Solving Problems With Ceramic Coatings. Plus, Using Chemicals to Your Advantage. Episode #947

Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast in auto detailing. Welcome to the community.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

Nick, back in the day, you and I, that meant something to us, right?

It meant we were going to go watch some big old trucks fly across the sky and do crazy things, right?

Mine, mine, I didn't really wasn't a big, I didn't go all the time, but it was just fun to always hear those announcements, right?

Yeah, Monster Jam.

Gotcha into the mood.

Now, I wake up on Sundays and I'm so excited to open up the hyper clean specialist group and you see how many bottles of coating are broken on Sundays.

Yeah, it's a, I like the fact that Corey is just, he goes, look, I've been doing this a long time.

I just dropped two in no time. Like I just went years without doing, that's how it happens.

Like stuff come, what I say, you know, bad news comes in threes, you know what I mean?

So Corey, you might want to secure that next bottle real well because it could be a third one.

But yeah, that's, it's always-

Or am I not, Corey?

Yeah, I'm not.

I'm not.

Yeah, Sundays can become a great day for hyper clean.

How many bottles to get broke?

You know, there was cars getting smashed.

Why not bottles?

You know, that's all I'm saying.

I hear you.

All right.

It is fun though to have some jokes.

I'd say we are going to go into the specialist group though and dive into some questions,

not necessarily jokes, you know, because as like Drake said, we'll get into his question later.

He's like, might be dumb.

No, no, no dumb questions, Drake.

We appreciate all the great questions because there's something Nick and I talk about, right?

There actually can become so many, I didn't want to say mundane is kind of an interesting word to use.

I didn't want to say mundane.

Trivial is another word, but it seems to be a little wrong to say.

There's so many things that in detailing, because detailing is just think of the word, right?

We're beyond just normal to that OCD, outrageous, 100% everything.

So there becomes when you're trying to get there, there can become some of these, hey,

well, what product pad, what exact to, you know, rotate, right?

Kind of make sense though, you and I can have some internal questions.

Why people make such comments on our, you know, like Instagram post or something.

They'll ask that.

But when it comes down to it, we can also go, we get it, right?

Like we do understand why people need to ask the questions.

When I got into getting past the bottles breaking, I mainly saw in an open and went,

wasn't I don't understand not something for me because I never did any of those big huge trucks.

Yeah.

Never.

But six bottles of Sparta, Donald, that's pretty cool.

Wild to see six bottles out there just in three on some hot shot trucks.

So when these trucks, we see them and we get into them.

I know you not your forte, right?

Not my forte, but this is the part of what's great about the specialist group, right?

Even though maybe people wonder some questions on our Instagram posts that we don't know,

they can go into the specialist group, find people just like them who have the same type

of questions.

I imagine people all want to know from Donald some great information around why six bottles

of Sparta on that truck.

Sure.

Yeah.

No, one of the probably the worst jobs I ever had very early in my career is I did.

I don't know, like 10 or 15 records that pick up semi trucks when they're broken out and

they got all the toolboxes and all the nooks and crannies.

And I was like, Oh, this will be easy, big flat panels.

Boy, was it not easy.

It was that was my first foray into using old solvent based compounds and polishes out

in the heat, which was a very tough learning experience.

So you're exactly right.

I mean, a lot of people run into detailing a lot of different things.

And as you move through the detailing space as a business, one of the things that becomes

very apparent is as a detailer, you get asked a lot of weird stuff.

Hey, I mean, you've been asked this.

Hey, you know, you're detailing my car.

Do you do boats?

Do you do RVs?

Do you do, you know, whatever the case may be.

And it's always good to have a group like the specialist group because there are people

in there that do those types of things that is, you know, their bread and butter or things

that they do.

So it's a great place to utilize all that.

Because I see it and I think most of us that are listening would go, Why did a guy like

that put a ceramic coating on his truck?

Right?

Like, why would a hotshot guy put a coating on?

I'm just saying, I think there's some people that will question that because they go, Listen,

I, I think that Mary that runs through with their Escalade, you know, I think she should

get a ceramic coating, but not sure why this hotshot truck guy should.

And I bet you there's a lot of us, Justin and Donald or anybody that has been around

those people would go, Well, they're probably more of a candidate to have protection because

of what we talk about the ease of maintenance, right?

Like how many times will that truck get washed versus Mary who runs down through the wash?

It's just like this.

A car owner is no different than a truck guy or truck owner like hotshot truck.

It's all about who's going to take pride in what they have.

You know, the thing that we sell as details, detailers is we target the people that want

to take pride in what they drive.

Okay.

I mean, that's really our target audience.

That could be anything.

I mean, you got lost though, right?

As coatings pushed up and we got pushed into this direction, coatings were only one way.

It was for like somebody with an Escalade or, you know, we got into this moment right

back in 19 and 27, right?

I'm just going back to that time.

There's got, there has been an evolution or we would have seen hotshot truck guy.

The evolution now is more and more people talk about it, right?

It's, I mean, as much as everybody wants to complain about it being on every product

on the shelf, which is a valid complaint, it's also brought knowledge that this stuff

exists to everybody.

And so when they do talk to somebody that's educated, which again is also a very small

percentage of people they'll probably talk to, they'll, they'll learn about a ceramic

coating.

And so there's actually more of a reason for cars that put lots of mileage on to be using

ceramic coatings.

There's a real reason because they are using their cars above and beyond the average person.

So it always comes down to the same thing to me.

And it's never, and I guess it's wherever you start in the business, you know, detailing

was one of those things that I saw a lot of stuff very quickly, you know, when you're

in the wholesale world, when you start out, like somebody could show up with a semi truck,

they could show up with the boat, they could show up with 10 cars, they could show up,

they were going to do whatever had a motor in it that could make money.

And so what became apparent to me is everybody needed it or everybody wanted it or wasn't

necessarily true because I wasn't running the business or anything, but you just realize

that the percentage of people that you're talking to are the people that care about

something.

And I think that that's where all this comes from for me.

You can almost ask the question, right?

