Coating the BRZ With Armour Detail Supply’s Armour Quartz Coating

Two weeks ago I gave the BRZ a full detail and then an application of Armour Detail Supply’s Armour Quartz Coating. Even though I only applied Gyeon Pure EVO to the car a year ago, it was hit in the rear end by another vehicle this past winter and had a significant number of rear body panels replaced or repainted. What a great opportunity to try out something new – ADS’s Quartz Coating!

Wash and Clay

Since a mechanical polishing was part of the plan, I stuck with a simple bucket wash. However, the 3D Pink soap I’m using doesn’t clean very well, so I added an ounce or two of CarPro’s Lift . Normally I don’t mix soaps or other chemicals in the soap, but the car was filthy, so I needed something stronger.

One side note: CarPro’s Lift is an acidic soap and is normally only for a pre-soak step with a foam gun/cannon.

The claying step was nothing special. I wash the car frequently, so a clay mitt is enough to deep clean the paint. On to the polishing!

Polishing the Paint

For this detail job I decided to take things a bit further and see if I could make the paint really shine. To do this I tried a two step-polish instead of my typical one-step polish process. The end result looked great, but it also leaves me with several questions. I’ll get to those in my final thoughts.

One thing I noticed right away while polishing was a noticeable improvement in clarity and gloss. This is unexpected for me on a car I fully detailed only a year ago. A noticeable change is typically seen on a coated car after three years or longer. Under the right light angle and intensity I could see water spots and some hazing on unpolished areas. This makes me wonder if the previously applied Gyeon’s Pure EVO is not holiding up, or the 3D Pink soap is not strong enough to properly clean the paint. My initial take is both contributed to the loss of clarity.

For the first polishing step I used Rupes Yellow medium polishing pads and Griots Garage BOSS Perfecting Cream. The second polishing step paired Lake Country’s Black HDO pads with Sonax’s 04/06 polish. Subaru paint is really soft and the Sonax polish works well for me on any car with this type of paint. Having a small amount of the Sonax laying around made the choice easy! One less bottle in the garage.

Once I was finished polishing, the car was really looking good with a nice, crisp shine to the paint.

Applying the Coating

With the polishing out of the way it was time to apply the coating.

I found it a little difficult to apply the Armour Quartz Coating. Armour Detail Supply says you will see “sweat beads” as it starts to flash on the surface to indicate it’s ready to level and buff off. I rarely saw these “sweat beads” and struggled to determine the right time to buff it out.

With most other coatings, I’ll do a small swipe with my finger to see if it’s time for buffing. If the coating smears when swiped, I’ll let it sit a little longer. If the swipe cleanly removes a little coating residue, I’ll start buffing. With this coating I found I needed to start buffing while it was smearing. If I waited until it didn’t smear, buffing was really difficult. This is contrary to the videos and other information published by Armour Detail Supply. On the few panels where I nailed the timing, I was rewarded with feeling the surface getting noticeably slicker as I buffed. I’ve never experienced that before when applying a coating and it was pretty cool.

One thing people ask when discussing other coatings is whether it will darken the surface. Here is a picture of my trunk deck to answer that question for Armour Quartz Coating. The surface at the top of the picture us uncoated, the bottom is coated. You can see a distinct line. Does it darken? Yep! I never had any doubt where to find the untreated areas as I worked around the car.

One last application note: Armour Detail Supply says to flip the applicator half way through the job because the coating will harden the applicator as it dries. They aren’t joking! A little over half way through coating the car, the applicator got really crispy. I haven’t seen that in a coating since the last time I applied CarPro CQuartz UK 3.0.

Results

The car sat in the garage to make sure the coating had the full 12 hours to cure. The next morning I drove it and then parked it in the driveway for some pictures. Despite being bombarded by pollen all morning it still looks really good. I’m very really happy with the overall result. The gloss and clarity of the paint is the best I’ve ever created on this car. It just gleams in the sunlight.

But wait, there’s more…

48 hours after applying the coating, I drove the car to work and it rained. Hard. All day until just before I headed home. This created a great opportunity to check out the water behavior of this coating, so I gave my co-workers more evidence of my insanity and took pictures of the beading in the parking lot.

The good news was the rain completely rinsed off all the pollen or dust and left the car nice and clean! Note the black plastic trim and the wiper arms in the second picture. I applied the coating to those surfaces as well and it seems to work great on plastic and whatever it is automakers use to protect wiper arms.

I run a very un-scientific water sheeting test on my cars with coatings which is based on the speed I hit when the water beads start rolling off the hood of the car. On this car when coated with Gyeon Pure EVO water beads will start to roll off at around 43~45mph when it’s clean. ADS Quartz Coating was much slower, around 40mph.

Final Thoughts

Polishing

The polishing results are the best I’ve ever achieved on this car. However, I can’t help but wonder if I the the results are from doing two steps or simply from using the softer black pads or the Sonax polish? Are the same results possible by using the soft pads and the Griots Garage Polish? I don’t know, but I’ll have to experiment with different polishes and pad combinations to see if these results are possible in a single polishing step.

The Coating

I have more than a few thoughts about the coating, so I’ll summarize them all in a list. However, I will say this up front: From what I’m seeing on the car, I really like this coating and can’t wait to see how it performs.

PROs

• The coating looks spectacular on a freshly polished car with an amazing shine and it’s easily the slickest coating I’ve applied. I can’t wait to give it the first wash and top it with Armour Detail Supply’s Amplify
• Water behavior also seems to be the best of any coating ‘ve used. Water beads are a bit larger with a lower contact angle than the previous personal favorite, Gyeon Mohs EVO, but Armour Quartz Coating sheets water much better.

CONs

• Armour Quartz Coating is not the easiest coating to apply, but not the hardest either. I’d say it’s no worse than CQUK 3.0 or Pure EVO, but no where near as easy as Gyeon Mohs EVO. Mohs EVO is still my favorite from an application standpoint.
• I’m not a fan of the large applicator ADS provides with the coating. I’m confident it caused me to apply the coating too thick and its harder to get into small areas. The small applicator which comes with Gyeon coatings is much better, or the old school block and suede swatch found in CQuartz UK coating kits work better for me.
• The glass the ADS bottle is is made from is so dark, you can’t track your consumption rate. Had I been able to see the amount of product in the bottle I would have known to apply it thinner. Even with the job done I still have no idea how much is left. I can hear a little splashing around in the bottom of the bottle, but that’s it

Unknown

Durability. Time will tells from the durability standpoint and it may take years to form an opinion. With Gyeon’s current offerings, it takes about 18~24 months to see their true character.

Materials used

If you nerd out on detailing and are curious as to what products I used for the entire project, here is a list.

• 3D Pink soap with a touch of CarPro Lift
• The Rag Company wash mitt
• Blackfire’s clay mitt
• Griots Garage Wheel Cleaner with assorted brushes
• Rupes yellow pads, LC Black HDO pads, and Griots Garage 3″ orange pads
• Griots Garage G15 and G8 polishers
• CarPro Eraser
• Armour Detail Supply Quartz Ceramic Coating
• Griots Ceramic Tire Dressing