt solution of course splatters everywhere from the tires. It'll go in the sills, the door jams, wheel wells and of course all over the paint. It will pretty much bond to the surface almost like hot brake dust. Removing it is no easy task. While it is still fresh and not dried or bonded to the LSP it can and usually does wash off with just a good 2BM wash. Sometimes if it does dry or bond due to not getting a wash for a week or two or the car is parked in a dry and warm place such as a garage or underground parkinglot, it'll take a stronger wash to get it off. We're talking about a strong APC or TFR bucket wash as well as a prewash.
And this winter we've seen something new with the salt solution. It actually dissolves the tarmac a bit and we've seen loads of cars with hefty amounts of tar deposists on them after just a week or two of driving. The other fun part is that the salt really really bakes on. We've seen sealants and carnauba waxes where the salt is so hard on there that we need to use de-tar or nox-agents or other really harsh chemicals to strip the salt and of course the LSP is gone at that point as well.

This all brings an interesting challenge to the LSP. First of all it should last atleast 6months, better yet a year. It should last not being washed too often as not many people have their own garage with a chance to wash in the garage. And when it is washed, it should last a strong chemical wash as well. And better yet if the salt solution in itself wouldn't bond with the LSP as much.
So a pretty big order for an LSP then.

The usual recipy has been so far to use a good and tested sealant that should last. Such as FK1000P, Bilthamber Finish-Wax, Collinite 476 or 915. Wash as often as possible, don't park in warm places. Re apply LSP when needed and use a good QD or spray sealant as often as possible to boost the LSP.
Of course it works, but is a bit of a hassle. Re applying the LSP takes time as even the washing stage takes long to dry the car completely. Even a slight moisture in the gaskets of doors or in the locks will freeze and voila, you won't get in.

On to the subject then. We chatted with Florian about this and he was a bit amazed. Specially about the salt solution being spread on the roads. He never had thought about testing his products against such abuse :lol: Well, what would be a better test than to do a car and see how it goes.

That's what we're here for. I stole my friends car wich she has been wanting to get properly polished and detailed for months now. I parked it in my garage for a week and went at it.
Here's the beauty in question:











Not bad generally speaking for a car that has most likely never been polished or even valeted let alone detailed. On with the cleaning then.



















All in all it was quite a basic wash. APC for the wheel arches and calipers, APC for the door shuts and all little cracks, APC through the lance for the whole car, 2BM wash with APC, Autoglym ITR for detarring (ran out of AS Tardis :/), Bilthamber Korrosol for de-iron, Bilthamber Auto-Clay soft. Should be clean enough.

Time to dry and have a closer look at the paint. Excuse the pictures, solid white is always a nice color to photograph. Took loads of pics and 90% of them failed



Time to test our what bites and what doesn't. Finally I settled on the combination of orange Hex-logic with Meguiars #101 for the cutting on a rotary. Pretty much slight to none pressure, very little rpm and as many passes as possible. The surface was a bit sticky every now and then, but the orange seemed to be the best pad and Megs #101 seemed to suit the paint best. Managed 80-90% correction on the first pass at most of the panels, Followed up with a spot pad orange hex for some of the deeper RDS.











Took a few nights after work to get it done properly. Finishing was done with a black Hex-logic with Scholl S30 on most of the panels and S40 on some of the panels, again with the rotary. The problem was that on random panels S30 was really really sticky and had to back down to S40 for more lube to get things done. All in all it got done and no holograms anywhere.

After an APC wash to get rid of the oils and residues and a good dry it was time to prep the paint. I started with 50% IPA and went over the car once. After that, just be safe, I went over again with Nanolex Premium Paint Cleaner. The sealant of choice for this car was Professional Paint & Alloy Sealant. I was going to do a 50/50 over the whole car with Professional and Ultra, but got too carried away applying the Professional that I noticed I was 75% done on the whole car when I remembered I was supposed to use Ultra too. So I went all over with Professional.