Who would get more value out of protecting their vehicle?

Somebody that runs around town and then has the chance to get it cleaned on a regular basis

or that high mileage guide, your point, who probably won't have time to get it washed

for maybe another month or so.

So where do we understand then, which is worse, which is better, right?

Let's play that game.

I think it comes down to both of them have value, right?

But there's no doubt.

If somebody is putting a lot of mileage on their car, they're going to benefit the most

from a coating or PPF because they're simply just going to put more miles on the car.

I mean, we we take care of tons of car collections.

Is there tons of value in cars that never see the outside having coating on it?

Yes and no, right?

It's just a protective thing that when the cars go out, it's protected.

But is there an argument that we really wouldn't need to do a whole lot

because these cars don't see a ton of road time?

And so I don't know if it's right to look at it that way.

The way I look at it is I've yet to meet a car.

That I've come across that can't benefit from protection.

And I don't care whose it is.

I don't care if it's a semi, a hot shot truck, a daily driver, a collection car.

I think the the the hill we got to get over.

Personally, is that not enough people have a protective vehicle all the way up and down

whoever you're talking about.

OK, so let's give some just brief little moment and sell me the pen, right?

Let's do that little game from, you know, a wonderful movie with on Wall Street, right?

Like, so I'm a hot shot truck guy.

I'm going to butcher that how many times, right?

Hot shot truck, right?

There we go. Finally got it out.

And I need a coating, right?

But let's put ourselves into a little bit more of a play, right?

You're the detailer.

I see that a customer that maybe I'm cleaning the wife's escalade

since we talked about that earlier or whatever, right?

I'm cleaning a vehicle and I see a hot shot truck there.

Well, it doesn't really fit, right?

Because I think it's just the average guy.

Average we're going to go, well, that guy's never going to want it.

OK, well, let's think about then how we should.

Well, first of all, that truck costs more than the escalade.

That's I mean, that's the thing people need to get over is understanding that.

Semi trucks or hot shot trucks or, you know, get into F 350 and bigger.

Oh, yeah. Right.

The, you know, all the way up up and down,

those trucks are way more valuable price wise than, you know,

the average high priced SUV, right?

They're just I mean, it's nothing to drop, you know, 200,

you know, $250,000, you know, whatever the price may be for some of these things.

I think the benefit is if you're going to beat up your truck,

which a lot of people who are doing this type of work are tow trucks

or another one that's on there on the road all the time.

This would be a good, good conversation to talk about.

Is when I talk to those types of individuals, I just say,

how long are you going to keep it?

On a trucking business, you kind of have two schools of thought.

But I think we're going to say most go with the old school thought.

I need to get as long out of this thing as I can.

Well, if your business is on it and you're driving valuable stuff,

which a lot of hot shot guys take cars, they take, you know,

they take all kinds of stuff that you don't want to pull up at your drop off

and have a sunfated beat up truck.

OK, because it it doesn't give people faith that you know what you're doing.

OK, that's where I would start.

This gives you that protection to keep this looking.

It's the same way you would pitch it to to the business guy with the Mercedes,

right? 100 percent, because no matter what,

everything that I do, and I've said this on this podcast for six or seven years,

and I always get questions about how I sell, everything starts with

not how expensive the car is because I don't care.

That's between them and the dealership and them and their money.

How long are you going to keep it?

When you start talking to people who are in the trucking business,

they need these vehicles to last, they not only need them to last mechanically.

So a lot of people that drive to have the best trucking businesses,

you'll see that they're the most meticulous about the maintenance of the trucks

because they're already thinking 10 years ahead.

OK, we have separate, you know, you can have two ways

that construction companies operate with all the trucks that they buy.

There's some that go, we buy them, we keep them.

Some that go, hey, everything's on a two year lease.

We're we're not dealing with this.

We're going to beat them up.

We're going to blow them up. We're going to.

So that guy, I'm not really wasting time with the second guy.

I'm like, they don't want to keep them.

But most guys that are trucking for a living,

they want to keep their stuff as long as possible.

And no one's ever really spoke to them about how to keep their truck

on the interior and exterior in a nice condition.

How do I know? Because I've talked to those people.

I've talked to people that just simply don't know.

And I think one of the most important things is to realize

that maybe somebody has never talked to them.

You just assume somebody's approached them.

I assume nobody's ever heard anything about it.

You're right. I think everybody thinks the other way.

Yeah, I just when you start talking about money invested in this stuff,

this is real big boy money at times,

especially when people are buying four and five and six trucks at a time

and you're going, they just dropped one point five million dollars on trucks.

All of a sudden, the conversation about a ceramic coating is put into perspective.

It's not that much money, right?

It just isn't. And then, hey, man, bring it back to me

quarterly, if they're that kind of owner, bring it back to me every six months,

bring it back to me once a year, let us get something else on it,

get it cleaned up for the year or whatever.

You can really open a lot of doors.

But the big thing is, is don't go in there and start cheapening your services

because you figure these people don't have money.

So let me get this straight.

The person driving a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar escalade has the money,

but the guy that just bought a three hundred fifty thousand dollar truck

doesn't have the money.

You've got to put this all on perspective and not not really go in.

Now, if somebody's like, hey, I'm going to give you 10 trucks,

are you probably going to give them a little bit of a bulk discount?

That's not what we're talking about here.

But also, can you give them a thousand bucks off?

No, you don't have that kind of room.

You know, you can give them a little bit of a discount for all that work.

But yeah, I just think a lot of people don't put it into perspective of number one,

they probably have never been talked to by a professional.

If they were talked to, they were usually talked to by the cheap guy.

So go in there and be the professional.

And then secondly, you need to understand that these people have spent a lot of money.

Yeah, imagine going in there and going,

hey, I got a lifetime coding.

Oh, yeah, that would be so I can only I can only imagine how many people.

And one of the things that I think would put me at ease talking to these people

is they're going to be some of the most real people about what's possible

because they're going to have been been through it.

They're going to be like lifetime.

