[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by Guna

I pass by a Dabler Auto in Jayanagar and I have been thinking to visit them once. Is this the same place you went to?
How does glass coating compares with ceramic coating in terms of cost?
Did you experience how effective it is against scratches?

I got the coating done at their new place behind Vega mall on Bannerghatta Road - I think they shifted their detailing and paint protection business completely to the new place. They were the sole authorised applicators of the product called Ulgo Glass coating from Ulgo, Japan, and last I heard they are opening up franchises.

As for scratch resistance, I have not done any objective comparison. All I can say in four and half months of daily cleaning, there are no swirl marks on my car yet, which I guess is what you can expect from any good coating. I go follow good practices for cleaning though, using blower, Jopasu, detailing spray and clean soft micro fiber cloth.
There is some comparison details in the following link, I guess is from Malaysia / Japan ( which rates poor for hydrophobicity and water beading with glass coating, but in my experience, water beading is still very good.
https://www.goldenglobal2u.com/glass...eramic-coating

[Jangra]

Filled up my Kodiaqs tank this time with Power 95 from HPCL. I am almost sure that refinement has gone up a notch. I’ve stopped worrying about Ethanol content and will worry once we get to it. It’s good that we have more options on 95 Octane fuel

[AZ911]

Originally Posted by Guna

Did you experience how effective it is against scratches?

These coatings are mainly for paint protection and ppf is for scratch protection. There is often some confusion as these terms are also used interchangeably, but a simple rule is to expect ceramic/option/carbon coatings to just keep your car shining and nothing else.

[vjbox]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Body coating for my Kodiaq - A bit unconventional route:

Damn, that is some next level maintenance and it puts my efforts to shame. I go through the same battles with my wife as well and she is never happy with me spending countless hours cleaning the cars. To me its therapeutic and lets me unwind and bond with the machine. But hey I am no where as meticulous as you are.

Here are some recent pics of my rides and I think my blue bear isn't as half shinier as yours. I am yet to do any sort of coating or wrapping though and left it to age as is. I did do a round of ceramic coating on the V40 5 years back and it held ok for a bit.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by vjbox

Damn, that is some next level maintenance and it puts my efforts to shame. I go through the same battles with my wife as well and she is never happy with me spending countless hours cleaning the cars. To me its therapeutic and lets me unwind and bond with the machine. But hey I am no where as meticulous as you are.

Good to hear there are others too who share my craziness . The V40 and the blue bear looks good!

[Old Dude]

A goof up and rather expensive corrective action:

After taking delivery of my Kodiaq in Feb, the very next day I took it to Dabler Auto for applying PPF on bumpers and piano black parts (ShieldPro, self healing, 10 year dealer warranty), Ulgo Glass body coating and installation of Llumar 70% transparent, IR blocking (heat rejecting) films on all glass panels including windshields, sun roof and side windows. The activity was completed to my satisfaction and vehicle delivered on the third day. I collected my FasTag and number plate from Raja Skoda the same day and installed both.

My goof up became apparent couple of weeks later when I went on my first highway trip from Bangalore to Tirupati, where the FasTag was not read by the automated boom barriers at half of the toll gates - after lot of honking and cursing by the vehicles behind me, the operator at the toll gate has to come out, use a hand held reader ( tied to the end of a stick in many places - so guess I wasn’t the first one) to read my FasTag and open the toll gate. The same issue repeated on the Bangalore - Mysore highway the following week.
A research on similar issues faced by other Team BHP members pointed out to the flaw in my application - I had installed the FasTag AFTER applying the IR blocking film, and apparently the metal oxides present in these films attenuate the RF signals. Went back to the installer, who refused my idea to accurately cut-out the fasTag card from the film, stating that the film can be cut without scratching the windshield only immediately upon application and not after the glue has dried. Meanwhile, I had got another fresh FasTag from ICICI, having fed up waiting from IDBI for a replacement tag after multiple calls with customer support. Had to get the film along with the old tag removed from the front windshield and apply the new FasTag directly on the windshield, followed by fresh installation of a new film, overall damages of Rs 4200. Anyway the problem got resolved, and now no issues for the toll gates to recognise and read my FasTag.

Lesson Learnt - Affix the FasTag directly on to the windshield BEFORE applying any Sun film / IR blocking film. Hope this message will help other steam BHP members from repeating the mistake I made.

[mi777]

Mod Note : Please quote ONLY the relevant bits of a post. Quoting a full, long post inconveniences our mobile readers.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Old Dude

A goof up and rather expensive corrective action: Meanwhile, I had got another fresh FasTag from ICICI, having fed up waiting from IDBI for a replacement tag after multiple calls with customer support. Had to get the film along with the old tag removed from the front windshield and apply the new FasTag directly on the windshield, followed by fresh installation of a new film, overall damages of Rs 4200. Anyway the problem got resolved, and now no issues for the toll gates to recognise and read my FasTag.

Lesson Learnt - Affix the FasTag directly on to the windshield BEFORE applying any Sun film / IR blocking film. Hope this message will help other steam BHP members from repeating the mistake I made.