Applying the Professional took a bit of getting used to. This flashes fast. I mean really, really fast. Literally a second or two and it's dry. I did about 4x4inch areas first from side to side and then up to down to make sure I got everything covered. On the first pass from left to right it left a slight noticable trace behind but once I went over it again up to down, it left no trace, no haze. The surface was clean and bright, nothing to buff off But still, after I completed a full panel I let it sit a while and buffed with a MF cloth just to make sure.
After one panel it was easy. Just a squirt and off you go. Really fast, really easy to use. Other than it was a white surface so it was really hard to see where you'd applied and where not and that it flashes so fast and leaves no residue behind so I had to be really careful to cover everything right. The bottle is a nice size and the sprayer is good. I like it. I did use cotton pads to spread the sealant, but from past experiences I'd say a small patch of a short pile MF cloth would be better. The cotton pads seem to tear and disintegrate fast, I went through three or four of them on the whole car. I'll try an MF cloth piece next time around. Atleast on some other nano sealants MF cloth seems to work better and usually glides a bit better as well. We'll see.

The glasses got a full Nanolex treatment as well. A quick cleaning polish with Nanolex Premium Glass Polish and a yellow Hex pad, wipe down with 50% IPA, another wipedown with Nanolex Premium Glass Cleaner and a layer of Nanolex Ultra Glass Sealant on all the glasses.

The car was left to dry overnight. I placed a 2kW heater giving a bit more temperature to the garage and it settled around 17C/62F for the night.
On the next day the rims were waxed with FK1000P as well as the door shuts, wheels got a quick spray with Wolf's Chemicals Black Out and the engine bay got a quick wipe.

All in all the sealants had about 36hours to dry and bond before the car was picked up. Here's a few shots when finished.



















Bigger pictures here http://wolfie.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Evo+VII+Snow+white/

A nice experience and a nice car. I did notice that the sealant was just a wee bit tacky or sticky after buffing, but on the next day it was slick as anything out there. I'm guessing the bonding went well then

 

First update. This was 10days after the sealants were applied. I will be following this exact same style all through winter with this car. Every time same stuff, same style, same everything. The point is to see wether the sealant will last through this harsh winter. With and without boosting. That is why we divide the car in half length wise. Other side gets a wash with a shamppoo with no wax, no drying aids or anything added, the other side gets full Nanolex treatment with Nanolex Reactivate shamppoo and Nanolex Wash Coat.

Right, let's get to it. First on, here is how it came back.











And a quick video on the dirty stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSiMhEGNEmk

Washing was done as I'd usually do a wash.
Bilthamber Auto-Foam through the lance, 7.8% mixture on the surface after the lance dilutes it, wait a while, rinse thoroughly.
Left hand side of the car 2BM wash with Bilthamber Auto-Wash at 10ml product to 10liters of water (manufacturer suggests 5-10ml depending on how slick you want it) and a thorough rinse. Auto-wash because it has no drying aids or waxes or anything added. Just pure cleaning power. My go to shamppoo at the moment.
Right hand side of the car 2BM wash with Nanolex Reactivating shamppoo at 20ml to 10litres ( manufacturer suggests 20-25ml to 10litres) and a thorough rinse.
Nothing more, nothing less. Just a simple wash but the car divided in to half length wise. Left side for comparison and right side with Nanolex goodies.













And a video after the washes. See for yourselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GX3wKwA3nI

Now here's where it gets interesting. As you can see, both sides work. There is protection. But I was amazed at how slowly the Auto-wash side sheets. It does bead when you don't soak the surface, but once you soak it, it sheets slowly but surely. And when compared to the Nanolex Reactivate side, the difference is huge. I knew the Nanolex Reactivate is quite a beader, I've seen the videos where a completely stripped surface is washed with Reactivate and it will repell water. But still, I didn't expect such a difference.

Right. We're not done yet. I take a sprayer, fill it with 900ml of water, add in 20ml of Nanolex Wash coat and go at it. The Nanolex washed side gets the Wash Coat, the Bilthamber side doesn't get anything.
And this was the first and last time I use a trigger sprayer for Wash Coat Next time I'll use a pressure sprayer or the foam lance. Although it'll be hard to keep a nice straight line with a lance... I'll most likely use a pressure sprayer.