What that doesn't that does because they're they're like servicing their trucks

all the time, you know what I mean?

And they're going, well, nothing on my truck is like, what's this guy talking about?

And you might disqualify yourself with just a stupid pitch.

You know, so you don't have to make a crazy pitch.

You just have to be the person willing to tell them call it like it is.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

All right, let's get over to this question.

This comes from Drake.

And this is where I was saying, hey, you know, he was like, might be a dumb question.

OK, and I get the point of the question

because he asked, can bug be used as a pre washed for lower panels and slash or a wheel cleaner?

Right. Totally get the question because there's a lot of companies

out there that have these generic things.

And if we would be, we would say, listen, if you want a generic,

when we say generic wrong word, multi use would be a better a better word.

That would be TRX, right?

Yes, higher rubber exterior is the X, right?

Like think of the entire thing, right?

So let's go back and forth on why somebody would wonder about bug, right?

It makes sense of I can spray and clean a bug.

I could take the same and take TRX and spray and clean a bug.

So could bug cross over and clean wheels, right?

There in lies is basically the question that I think people are really wondering

internally, but they don't really know how to ask the right question.

Right. So we have designed TRX for that.

But bug, no, bug is specifically designed for bugs.

Yeah. I mean, when when you talk about what you're facing with bugs,

you're facing a totally different thing than just road,

drive, road, film, all those kinds of things break clean.

This is this is why I find it funny when people talk about APCs on the exterior.

Right. We've talked about this before, but if you look at APCs on the exterior

versus something that's like TRX formulated, it's night and day,

the type of cleaning power you're able to do on the things you see on the exterior

of a vehicle versus an APC. OK. APC attacks.

One of the things we'll get into as we start to develop some more products.

Not out, not all alkaline has created equal.

And this is kind of the problem is that let's say APC is a is an 11 on the

pH scale and TRX is an 11 on the pH scale.

That doesn't mean they're going to attack the same things with the same power

just because they're the same on the pH scale.

Right. We're developing a product right now

that is going to attack things on the exterior of your car.

And it may look it may even be less on the pH scale than something like TRX

or it could be higher on the pH scale, but it's going to attack things differently.

And so when you look at bug, bug is a perfect example of.

You're going after these specific things on your paint

that have specific characteristics.

And so you need a specific thing that handles those characteristics better.

And that's not the same ingredients as what's in TRX or an APC or those types of things.

And so what I really and I love that Drake asked this question is like you said,

I'm sure there's a lot of people that wonder these things.

Part of the thing that's happened in the chemical world is a lot of things

have been oversold and undersold.

And that only confuses people more like APC on the exterior of a vehicle.

To me, it's kind of laughable because I go,

that is just a lot more work than using a product like TRX.

Because again, I want people to understand that not all alkaline

on the scale and that could be acidic, that could be on the other, on the opposite end.

It doesn't all attack things the same way.

So let's give an example.

Let's say battery acid is a one on the pH scale.

I could create a chemical that's one on the pH scale that's not as corrosive as battery acid.

So what people misunderstand, because a lot of content gets put out there

and a lot of people are spraying APC on the exterior, will it do some stuff?

Yeah, it'll do some stuff.

But it's not going to attack road film on the level of something like TRX

because it doesn't have the right ingredients to attack those things.

And so that's what I hope people understand from this conversation is

it's not foolish to think this stuff could work multi-use.

But Bug Cleaner specifically needs some enzymes in it to attack

the things that bugs leave behind.

And if it doesn't have that, then you don't really have as easy or clear removal as you would want.

So and think of it, here's the way I think of it.

And maybe people can take this analogy and use it as

did you used to trade baseball cards back in the day, right?

Tops, go buy the box.

Mine, you know, thinking like the late 80s, 87, 80 at night.

Like that was me in my prime of there, right?

Like getting the packet every month.

Yep. I mean, yeah.

And then I mean, inside of that culture is meetings, right, to meet up with people

and then go, right, trade card, not going to go into all that.

But think of it this way, right?

Each product is going to have a card and it's going to have a stat card

that's going to have, if any of you play, I like I play FIFA.

It's an online soccer game, right?

FIFA 26, you go get a player card.

It's going to tell you, hey, they're really good at dribbling.

And, you know, this number 62, they're shot numbers at this.

Americans may call this Madden.

We might talk about Madden football would be, you know, what most of us,

the player has statistics.

They're fast, they're this, they're that, they're, you know, whatever.

OK, right. So you're right.

Like, and I just haven't played Madden.

Yeah, I haven't got too much for me.

I couldn't like, there's so many audibles and they're like, you throw the ball

and then you press ball this stuff.

It's like, it's too many things going on.

I hear you. That's why I had to tell all the people.

If you played Madden, you got agility, you got speed, you got hands,

you got this, you got that, you got all of these different things.

Like you said, that there's a ranking to what a chemical would do.

Basically, you would have a stats stat sheet for a stat sheet, right?

And so in some chemicals are going to list a surf like just basically is

this surfactant is going to be good at this.

Right, like this is going to handle grease and this is not going to handle grease.

This is going to handle oil based better than this person.

And this one's going to handle dirt and grime better than this.

And and that's kind of really what we mean by not all alkalinity is the same, right?

So you kind of gave a better example of what it means that not all alkalinity

is created equal.

There are some things that are 13 on the pH scale that don't clean the exterior

of a car or something that's 11 on the pH scale.

And you go, well, I got all this power.

And it's like, but the power is directed and it's like a hit in a foul ball.

Yeah, you hit it 500 feet, but it didn't stay in play because it wasn't the right swing.

Right. And so when we do these kind of in-depth talks,

one of the reasons is because I do sympathize and empathize that people

have been said and given so much that's not accurate.

Like I'm just telling you guys, if you're using the APC on the exterior of your car

versus TRX, I'm going to clean a car more thoroughly and quicker

and have less elbow grease than you'll have every single time.

You won't you won't you won't out.

There's nothing you can do to outrace the using the right chemical.

