I received this 303 Touchless Sealant recently and wanted to immediately test it out on my car. I normally use CarPro HydrO2 and after testing numerous other sealants I have always gone back to “hydro”. Reason being, it performs really well and is easy to use. The 303 sealant definitely has to prove itself in our shop, but I was very happy and eager to give it a shot.
I started by spraying it on the summer wheels of my BMW. After cleaning them up a bit, I sprayed some 303 Touchless Sealant on the wheels and rinsed off soon after.
As you can see in the photos, the sealant definitely bonded and was beading quite nicely. I did each wheel individually in order to test how much time it takes for the sealant to sit on the surface for too long and be harder to remove or leave streaks (what happens with Hydro and other similar sealants). The 303 instructions say to work one area at a time and rinse off immediately, so initially, I sprayed the wheel and rinsed off basically after only about 5-6 seconds. This was definitely too short of a time as the wheel wasn’t beading too well, I assume due to sealant not bonding well enough. After that, I started going 10, 20 and 30 seconds. The longer I waited, the better the beads looked and the more I realized “immediately” and “area” would be defined by the user and environment where the sealant is used. The photo above is of the wheel where I rinsed off the sealant after about 30 seconds.
With this knowledge, I went on to do my newly acquired Lexus LS400. After a thorough wash and clay bar decon, I started working in sections to apply the 303 Touchless Sealant. I only took photos on the hood and the process is shown below…
The hood didn’t have much if any beading to it as shown above. I sprayed the sealant liberally across the hood…
After about 30-40 seconds I rinsed everything off…
The hood started to bead up really nicely during rinsing and looked like this after I rinsed off all the sealant…
As we all know the beading greatly helps with drying the car, especially if using a blower such as the Metro Master Blaster…
All of my testing was done on two different days but with roughly the same temperature/environment. I haven’t been able to test the durability of this sealant just yet as it’s only been about 1.5 weeks, but it’s something I will check over the next few weeks and next time I wash the car. Durability aside, I do have some random thoughts and comparisons to Hydro…
First off, I think the main thing to remember when using this is to really try and figure out when is the best time to rinse off the sealant. As I mentioned earlier, the instructions saying “immediately” could vary quite a bit because when applying to my car I did almost half the car at a time and had absolutely no issues. This means I rinsed it off probably after a good 45 seconds. Carpro Hydro, on the other hand, will start to spot at around the 20-25 second mark in this same environment. I am not saying one is better than the other in this sense, just pointing out what I got out of testing the 303.
Second, I am definitely not sold on 303 being better than Hydro, but I will need to 1. figure out the best time to rinse off for best bonding but no streaking and 2. see durability and compare to Hydro. Definitely need more experience with it overall. If I was to go off by simply looking at the tightness of the water beads, Hydro definitely takes the cake but 303 is close behind.
Lastly, I’m pretty happy with how 303 worked. We’ve used a few different products in the past and some have been horrible, others didn’t last at all (maybe one wash) and 303 definitely shows a lot of promise. It’s VERY easy to use and if my assumptions are right and the “rinse time” is a lot longer than something like Hydro, 303 Touchless Sealant will be one of the easiest to use sealants while performing well.
I’ll try and update this article within a few weeks or so with some durability info as well as any other characteristics from future testing.