Five minutes of waiting, a thorough rinse and away we go with the videocamera again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBeyavTej5M

Thoughts of the day.
Cleans easely. Dirt seems to stick a bit less atleast on the fresh coated surface than with waxes or sealants. Prewash with Auto-foam got the car visibly clean but of course 2BM on both sides got them really clean.
Nanolex Reactivate was a pleasent surprise. It smells good, glides good, cleans good and that adding to the hydrophobicity on the surface is just outrageous. Me likey.
Nanolex Wash Coat is good. Used it before, will use it again. Liking the smell of it too. But never again with a trigger sprayer
Looking forward to seeing how long the "raw" sealed side washed with Auto Wash will last. Boosting the other side will help the longevity of course on that side. We'll see.

 

Second update on the Evo and Nanolex sealants on it.
TThe Evo came to my garage for a wash. At this point it's been a month since the last wash and 40 days since the sealants were applied.

This time it was a quickie and I didn't manage to snap any publishable still photos so only videos this time around. Sorry about that.

The Evo was just typically dirty. Nothing out of the ordinary. A quick rinse to get rid of the loose dirt, Auto-Foam via the foam lance at about 6% dilution, a few minutes left to dwell and a thorough rinse. That got rid of almost everything visible on the paint. No dirt, no traffic film to be seen, just a few stubborn stains.

Same thing as last time for the 2BM (or 3BM in this case). Left hand side with Bilthamber Auto-Wash at 10ml/10liters of water, right hand side with Nanolex Reactivate at 20ml/10liters of water. Both with their own lambs wool mitt and a third bucket for clean water to clean the mitts in.
Both sides washed and rinsed thoroughly.
The Reactivate side does as well as it did the last time around. Good sheeting, nice beading, nothing much to it. Clean and nice.
The Auto-Wash side though. That's a different story.
Let's see what it looks like after I washed the left hand side twice in a row, rinsed it very thoroughly, washed a panel with diluted APC just to make sure and rinsed for about ten minutes to make sure there's no shamppoo left anywhere.

Nanolex nanosealants testing on EVO VII - Second wash part 1/2 - YouTube

As you all can see, nothing. The left hand side is doing nothing. Like the first time around, the sheeting is very slow. Only this time it looks like there's nothing going on there. Maybe a few spots here and there that actually have dried. But mostly nothing.

Disappointed with that I loaded a liter of water and 20ml of Nanolex Wash Coat to a pump pressure sprayer this time (to save my wrist and hand from a trigger sprayer) and went to the right hand side. After application I stood there for a few minutes waiting for the Wash Coat to bond before rinsing.
I noticed that the Auto-Wash side was actually sheeting, but almost too slow to notice. While applying the Wash Coat and waiting for it to bond for about 7-10minutes in total the roof was pretty much dry on the Auto-Wash side. So very, very slow indeed.
After rinsing the Wash Coat off I noticed something interesting. Well, other than the Wash Coat performing like it should and repelling the water in a blink of an eye I mean. I noticed something otherwise interesting. I had to do a little test.

Here's what I filmed immediately after the test

Nanolex nano sealants testing on EVI VII - Second wash part 2/2 - YouTube

Okay, so the keen eyed ones of you noticed the same thing as I did. Sure the Reactive + Wash Coat side is as expected. Performing like a champ.
But take a look at the left hand side of the car, the side where water was just standing there on the first video. Sheeting? Yes. Beading? Yes.
So what did I do?
Well, after applying the Wash Coat to the right hand side of the car and rinsing the whole car once again. I dried the left hand side of the car. Nothing else. I dried it with an MF towel, let it "breathe" for about 10-15minutes, grabbed the camera and started filming. Nothing more, nothing less. No wax, no QD, no Reactivate, no Wash Coat, no nothing. Just a dry, wait a while and grab the hose.