So we always say, and most of us, everybody agrees,

your chemical cost is really the very minimal part of of your of your of your business.

Right. I mean, it's not even a if you guys are detailing on any real scale,

chemical cost, and I'll share my my accountant

who you and I have worked with.

When he sees what it costs me to detail a car in chemicals and coating,

he chuckles every tax year.

He's like, I just very rarely is there a business that could be your size

with so little actual operation cost outside of people cost.

And that's what a chemical would fall into.

So the the the black and white number on your spreadsheet,

on your your bottom line, on your, you know, your what?

Profit and loss statement, right?

Your P&L statement, as everybody can see, we know who handles the finances.

Absolutely. Absolutely. 100.

No doubt about that.

Got a profit and loss statement.

You also have a balance sheet.

He was just like spreadsheet. I'm looking for the word.

I'm like, yeah, looking for the word.

It's up there somewhere.

I'm going to grab it. 48th out of 50 on education.

You bet.

Oh, man.

So damn, I'm gone now.

You left me off a trail.

I don't know where I was headed.

Long enough, you knew I couldn't let this go like we had that we had to have a lot.

But what? Go ahead.

Well, OK, what I was I was going to say is you can head down this way of

like I have this theory.

No, it's gone.

No, no.

What it is is you were talking about chemical cost.

And to me, there was.

OK, so chemical cost on a spreadsheet on that profit and loss statement

really is minuscule, right?

Minus is what we've said.

But reality of running a business.

And this is the ironic part of which I joked with you earlier.

Like a lot of people say online of the podcast is about chemicals.

It's like, no, the proper use of chemicals dramatically changes your business.

Like it is so minimal on your profit and loss statement.

But the way you use them and how you can take the knowledge of a chemical,

I think is why I guess you and I are so let's use that passion bucket, right?

Like we're so passionate about why people should understand chemicals

is because it does dramatically impact your business.

Maybe not on the on the balance statement, but in how you use them,

how quickly you use them, what happens, what you use on.

Let's go into this.

If I have a plastic bumper, I have something that I'm going to put

trim ceramic coating on.

I got I got to just load it up.

Yes.

But so many of us have a caution of going, OK, I just want to put this guy paid

whatever so what or whatever reason that somebody does.

Maybe because we go listen on the paint, this is what I'm used to.

And I guess I get a lot of people go, OK, drip, drip, drip paint.

This is the way I do it.

And then they just go over into the bumpers and they take trim and they go drip,

drip, drip and they wipe it on.

Totally get it like totally get it.

Yeah. And I would say.

When I see trim, probably my thought is if I were to put this

amount on the paint, it would be running off the paint and be dripping on the ground.

That's the way that I view it.

Now, I don't have to instinctually even think about it anymore, right?

I've done so much trim at this point in my career.

But I always tell people if you just understand how porous a piece of plastic is.

And you say there's a million pores on this plastic.

The goal of coding is to fill up those million pores.

That's basically what you're trying to do.

A trim is you're trying to flood the system and get it all the way

to the top level of the poor, like where it's almost seeping out.

You have so much on there, but people, like you said,

I think they just go from paint and they just it doesn't matter what

coding I've used. One of the very early coding companies that I used.

They instructed everybody to lay it on thin and they were having all kinds of issues.

And they're like, well, why don't you have issues?

Because, you know, the sun is the worst thing for trim.

Why aren't you having issues?

And I go, I don't know.

So I sent somebody out here and they go, well, that's like five X.

What we use at our headquarters.

And I go, well, then you have a lot of people there that don't know what they're doing.

You just simply don't know what you're doing.

Like I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is actually a real story.

Like, right. But so take what I was saying.

Bottom line of of the spreadsheet, the whatever that I couldn't come up with.

Yeah. And then real world and in detailing.

Yeah. So here, here'd be an example.

The exact issue that they were having is, is that people were having to redo the trim two and three times.

The coding cost now becomes irrelevant because you have three or four X the people cost now,

which is by far the biggest expense, whether that's your own time or it's, you know, people on your team.

You don't see that on that spreadsheet.

Yeah. So one of the things that I would say is when, and look, they, they had people.

Owner of the company was here.

You don't see, well, I guess what I was going is you don't see that comeback and all the, hey,

this is listed out of this line item as, these people return just because of this.

You know, we did a trim coding.

It didn't look good on our first application.

So we did a second.

So we did a third.

So we did a fourth.

Now that things been in my shop for two and a half days, everything's done but the trim.

And we're just using an example.

This could be anything, right?

This could, this could be any service.

But the most fascinating thing to me was when they came out here is them not understanding plastic

and they were, quote unquote, a manufacturer.

I said, it's just logic.

When I wipe on ceramic on a trim, I can see it just soak in.

I mean, I can just watch it.

So I just load it up.

So if you take something like a Jeep Wrangler that has a lot of plastic, I think people would be

fascinated how fast I can code it because all I'm doing is as much product as I can.

Wipe it on as much product as I'm not looking back.

That I'm not worried about leveling it.

I'm not worried about any of that.

I don't have a single thought of any of that.

I don't even have, again, what you guys may see on camera at times is not how you can shoot it in real life.

I don't even have a towel next to me.

Because I know I'm not going to put it on the paint.

I'm going to be careful.

So if it's just me and I got to get something out the door, it's not because I'm careless because I've done it so much.

I'll only put product on a certain part of the pad.

I'll leave a buffer so it doesn't touch the paint.

Like I won't put it all the way up at the top or wherever the I'm going to be rubbing next to the paint.

And I just load everything up.

I get done.

Maybe you have to use the restroom, take a phone call, whatever.

And then I'll go back before I deliver the car and go, add it.

Anything not soak in?

Let me hit that little high spot because it's not going anywhere.

This is not this idea that it's going to kill you.

What are you doing?

You leveling quote unquote?

I'll just take a towel and sometimes what you'll have is you'll have, let's just say you have a big piece of plastic.

You'll have one really dark spot that looks like it just has too much coating on it.

That coating is not going to dry that quickly.

