Opti-coat Vs Waxing?

[Varekai]

Now that I have my mustang, I really want to keep her protected from rock chips. Living in Florida and near the highways I never make it more than a month without some rock chips or blemishes from love bugs. I was debating about doing a clear bra, but I won't have the money for that for a month to have someone install it.

I just stumbled across Opti-coat. It seems like it got great reviews, however the one thing I have against it is it seems you have to have bare paint to put it on. I always do my own detailing, when I wax my previous cars I always do clay bay, paint cleaner, paint polish, than wax. My mustang is black so I want her to have that glass look that you could fall into. I picked up some Meguair's Black Wax paste from walmart, it seemed to have gotten really good reviews for giving a black vehicle a nice shine. My problem with the Opti-coat tho, from what I've read, is you won't get that good of a look. Since the paint has to be clean you can't have any products on it, and I'm sure putting those products ontop of the opti-coat would be pointless.

So do I use my usual products and have a great looking car, or go with opti-coat to help with rock chips?

 

[Paul G]

I don't think anything is going to stop rock chips coming towards your car at 80 MPH while going down the freeway.

I have 3m Auto Bahn on my 1/3 of front of hood (wished I did the whole hood), front bumper cover, leading edges of front fender flares and lower quarter panels from behind the front tire (fender, door, rear qtr panel - essentially lower 1/3rd of the car).
Even then if a big enough rock comes my way it's going to strike and puncture the 3m material into the metal and paint below it.
And my luck is that anything that hits the hood usually does it after the auto bahn... :-(

M trick is 1.) it's not a daily driver 2.) I stay far behind anyone on the road... 3.) I've come to the realization that parts can be removed, sanded and resprayed as required...

If it's a daily driver, you really have no choice... You'll get rock chips. I used to have a 89 LX 5.0 with that horrible design where the hood wraps down towards the grill. I had the hood painted 3 times while I owned the car. Bra would only help in that case, but then you deal with all the scratches from sand and dirt getting into the bra... You can't win... A car is subject to nastiness.

You could always have a wrap or plasti-dip done on your car...

 

[caliber92]

Seen couple of guys here using vinyl wrap and seems holding very well against weather and some rock chips.

 

[roelton3]

A guy from a detailing shop told me that it is ok to apply Wet Paint Glaze on top of the opticoat, though WPG is not a wax.