That's what I noticed when I was rinsing the Wash Coat off. Like I told you, when I started to rinse the Wash Coat, I noticed that most of the roof was dry on the Auto-Wash side, right? When I rinsed the Wash Coat off, I noticed that even the Auto-Wash side was actually repelling water. Okay, I though I might have gotten a bit of overspray applying the Wash Coat. But no, the same thing with the bonnet and the boot lid, even a few areas on the side where I haven't been close to with the Wash-Coat.
That's when I decided to dry the half of the car, let it sit and see what happens.

Now I'm no chemist. Nor am I an expert in nano technology. So I really have no idea what on earth is going on on the surface. But somehow, letting the "naked" Professional nano sealant "breathe" for 10-15mins without any water on it, without any help from Reactivate or Wash Coat and then shooting it with water, it's almost as hydrophobic as the day after it was applied in the first place :doublesho

First thing that comes to my uneducated mind is that somehow the nano sealant reacts with oxygen. Either it binds a layer of oxygen or something and that helps it repel water or something. But that's what I saw. Like I said, I'm no chemist so I have no idea how this really works. But atleast it's working again

That's it for today

 

Allright, finally an update! Sorry it took so long. Just timetable difficulties. But hey, it's sorted and it's here now

So it's been 105days since I applied the Nanolex sealants. This is wash number 3. All of the time the car has been parked outside, driven in the snow, the salt, the slush, freezing temperatures etc. Harsh conditions but it wouldn't be a test otherwise

So. Pretty much the same plot as before on the two washes. But a little twist. I used ValetPro Citrus Prewash for the prewash. I diluted it at 1:6 into a pressure sprayed, went around the car several times with that, let it dwell for about 5 minutes and rinsed it all down. After that I set up my buckets and went for the control side, the side that doesn't get any boosts. The weapon of choice this time was DodoJuice Basics of Bling shamppoo. I wanted something different than the Bilthamber one just make sure it wasn't about the shamppoo. But I needed a shamppoo that doesn't contain wax or drying aids. This is what I landed on. And sure it's a nice shamppoo to use on other cars so hey, why not

Anyways. here's how the beauty showed up.











I didn't touch the boosted side at all. I did the left side first and no Nanolex products touched the car before the first two videos. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't get any cross contamination from the booster products just to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

Here's the surface after the 2BM wash with Dodo. On the video the partition is the bulge on the bonnet. The center side of the bonnet on the left of the video was dried with a MF towel and as can be seen on the video the right side is blow dried with shop air. Oh, and sorry no audio. The compressor was shouting all the time and there was a neighbourgh revving a single stroke mudbike outside so you wouldn't hear much anyways This way atleast it's a bit more friendly to your ears.

http://youtu.be/fYWmJaHPC8s

As can be seen, there is a difference. The towel dried side sheets faster.

Here's another shot. Same bonnet, 10minutes later. Left to naturally dry, hasn't been touched since rinsing. That's the way it shows up, slowly sheets dry starting from the edges of the panels.

http://youtu.be/124DIIJlozw

Then I washed the boosted side with Reactivate, rinsed, applied Wash Coat, left it to dwell for about 5minutes, rinsed again, dried the whole car all over with MF towels, and shot a closing video. Have a look at the difference.

http://youtu.be/CQe9aiNYY0s

Quite a difference. Both sides are working well, not surprisingly the boosted side more so. But now we have a quite definite grasp that if you use other than Nanolex booster products or similar booster products, the shamppoos do leave behind surfactants or something and the hydrophobicity will return after you wipe the surface dry. That's what seems to "clog" the nanosurface after washing and that explains why after it dries it beads and sheets again.

And of course a few shots on how it looked when it left.









Allright. That's all for now. See you next time

 

Thank you for the review. I have been looking into trying out some coatings for quite a while. My only concern is getting stuck with a high price tag on something that just doesn't last.

 

Well, I have no idea what this costs in the US, but around here it's no more than a decent carnauba wax... Sure there are cheaper waxes and sealants, but this isn't much more expensive.
I'm really keen to see how long this lasts as well. With other nanosealants that are this easy to use we've seen anything from 4months to a full year, so it'll take a while to get there

But that's why I'm testing and I'll keep you all updated.

