roblim

Anyone opticoat pro plus their RX? Costs $1200.00.

RogueRX

Yes, I did. Got it for a little bit less ($895.00). And yes, it's the OptiCoat Pro Plus. Worth it in my opinion.

RXOwner

Not so sure it is worth it as I have a friend who got it and a bird pooped on his car while h was working and it left a stain so bad that they had to repaint the panel.

aznkorboi

I have someone who will do the interior/exterior. I'm also doing xpel. Maybe overkill but this is my car for the next 10-12 years. I think it will be worth it.

JDR76

Opticoat is great stuff. I have it on my RX.

There is a LOT of info on Opticoat and other coatings in the detailing forum. A great resource.

roblim

The place I went to is on the high end of the market. I had Formula One Pinnacle tint done there and it was more expensive than other shops, but worth it IMO. I'll shop around or try to negotiate. $895 sounds fairer to me because the paint doesn't need a lot of correction.

I understand that the Opticoat layer can still swirl if you wash it improperly (automatic car washes). You still have to be really careful especially if you have a black car. I plan to keep my RX for 6-7 years. I am pretty careful about paint maintenance (hand wash at home/two bucket method with grit guard/foamer/good quality microfiber towels, and collinite liquid wax applied every 6 months. I don't wash too often either. I just carefully dust off the car every day and i then only need to wash it every two months or so.

roblim

I'd be careful with Xpel. I had it on the headlights of a Prius (factory LED headlights) and after 4 years it yellowed badly on the top section. Headlights are a harsh test because of the heat from the lights and the reflective parts of the headlight bouncing light back onto the film. I used the thickest film, not the stuff they use on car bodies. You couldn't really see the yellowing on the lower part of the Xpel film, so i thought it was clear there, but when I started pulling pieces of it off, it became obvious that all of the film was yellow to some degree. It did all come off, but not without a lot of goo gone and scraping with blades. No damage to the expensive LED lights thankfully.

roblim

Ideally the opticoat would just need to be polished away and then re-applied. I think that is how it is supposed to work, as a sacrificial barrier to the clear coat. I suppose if the poop was acidic enough it could eat through both the opticoat and clear coat layers.

RXOwner

It was a brand new RC and the opticoat was applied by the dealer before delivery. The bird poop washed away but left a yellow stain that they could not get rid of. It was not a vivid stain and if I owned it, I think I would have lived with it before they repainted the panel.

Just bad luck for them but they elected to do the repaint.

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iTrader: (17)

SOME bird sht will eat through anything.

Opticoat is an AMAZING product (Although some of their business practices and treatment of "little guy" installers could be questioned.)

Make no mistake about it, NONE of the current paint coatings are bullet proof. If some type of bird droppings can eat through the hardest 2-part automotive clears, they WILL eat right through even the best coatings.

The goal of the coating is to make the paint surface easier to maintain, so typical road grime washes away easier, etc. If it was properly installed and cured before the bird sht hit the surface, I assure you it at least minimized the damage of the accident. Without the coating, the damage would've been even worse, which in this case doesn't matter since it sounds like a repaint is in order, but in less severe cases, it does help tremendously.

Again, no coating is a magic product that you wipe on and leave alone. They all require maintenance to perform as advertised and they can all be jeopardized by things like bird crap, acid rain, etc.

dicer

I wonder if wax over the coating would protect against the bird crap? Are there any plastic bottles that can contain the bird poo? If there are that is what should be incorporated into a coating or clear. It won't eat through glass.

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iTrader: (17)

If by protect you mean "minimize" the damage, then you could make the argument that YES, wax will protect.

However, if by protect you mean "prevent any damage at all", then absolutely not. Most bird droppings are fine and won't do that much damage to paint if any at all, but some are the equivalent of putting mild form of acid on your paint.

UDel

There are certain species of bird where their crap will almost immediately eat through your clear and cause permanent damage if done on a hot sunny day. I have seen it happen, one time about 2 hours after washing my car I saw where a bird crapped all over my spoiler, the kind of bird crap that is reddish with little seeds in it. I washed it off and could tell it ate through my CC, my car had opti coat on it and I layer of Collinite yet it did protect it, I polished it but could still see the damage. My dad had his hood just painted and the car was left out in the sun before we picked it up, I bird with similar droppings crapped all over his fresh paint job and I knew there would be damage, I cleaned it off and tried polishing it but the damage was still there, took it back and the it took the shop over an hour to try to correct it, they said it was pretty bad. Some types of bird crap like the little white sploches general are not very harmful but if there are some types that are eating through clearcoat which is much thicker then a wax/sealant those wax/sealants won't offer much protection.

Opti Coat is nice but I would never pay anywhere near $1000 to apply it, it is not worth that kind of expense, you could get your hood and trunk resprayed for less then that if they are damaged.

sydtoosic

OC is a great product... PERIOD I love coatings that you can apply to your entire car... Used it for years, about to try something different... Just to see how it matches up to OC.

dicer

Wow too bad, gosh you'd think in this day and age of high tech everything there would be something to totally resist bird doo that could be put on a car or truck.