I'm not talking about leaving it for, you know, 16 hours.

Although I've done that before and just went and leveled it and it was good.

I don't want to advocate that.

But let's just say it's an hour later and I see a little bit like there's just extra coating.

I just take a towel and wipe it and the extra coating is gone.

I've never had it.

It doesn't matter whose plastic it is or what story you're going to try to tell me.

I've never had an issue doing it that way.

And I've shared it on this podcast like a thousand times and I still see people very timid and I understand.

Number one, you need to understand something.

Pieces of plastic are really cheap to go buy a new one from the dealer.

So what's the worst that can happen?

You learn a tough lesson and go, hey, the next time I work on this Toyota, I'm not going to do that.

OK, it doesn't work.

But plastic pieces aren't that expensive.

So I never I never got scared like it was paint.

Because if you've ever had to replace plastics or whatever, you realize it's it's there's

hardly any money that has to be spent, maybe a couple hundred bucks, right?

But I do this on doesn't matter if it's a Lambo doesn't matter if it's an Audi

doesn't matter if it's a Ford doesn't matter if it's Toyota doesn't matter.

I do it all the same way.

If I, you know, put trim on a piece of plastic and maybe a week couple

of whenever and whether it's me or whether it's a customer, see some little

white or some little drops or see something, what happened?

Almost 100 percent of the time.

And again, everybody's situation.

I can't say that I'm in your situation.

They laid it on too thin.

And then what happens is the solvent has places when you lay

something on extremely thick on a porous piece of plastic, there's almost

nowhere for anything to escape, because you're overfilling the area.

There's almost no escape of anything.

This is the way that I view it.

This is kind of what we've seen at HQ is when you lay something on thin,

there's all this room for everything to start kind of what what we would call

on paint solvent pop.

So if you see white dots, you just laid it on to them.

Go back when I say I lay it on thick, this is what I mean.

If you took this amount of product and you put it on the panel,

the dropper out, I don't think the drop just start pouring on, but I literally.

I mean, dude, I just I just go crazy with it because I was always fearful.

And this has been my whole career with coding.

I didn't want anybody's plastic to fail like being protected.

I just I just wanted it fully protected.

I just I just I was providing the service.

This is kind of how I feel about glass coating.

Dude, our glass coating is so affordable.

Load up the windshield.

Load it up almost to the point of it running everywhere.

If you guys want to do circles because it makes you feel better, whatever.

When I do glass coating, I just.

I mean, I just load it up.

I mean, because I know, number one, that front windshield is going to take a hit.

It's going to get beat up and I want as much coating on there as possible.

And because it's so affordable, I don't give it a lot of thought

except for I just want and this would be on my on my own car.

Like I just want my car to have protective windshield.

So that's what I do everything.

That's why I do everything the way I do it is because I'm just like

it's it's like late loading up paint with coating.

I just want as much of the coating on the surface as I can.

So I'm going to load it up and it's no different on any part of the car.

So and it is springtime, right?

And which we talk about is I mean, quarterly reapplying glass to windshield.

It is. It's no brainer for me, the the the car owner.

And it's a no brainer for me, the pro that has customers

with glass ceramic coating on their car or just customers in my database.

Right. Like this is something that is extremely practical.

And gosh, hey, I wonder why we talk about products and business together.

Hey, they do kind of work, right?

Like you want to grow your business, you want to grow your by the way,

we're not saying it's going to fail in three months.

It's just a standard practice.

You know, for me that like twice a year

before summer, before winter is a nice little place to be.

OK. And for me, it was always because I'm here in Oklahoma.

Right. And I would always tell my customers,

hey, we're going to put things on court, you know, every spring, every summer.

And we would just go with the the seasons.

It for here, it makes sense that way. Sure.

Sure. And and I just I feel like

I've been thinking about this a lot probably for the last year.

And we talk to our team all the time.

And I talk to so many of you all the time.

I think part of it is is that people,

especially the pro in this business, is very, very confused by how things work.

And I kind of understand that because there's so many people talking all the time.

I mean, we're talking right now.

I mean, we're not we're not immune from it.

Like we're talking about what I asked you earlier.

How many damn podcasts are there now?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a lot.

And and some of this stuff and people ask me, you know, I put my first coding on.

I think I sent you the corvette that I did it on.

Was late 2009, you know, and I always treated coding.

And back then it was brutal to deal with.

It was your white one. Yeah. Yeah.

And I just saw some new balance over there to the side.

Oh, yeah. So I say this.

We have lost connection with common sense.

And I understand why we've lost connection with it, because so many people are talking

and they're talking strictly to get you to buy into what they're doing.

But if somebody's telling me to use the APC on the exterior,

or somebody's telling me to lay a coding on in a very thin manner,

we know the technology out there.

OK. And and when you're dealing with paint, you're dealing with trim,

and you're dealing with glass, you're dealing with a porous system.

And so think of it from a common sense perspective.

If I have a lot of pores, I want as much coding in those pores as I can get.

If I want to clean the exterior of a vehicle,

I want something that takes on oil and grime and grease and antifreeze

and all these things really well.

That isn't an APC. I don't care who builds it.

That's not what it's not going to handle.

And then you're going to tell me it's safe on the interior.

Those two things don't go together.

Point blank period in the story.

And we can have any chemistry debate we want.

But that's just the reality is that APCs were built for

hand lotion and other things on the interior being on a steering wheel.

That was the basis of that technology.

So it's like when you and I always have these conversations,

when you know this stuff, you get faster, you beat your body up less.

You have less elbow grease you have to put on to the car.

And for any of you that have detailed a lot of cars,

saving on elbow grease is worth it to me.

I mean, where do you think AWX came from?

Marty can tell you the story.

We only developed AWX because long ago I called Marty and I go,

I'm done scrubbing rims or scrubbing wheels.

I'm done with it. OK.

That doesn't mean forever, but I had several of them that I go.

If we just had a common sense acid, I could get in and out of some of these

vehicles a little quicker.

That's where it came from, because elbow grease,

when you've done a lot of vehicles, becomes problematic.

