What super soft sponge or brush for midnight black

Just picked up my new midnight black pro. I love it, but I know if you look at black paint the wrong way it scratches. I’m worried just washing it will make it worse. Does anyone have a recommendation for a super soft brush or sponge, and soap combo that won’t be too harsh for this black paint. With other cars I loved Prima Care products. Just curious what the pros here use and recommend. Any help would be great! Thanks.

 

Regardless of brush or sponge, you will get millions of swirls. I opted for gtechniq ceramic coating and I just soap gun the truck and then dry it off with a leaf blower. Zero swirls or scratches

 

A ceramic coat with sio2 topper every 6 months would be nice but also very expensive if you don't or can't DIY.

A foam cannon or gun is nice to presoak and encapsulate some grime that you can rinse off before washing the truck.

As for a "regular wash" which is what 99% of people do and 99% of those people do it wrong and swirl their paint without thinking....
Look into the 2 or 3 bucket methods. Better yet get about 10 microfiber mits, or 20 or so good MF towels and soak them in your soap bucket with grit guard. For soap I recommend carpro reset. Use one mitt at a time, one side then the other for a part of each panel. Then toss it in a rinse bucket with grit guard, DO NOT reuse a mitt or towel on the truck, one and done, then they get washed by themselves and dried by themselves and stored in a clean bin.

Then you gotta find a way to dry it, air would be good, or having a spot free water system is better so you don't even need to dry it, if you end up using towels to dry get Griots PFM drying towels, one or two will dry your whole truck.

You may wanna look into a sealant that doesnt require rubbing or buffing, like carpro hydro2, it lasts for months and months and you just spray it on wet paint , hose it down, and dry, it almost touchless. You want to minimize contact with the paint, it's the only way to keep swirls down.

 

At that point skip the grit guard like I do and just discard the mitts/towels into whatever you're carrying to the washing machine.

As stated, get a coating on it soon if you can, not to prevent scratching but to repel most dirt that will easily wash off. At some point though no amount of throwing soap on it and rinsing it off will work and you need to contact wash. As pudge said, go with many towels.

Air drying with leaf blower can work but you're coating has to be in great shape and you pretty much can't get away with it in the sun particularly for a dark color as the water drops will dry faster than you can get to them. So you'll trade scratches for water spots which will look worse than the scratches.

Whenever you touch the paint with a wash media or drying towel, try to only glide it across the surface. Get yourself some rinseless wash product like ONR or Wolfgang Uber to spritz on the paint and dry towel to help it glide across the paint. It will also help if you miss a spot as its meant for cleaning. Also don't hesitate to use those products to wash with if the truck isn't filthy.

Also as pudge said, pickup some Griot's PFM, they come in sizes from small to absurd. Personally I like the small 16" towels, one can dry a Tacoma if you had to, so two or more will do even better.

 

I'm new to the ceramic coatings. I see that Gtechniq offers ExoV4 Ultra Hyrdrophobic film coating. Is that the right one? Is it applied by hand or with a polisher? Any other brands to check out for these ceramic coatings?

 

Looks like its the crystal serum. Did you guys apply it by yourselves? Looks like you could easily mess it up. How hard is it to work with. I just clayed and polished my old tacoma and it looks great, but then again that one is tan. Thanks.

 

I have used Crystal Serum Light topped with Exo a couple of times. It’s fairly easy to work with, you just need to take your time. Our 2018 Camry coated in CSL and topped with Exo v3.

 

So I have a question for the ceramic coatings. It says they last years. What happens after lets say 2 years where its mostly worn away in parts but some remains. Would you see a situation where it remains on the hood, but the doors need a reapplication, or where its worn off of half a panel? I guess you wouldn't really be able to tell.

If you want to switch to another product you will have to polish the whole car to remove it right? Make me nervous since it bonds so tightly, but it is probably worth it in the long run.

 

Carpro Cquartz UK is probably the other most popular consumer coating with Gtechniq. I've always heard the various Kamikaze coatings are some of the easiest to apply but their coatings aren't cheap.

As far as self applied, they aren't that hard unless you're working in extreme temps or humidity. You essentially apply to a small section according to directions as well as leave to dwell which is usually a short amount of time that you need to wipe it off. This is where having plenty of towels will help. It's best to wipe off most of the leftover residue with the first towel then move on to another towel to final wipe. This should remove the last of the high spots that are left from the first towel. You'll change that first towel more often as it starts to build up the coating and start just pushing it around (that's the high spots).

As for the coating starting to deteriorate you could just top with similar sio2 based sprays or even other coatings. Consumer coatings should be easy to polish off. Especially when they're at the end of life.

 

I noticed Chemical Guys sells a foam canon and some ceramic coatings. Anyone have experience with them? I know there was a lot of hype with their cleaning stuff, but I wasn't sure if it was just hype or good quality stuff. They even have a video of a coated taco. Weird that after its dirty they pressure wash it. I thought that pressure washing would make all the grit turn into sand paper on your finish. Anyways might try the canon and some gel since its kinda cheap.

Chemical Guys Ceramic

 

Ordered a bunch of stuff from Chemical Guys. I hope it works. Just saw this spray would probably work great to keep crap off your truck, haha