Oh and please do feel free to ask anything. Either about the testing or about the products themselves. I'll try to answer to best of my knowledge and Florian from Nanolex will be around as well. He is also keeping a close eye on this test. I'm guessing no other outsider or end user has done a test on these sealants like this before so the outcome can't be predicted even by Nanolex :lol:

 

So boys and girls. How about an update on the Evo?

Firstly, I apologize for the delay. This video was shot on December 26th 2014. I just got around to uploading this today. I know, I'm lazy... I could make better excuses, but I won't

First things first. By my calculation the sealants were applied 405 days ago, that's 13months.
By this time the car has covered about 12-15k km and that's about 7-10k miles to the metric impaired readers.

So. The car was washed with the usual routine. Bilthamber Auto-Foam via lance at about 6% panel impact ratio, left hand control side with Bilthamber Auto-Wash 10ml to 10litres, right hand side with Nanolex Reactivate shamppoo at 20ml to 10litres and right hand side topped up with Nanolex Wash-Coat 25ml to 900ml of water and sprayed on. Towel dry, have a cup of tea and start filming. So here we go.

Nanolex nanosealants testing on Evo VII - fourth wash 13months on - YouTube

Rather impressive I might say. Sure the boosted side works like a charm, why wouldn't it. But what amazes me is the control side. It is still sheeting. Albeit slowely, but still. I'd boost it yesterday to bring it back to life, but we're commited to see how long it will actually last.
Even more impressive than that is the windshield. 13months and still going strong. I wouldn't have thought.

We'll update again sometime during the spring, the owner is abroad at the moment, studying. Should be back in a month or three and then we'll have another look when we have the time to meet up.

So for now, that's all. Thanks for your time.

 

wow great post! thanks for sharing, we have been testing Nanolex Wash Coat and I am impressed by the results, especially since we are in the winter and it's doing a great job "repelling" the salt! Nothing is sticking to it.

 

Thank you

Wash Coat is most excellent on top of pretty much anything. When it first was introduced here in Europe we did a quick test on a fully cleaned and stripped Volvo with Wash Coat as the only LSP. We we're firstly amazed at how it bonded to just about every possible surface; the paint, the glass, the trim, the rims, even the tires. It was quite a funny sight to see that a liquid applied from a foam lance could actually do that
I even have the video of the application somewhere....

AH, there we go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVyN-G--ag
Don't mind the chatter, it's in finnish. And please excuse all the giggling, we'd had a long day...

If my memory serves me correctly, after about a month in harsh Finnish winter, the vertical surfaces were showing very little degrading in hydrophobicity and the horizontal surfaces were like brand new. After about two and half or three months wedid a full detail on the car and there were still some protection present even on the sills and behind the wheel arches. So it did last two or three months as a stand alone LSP, wich for a product as easy to apply as this is extraordinary.

The owner commented during this time that snow was sliding off the painted surfaces with just driving and there was no need to clean the snow off by hand. We did wash it a few times during the time and getting the salt off required minimal effort as well. Just a quick once over with Bilthamber Auto-Foam, let it dwell until almost dry, rinse and a hand wash with just about any shamppoo did the trick.
After that winter though they changed the recepie of the road salt they use here in Finland and nowdays the salt clings like no other. No citrus based pre cleaner, snow foam or even TFR can touch it let alone any shamppoo. What we now have to resort to to get the salt off is either a carbon based solvent or a tar & glue remover. And we all know what those do to an LSP... We've been waxing cars during the winter twice as much as in the summer thanks to the new salt...

But, like they say, please give us the strength to change what we can change and the strength to understand and accept what we can't change right So we'll just have to keep searching for new products and new was to use them to keep our cars in the best possible shape even if the salt is trying to kill them. Wash Coat is still one of our go to products when we haven't degraded the initial LSP all the way down getting the salt off. It's just so easy to use, works perfectly every time and even smells nice