Currently the standards are that you prep a surface (ANY SURFACE), coat it (YOUR PROCESS and PROCEDURE), send it off to a place like SGS and they do the stupid "Pencil Test" (aka 6B to 9H). It was shared in the FB thread (by someone who knows), that a certain company manipulated the surface in such a way to give unrealistic and falsified results. Coming from a STRONG science background I find soooo many flaws in the whole thing that it bothers me that CarPro would even consider using SGS just because they are following ISO standards, when they obviously don't standardize their testing process to provide a true reproducible result, invalidating any data (other than having a piece of independent literature they can use in their marketing campaign).
If SGS is just the testing entity, applying a test which in my opinion is bogus (I'll explain later), then who polices the surface, coating and prep!?!?! According to the source, this particular manufacturer sprayed the coating (which results in a much thicker application than hand applied which they then baked on 80 deg.c. (175F) for 5 hours. Not exactly real world application, wouldn't you say? How can those results be used to promote a product applied by hand and fast flashed with medium wave IR lamps for 10-15 minutes at 170 degrees F.
To me the SGS test is bogus on soooo many levels. If the ISO standard used for testing coating is the ISO - 15184 (Paints and Varnishes - Determination of Film Hardness by Pencil Test), then let me be the first to say that it was a test for paint and varnishes and leaves a very big question mark above my head as far as its usefulness to test coating, ESPECIALLY considering that most coating manufacturer claim 9H+. How useful is a test when all of the testing max or exceed the scale? I think you would have more useful data in a test where the data points would find themselves in the lower to middle portion, allowing room to reach greater applicable results on the same scale. 9H+ for me mean nothing more than the test was inconclusive in providing a true reading. It gives me absolutely no fuzzies that I am dealing with a above standard product. Basically and plainly put, the test SUCKS and a new test which can produce actual data point need to be invented. Unanswered questions on the Pencil Test..... what is the standard methodology used to evaluate the actual scratch? Basic visual observation or are we looking for a microscopic evaluation/measurement of the depth of what was produced during the test? Does the size of the tip and contact point with the substrate test calibrated to maintain the same standardized effective PSI at the tip (coming from the standardized 500gm or 750gm)?.... and the list goes on
My point is that CarPro need to rise above all those slide of hand marketing trickery, and become the standard. They need to educate extensively and rely and unbiased, irrefutable and verifiable claims and science. If nobody is coming to measure up then CarPro becomes the King of the Hill. At that point even the smallest detailer with no knowledge of chemistry will be able to say: "How does your coating test out?". Right now, reading on threads after threads there seems to be questions as to who is King, and the reason for it and they are taking their dog fight in an "unsanctioned" arena. They are trying to compare and contrast on flawed science.