You know, who absolutely is 100 percent right now going, Nick, I feel you.

I feel he'll even probably throw the dog in there.

I feel your dog.

That's Ryan.

Ryan inside the group post a photo of those black wheels and goes,

Hey, guys, I need some help here.

I've used TRX and I've used Fuego three to four times scrubbing away.

And listen, when we talk about black wheels that you can already see that

they're not black. I mean, Ryan, you're pretty gracious.

Yeah, they're brown. They're brown.

And it's a black wheel like that's not black.

It ain't. That's like a grayish black.

Okay, red is already great.

Like, so, but this is a practice is a very specific point of Ryan in the group

asking, Hey, listen, I've put TRX on.

I've put Fuego on and it's just I'm scrubbing it.

He's going, I'm elbowing and work.

Yeah, no, it's it's not going to you have a you have a baked on break dust

that by the way, you you may use the strongest acid in the world or a WX or

whatever, and it still may not come back.

This could be just a cooked wheel.

But if you had a WX, you would have you would have identified that within one use.

You'd have been like, this is a cooked wheel.

I need to let my customer know it's a cooked wheel.

This is the black.

I mean, black wheel epidemic has been how quickly people don't realize that they

can just have a cooked wheel forever.

The reason I didn't buy and yes, Dustin and Donald, the reason up until my rock

stars, the reason I didn't buy black wheels until that point, and I finally

caved and threw my towel in literally like the guy in the ring that

managed and just throwing the towel is like, I'm fucking caving.

The reason I never did black wheels was because same as I do now, pull up to a

stoplight and that immediately first reaction when I would look at a car with

black wheels because black wheels weren't around in every car.

Don't get yourself.

Yeah, they took a while for that to grow.

And then when they were early into the market, I would pull up to a stoplight

and go, Oh, why are you calling your break?

Oh, you can't black wheel.

Yeah.

So we actually still see this one of the biggest like offenders that we do

within our daily businesses, the black wheels from Mercedes.

There's no forgiveness.

Like once it goes, it's gone.

Like it's in refinished territory.

And every time we roll up and one of my guys goes, Hey, so and so got a new

Mercedes, what do you think the first thing they say?

Black wheels.

Hey, these are if it and if they don't, I go black wheels question mark.

And if they are black wheels, that customer gets gets a note and I go,

just so we're clear, there's no missing this car.

OK, and they're like, well, I don't know.

I said, I don't care if you're on vacation.

I don't care if it hasn't been driven or the wrap, you know.

Yeah, we're we're doing it.

OK, we're doing this is getting maintained.

Because for whatever reason, and we had several instances.

The finish just it really turned that red from the brake dust so quick

that we were just like, we just found out because we had to finish a couple

wheels for some customers, not things we did, but they were like, I want them

refinished. And I looked at them and I go, you can't take a week off.

You can't take a second off.

And from that day on, we never when we see a Mercedes black wheel ever.

So so when I saw Ryan's post, I go, at least a WX and acid based product

would let you know on that first application.

Do I have a burnt wheel that needs refinishing or can this be revived?

In his instance, I'd like to see what he finds with a WX.

But my guess, looking at that wheel, that is in refinished territory.

But a WX will tell you that story the first time you use it.

Period point blank.

So I can go, Ryan, listen, man.

I understand like I look at a black wheel and I go, not sure I should put

acid on a black wheel, right?

Like I understand this has been what over the past, you know, I just call it

the cycle of moving from predominantly using wheel acid as an industry long

before most of us that are listening can remember to moving into this non

acid wheel cleaner for like multiple decades.

And there seems to be this movement of multiple companies starting to go back

to, well, the actual best way to clean a wheel is wheel acid.

I listen, Ryan, and any of us that haven't purchased a WX yet, I empathize

and I totally understand, right?

Like I get it, you've been programmed.

And by the way, I've been there too.

I've seen those wheels and had to scrub and scrub, but it's miserable.

Measurable.

It is and it's miserable to spray acid on a wheel and go, hey, customer, sorry.

Right.

Like I get both sides.

I just got it.

So then let's talk it through.

I see a black wheel.

Which ones can I use wheel acid on?

Brian, you know, he does have the middle name.

Chop liver.

Don't don't kid yourself, Brian.

His middle name is chop liver.

It's Brian chop liver Mildren.

Okay.

But right, like he, he's to his point, like, hey, that's what I was

saying, right?

Like, Brian's like, hey, just throw the whip, throw AWY, right?

The question has got to be asked, why?

Why can we just say throw AWX on that?

Why can he be so sure?

Well, it's a, it's a safer acid.

We've kind of said that, that it's not, it's not the acid everybody used to

talk about, and even some companies still put out, you know, several

companies still put out like a traditional scary wheel acid.

So I get it.

The thing with this is, is that wheel acid needs to be understood that

don't put it on a hot wheel.

Okay.

Like that.

If you can't touch the brake rotor, if you can't touch the back of the,

the, the spokes on the wheel or, or, or, or the flanges of the wheel, like

it's too hot, okay.

Um, be very cautious in direct sunlight as we go into summer.

This is the realities around a wheel acid.

But if I'm in the shade and the truck or cars been sitting there all day and

all I did was pull it out to detail it, the wheel is cool.

It is what it is.

It's, it's ready to go.

The next thing is, this isn't one of those chemicals you set and go do five

other things on a black wheel, especially you need to sit there and you need

to watch what you're doing because you're now in, you're taking a scalpel to

this wheel, that's what a wheel acid is for TRX and flago user friendly, uh,

you know, uh, flago's pH neutral.

It's very, very low headache and you're using an acid.

You need to pay attention.

And so when people will see me on camera, they'll go, Hey, you kept rewetting

the wheel.

I'm like, yeah, I don't want any chance of anything drying and a couple

extra sprays of product.

Give me peace of mind.

I'm good with a couple of extra sprays of product.

It's not, I, but I do that out of habit with everything because I don't

want to get into scrubbing and elbow grease.