Someone has to do it for everyone else to never do it

[Mission_PGPX]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Body coating for my Kodiaq - A bit unconventional route:

Protecting the new car gloss and feel is something most Team BHP members identify with, unlike my wife who gives me a hard time for me spending unending hours taking care of my car.
My cleaning routine:
Daily: Blow off the dust using an electric blower first, followed by dusting with the Jopasu / California duster. ( Average time: 10 mins)

Monthly once: ( Average time: 2 hours) Pressure wash ( cordless one from Amazon) and shampoo once a month, dry off with Shinepro micro fiber drying cloth and use a blower to blow any residual water from all the crevices to avoid forming hard water stains.

We are in the same boat as far as getting a hard time from family on spending time to keep up the car. You seem to be a hardcore detailing guy, your cleaning kit speaks volumes as well. Sometimes I wonder, we spend so much time and research on keeping the car surface glossy and smooth, but have hardly thought about keeping our own skin in such shape, isnt it?

Anyway, can you name the cordless pressure wash that you use. I need to get one too specially for monsoon.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by Mission_PGPX

We are in the same boat as far as getting a hard time from family on spending time to keep up the car. You seem to be a hardcore detailing guy, your cleaning kit speaks volumes as well. Sometimes I wonder, we spend so much time and research on keeping the car surface glossy and smooth, but have hardly thought about keeping our own skin in such shape, isnt it?

Anyway, can you name the cordless pressure wash that you use. I need to get one too specially for monsoon.

The one I got from Amazon is given below. It comes with 2 rechargeable batteries, and for most maintenance washes, one battery will last. For those more detailed washes, I have to switch to the second battery as the first one will run flat by around 2 buckets. Also, I don’t use it continuously for more than 5-6 minutes as it starts to get warm, so give a minute break after every 5-6 mins of continuous usage ( typically after consuming about half a bucket). The pressure is decent with the 15deg setting, but not comparable to the ones in auto detailing shops and definitely not enough to dislodge baked in mud from the wheel wells without light scrubbing.

[sahak]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Congratulations on bringing the blue bear home, and wish you many years of trouble free ownership and ear to ear wide grins every time you drive your a kodiaq. Which dashcam did you get ?

I got 70Mai. Only Front, based on your experience.

70mai Pro Plus+ A500S Dash Cam, 3K, ADAS, Built-in GPS Logger, Route Recorder, App Playback & Share, Optional Parking Monitoring


Just got the basic setup done, need to explore more on the settings.
It is annoying as it turns on/off with startup tone when doors are opened and closed. Also starts recording emergency videos whenever the car runs over Rumble strips on our highway or bad patches.

Had a 500 Km ride Yesterday and it was great, except the continuous beep at 120 kmph .

My wife absolutely liked it as she doesn't have to look at the speedo now, on highway drives

[kurups]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Lesson Learnt - Affix the FasTag directly on to the windshield BEFORE applying any Sun film / IR blocking film. Hope this message will help other steam BHP members from repeating the mistake I made.

Just sharing my experience with 3M CR70 films. The fasttag was stuck after the 3M films were installed and I haven't faced an issue so far. To experiment a bit more, I stuck the Fasttag initially with a cello tape and behind the dark dots (frits) on the windshield top portion, just to see if this will get detected by Fasttag readers and so far covered 2000+ kms with multiple trips on Bangalore -Mysore expressway - Kerala route, haven't faced any issue with the fasttag detection. So it's working from behind the frits and with 3M films too. The plan was in case it did not work, remove the cello tape and move it from behind the frits area and paste it at some portion on the windshield which was transparent. Luckily didn't have to do that yet.

[Old Dude]

Originally Posted by sahak

I got 70Mai. Only Front, based on your experience

You can turn the sensitivity to Low in the dashcam to avoid starting emergency recording over rumble strips and gutters.

I never doubted you would enjoy the highway drive other than the annoying beep.

Originally Posted by kurups

Just sharing my experience with 3M CR70 films. The fasttag was stuck after the 3M films were installed and I haven't faced an issue so far.

That is a good data point - maybe the CR70 from 3M has a different composition that does not attenuate the RF signals. Curious to know if your 3M was installer cut out the films around the black dot area above the IRVM, where you positioned the Fastag.

[kurups]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Curious to know if your 3M was installer cut out the films around the black dot area above the IRVM, where you positioned the Fastag.

No, there were no cut outs made. I stayed at the 3M Koramangala outlet through out the time and got this done and no such cutting was done. Yes as u observed, it could be because of the 3M film composition that Fasttag reading was not an issue.

[M_Poweredd_]

Hello, is anyone facing poor lighting on the road during monsoons? I went on a trip last week and it was raining moderately on a road without any street lights. The car didn’t illuminate the road at all, although the sign boards above the road were reflected with the high beam on. But the visibility right infront wasn’t to par even with my normal cars like i20 with yellow bulbs. Even the pickups had better illumination than the kodiaq. Fog lamps were also ON the whole time. Skoda’s old forums advised to adjust the screws above each lamp for height adjustment.

[SilverSmoke]

Originally Posted by M_Poweredd_

Skoda’s old forums advised to adjust the screws above each lamp for height adjustment.

There are two screws on each headlight unit.

One adjust height, one lateral adjustment - try to move high beam towards centre most position for best illuminated road during monsoons - using deeper located screw.

See pics in previous post on this forum.

Keep height adjustment a bit lower than normal.