And so I use chemicals to my advantage because at this point, everybody, I'm

25, 26, 27 years in to when I first, my detailed car, the elbow grease, I'm

kind of good on it.

I've done my time.

So the only thing you do with acid is just pay attention.

That's it.

And let's, let's talk about that drying.

Like, as you mentioned, it was, it's very under emphasized.

It really is.

I think there's a lot of us that when we go around a car, we start spraying or

start doing something.

And if we, if we ever see some damage or see something later, we might not put

into that, you know, question of how did I, how did this happen of, Hey, was

this this or was it like the dwell time is when the drying is big and it

doesn't matter where we've talked in the past about dwell time and why we've

developed things and why we have it to have dwell time.

Listen, if it dries, drying is the like, that's the problem.

It is, it's what you never want to happen.

Right.

That's where we even use a spray extra.

I'll say, sometimes I'll have my power washer just to kind of like, throw

some moisture in the air, right?

Like anything, I do not want a product to dry on any surface.

Yeah, it doesn't even matter the product.

I mean, I think that's the other thing.

Like, there's just things that become good practice.

Like when we were using really terribly formulated soaps back in the day, and

you didn't have the best water source, you were just kind of told, you just

don't want things to dry.

When you're using aggressive APC, yeah, you don't want it.

You don't want it to dry on the door panel.

You don't want it to dry on a seat.

Like, we've just gotten to this place where we don't really talk about it much.

But if you were around when chemicals were really horrible, it was like the

number one thing everybody said to you was, don't let it dry.

I mean, Eddie, that was even the comments.

If you go back to like early three M compounds and polishes that I use, they're

like, yeah, you just don't want it to get cakey and dry on the surface.

So just, you know, split some water on it and run your polish, you're going to run

your buffer back over it.

I mean, everything was around, don't let products dry.

And it's a good rule of thumb.

And so one of the easiest ways I've shown on plenty of videos now, spray AWX,

spray TRX, spray whatever, have a foam cannon right there that you just lay

over top the entire wheel.

At least I've just, it takes you two seconds to spray the wheel and everything

in there stays moisturized, so to speak.

It stays wet and working and all that kind of stuff.

And as soon as something starts to really dry, you're not getting any benefit,

but you're getting all the risk because all the cleaning power is happening

while the surface is wet, not while it's dried.

So you're getting kind of a twofold problem.

You're getting no benefit from the chemical as it dries and you're getting

all the risk of it damaging something.

So when people watch stuff that I do, the number one thing is that's a lot of

chemical, first of all, no, it's not.

Just because I do a couple more sprays doesn't mean it's a lot of chemical.

On a really hammered wheel, I don't use a 32 ounce bottle of AWX.

Put that in perspective.

Okay.

Maybe half, maybe, maybe half, right?

Like that's if it's hammered, but most of the time you don't even use that much.

And that's with quote unquote, the extra sprays that everybody talks about.

Like you got to lighten up and use chemicals to your advantage.

And we talk about elbow grease, but another thing is it doesn't dry

and dries where the damage happens.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

All right.

So the thing that we see quite a bit inside, whether it's another group

or inside our groups, these questions about foam cannons and soap.

So we got two that I'm just going to throw in together because I think it's

a great time to talk about both.

Right?

Like if I have a foam cannon, what is the purpose?

What's that dilution?

What is it doing?

What is that knob on the top there for?

What soap do I put in?

How many ounces do I put in?

Right?

Like we can understand that moment.

Okay.

So we have a question from Sean as well as from Justin.

And it's around foam cannons, concentration levels.

And then, well, what's this soap and what's that?

All right.

So let's talk through it, combining them together.

First of all, Justin, how does the car soap concentrate compare to foam wash?

Also is ceramic snow pH neutral?

Okay.

So how does car soap concentrate compare to foam wash?

Something you and I have talked about, but you nailed it right in the in the

comment section is what not a lot of people I really think about is a dealership

type soap versus a prosumer, a pro, whatever you feel.

I mean, it's dealership and everybody else, right?

Like we don't really think about that a lot because most of us think about five

gallons is what most people consider that box truck running around or the people

that sell the dealerships sell mostly in that five gallons.

And that's really what they hang their hat on.

Okay.

So you've got a five gallon concentrate.

That's just what the car wash concentrate is.

Pour that concentrate into five gallons of water and you will have, well, I guess

that's five gallons and 32 ounces, but you can figure it out, right?

Whether you want to take the 32 ounces out or not.

Okay.

So, but you get into then a moment of I've got five gallons of soap here versus

these other products.

Let's go with foam wash, which is one gallon.

Okay.

Well, it makes, wow, I just kind of go, listen, wow, I suddenly got five gallons.

I put one ounce or two ounce like no, no, no, no, no, no.

So this is where then the Sean question comes in and why I wanted to pair

them both together, right?

A foam cannon is designed to take different types of soap.

It's designed to take different, well, the Scosti's, you've got this, which

we talked about that knob on the top.

So that helps the dilution.

There's all different things inside the foam cannon that can help you with

the dilution here becomes that moment.

Well, if I'm using a foam cannon, but which one should I use?

Well, it kind of goes back to which is your target market?

Are you a dealership?

Or are you?

Yeah.

So the car, the car soap that people don't know about is you fill up the

foam cannon with directly out of the fire.

Yeah, you're right.

The entire thing is the entire thing is going in there out of the five gallon.

It's not that soap is really well great for production because you don't have

to keep telling guys how to dilute, right?

Because you go right out of the five gallon container, fill up the entire

you know, foam cannon and then you go from there.

It's not as lubricated.

It's it's not as it's not a lot of foam and all the dealership doesn't love

foam. Yeah, the foam won't last.

It is a production soap.

I don't think anybody listening to this should be using it.

That's my take.

Unless you're telling me you're doing a bunch of dealership work and you got a

bunch of guys and you're trying to solve a specific problem.

When you look at foam wash, probably the thing people don't realize is just one

ounce in a foam cannon will produce a massive amount of soap and lubrication on

the surface.

Am I going to sit here and lie on this podcast and say I measure my foam wash?

I've never measured it.

The blood blood.

I won't measure it.

I don't I don't do that.

But I know what an ounce to two looks like at this point.

And I go ahead and put it in and I I I'm good with what comes out.

Foam wash is extremely concentrated.

If you look at just putting an ounce, ounce and a half, two ounces in a foam cannon,

there's lots of soaps that can't produce at one ounce.

What foam wash?

There's there's this one that's moving out.

You can see him hitting out in quote unquote social media popularity, right?

Well, because it's so cheap.

But then you talk to people and you go, yeah, you got to put four or five ounces

of soap in there.

Yeah, you don't really have to do that with foam wash.

Ceramic snow, pH neutral.

The answer is yes.

The only non pH neutral soap we have right now in March of 2026 is cleanse

because it's for a deeper clean.

It's for beat up vehicles.

It's for, you know, a coding customer you haven't seen in a while.

It's to get prepped for paint correction or coding.

It's a specific use.

These are all good questions.

And I would say that one of the things I wish would come back a little bit

to the industry as a whole and to all users.

Is that all of these things need to be used for what fits what you're seeing.

Oh, like if I saw a lot of beat up trucks,

I'm not buying much more than cleanse because I go, hey, Nick, I don't ever see,

you know, well maintained cars.

Cool, man.

Slap some cleanse in your cabin.

Yeah, call it a day, right?

If you're somebody that goes, hey, I'm dealing with with with customers that care

and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And I have a lot of ceramic coding customers coming back.

You may look at ceramic snow as huge value of being able to add stuff back to their

system and protection if you're taking care of your own vehicles.

You may be a foam wash three weeks a month and one one week a month you're

throwing ceramic snow on.

So what I want to get across to people that I think needs to make a comeback is

you got to realize that your situation is in everybody else's situation.

And you have to start developing where these products fit into you, right?

Like if you get a lot of bad weather,

infinite shine may be a better choice than than ultra dress.

Ultra dress may not be the best decision for you because a solvent based

dressing is going to last a little bit longer.

It's going to go on a certain way.

It's going to it's going to hold up to your elements more.

That doesn't mean you don't carry both,

but you might think to yourself, I use a lot more infinite shine and I do

ultra dress because I need that solvent, you know, power to handle the elements

that I see in Montana or Wisconsin or at times in Tulsa, you know, where you're

getting a lot of inclement weather and you go, hey, I'm going to do I'm going to

use infinite shine on my Jeep right here because it just holds up a little bit

better to the elements because there's just a nature of water based dressings

that aren't the nature of a solvent based dressing.

So all of these things have a place.

You just have to find out what do you work on the most?

What are you doing and what fits what you're doing?

Yeah, and ceramic snow does kind of fall into that other category of that moment,

right? Like foam wash to your point should be like the dominant number one go to.

And then, OK, every once in a while, I do want to add some protection back in.

You know, let me go ahead and wash with ceramic stone.

Sure. Yeah. And again, if you're one of these people that go, dude,

I never seen a cleave vehicle, I never see one, then cleanses your friend.

Then you know, you're doing side by sides and you're doing dirt bikes and you're

doing beat up trucks and OK, man, just just have cleanse in the cabinet and go to work.

You know, you don't have to overthink it.

And then what does that dilution look like inside of the foam cannon?

And I think the cool part about Sean's question is some detailing has actually

gotten to a point that you can geek out about stuff like that.

Yeah, it's like we we do have some moments where the old school

motherfuckers like us do have a joke and like like there's a man glug glug it.

Yeah. At the same time, I literally was reading this and reading Sean's question

and going, you know, the cool part about the growth and evolution and everything

that happens inside of detailing is we've gone from Biff to a guy really

questioning and about dilution ratios coming out of, hey, if I put this mountain in

and what actually comes out and then, well, there's this like on the panel type.

And you go, OK, man, I don't know all about all that.

At least I did.

I was like, I don't know. That's a Nick's world, you know, let him do that.

Like I just go, wow.

Yeah. So all of our school.

Yeah, all of our soaps, guys, is going to be one to two ounces.

I mean, we kind of stay in that, you know, put one to two ounces in the foam can

and go on about your day, put one to two ounces in your bucket, go on about your day.

You know, that's we've kind of just made it that way, right?

We've just kind of made it simplistic of what it would be like to turn the gallon

over and then by the time it starts coming out, you turn it back over.

You're going to be about one to two ounces.

So if you want to measure it out, you're going to be about one to two ounces.

You're going to get the result you're looking for.

And I I don't think we really have any soap that's not that way.

You know, we may at some point.

But right now, one to two ounces in a foam can and you're going to get the desired

effect. Yeah, you know, the question is, is you the listener half?

Listen, hyperclaim specialist is the place for you.

It really is like the people we've talked about that ask the questions.

They also have answers.

Yeah, they ask questions.

And they also would love to talk to you.

It's not like the other groups.

It really isn't. Trust me, Nick and I, we go into other groups.

We see what happens.

It's not that way.

If you have a question, there's plenty of people inside of our community.

And we love this is what we love about our community.

Go in there, ask the questions.

Happy to give you a really good, tangible, real life, practical, in the moment answers.

Yep.

We'll see everybody there.

See, hyperclean specialists on Facebook.

See you guys.

Solving Problems With Ceramic Coatings. Plus, Using Chemicals to Your Advantage. Episode #947

About this episode

Monster Jam

ceramic coatings

Cadillac Escalade

paint protection

Mercedes

maintenance of the trucks

two-year lease

bulk discount

pH scale

battery acid

surfactant

elbow grease

profit and loss statement (P&L)

lay it on thin

sun is the worst thing for trim

redo the trim two and three times

glass coating

front windshield

brake dust

revived vs needs refinishing

wheel acid

dwell time

don't let it dry

cakey

dilute

foam cannon

soap lubrication

cleanse

Infinite Shine

inclement weather

dilution ratios

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