Spray-on paint protection is nothing new. It’s easy to apply and produces more than acceptable paint protection. What is rather new is applying a sealant using a pressure washer. This reduces the time taken to protect a car even more and eliminates the need to buff anything. It's a clever solution and increasingly gaining traction as foam lances become more and more commonplace for car cleaning.
As a paint sealant, Flex makes use of synthetic polymers to provide a hydrophobic and gloss-enhancing barrier for your car's paintwork. Synthetic protection tends to perform better than a natural (often carnauba-based) option, something that's the case with the two months' protection advertised. Duel Autocare's protective coatings have previously impressed us in both quick detailer and paste wax form, so can the brand go three for three with its spray-on sealant?
Real Chemistry
It arrives looking like an educational children's science toy. Contained within the resealable bag is a 100ml bottle of Flex, a plastic syringe and a measuring beaker. The syringe and beaker are important additions as the concentrated nature of this sealant requires accuracy to prevent wasted product or an ineffective sealant.
Using the syringe to carefully extract exactly five millilitres of sealant either feels like overkill or superbly satisfying depending on whether you enjoy washing a car. Add this sealant into your foam lance along with 250ml of water and that's all you need to do in order to prepare the sealant.
There's no real direction for applying Flex, other than properly cleaning the car beforehand and ensuring the bodywork is still wet. Then it's simply a case of coating every surface with the solution, including the glass. A little word of warning, 255ml doesn't go as far as you'd think and there isn't the product to meticulously coat every inch. It's therefore best to focus on the top of each panel and allow it to cascade down onto the lower panels. After this, it's simply a case of waiting.
Easy beading
Once applied and left for up to five minutes to dwell, it comes time to rinse it off using a pressure washer and dry the car properly. There's nothing else to it, no buffing or wiping away excess product. Once the car is dried that protective layer will have been sealed in.
As you can see from the water beading straight off the bodywork, the hydrophobic properties offered by Flex are outstanding. Water beading may not seem like the most important test, but it points to the sealant offering genuine protection. The protective coating also left a slight extra gloss in the paintwork, although a misting of quick detailer noticeably improved the gloss.
Durability seemed impressive too. We examined the water beading properties after a couple of weeks and found that while the beading wasn't as dramatic as before, it was still there, even after a subsequent car wash.
Any downsides?
This won't offer the six or even 12 months of protection the latest ceramic and graphene sealants offer, Duel Autocare claim you'll get two months' worth, not outstanding but not as bad as some spray-on protection options. This becomes easier to stomach when you realise that if you wash your car regularly, it only takes a couple of extra minutes to treat the bodywork after the shampooing stage. Even better, the 20 applications that are supposedly included in one bottle mean the typical car should get over three years' worth of protection.
Price and competition
More and more companies are embracing pressure washer-applied protection, but options are still rather slim. Autoglym's Polar Seal is the most mainstream offering and was mostly excellent when we tested it. There's a distinct advantage over the Polar Seal as Flex can be applied directly to a car's windscreen, something explicitly forbidden by Autoglym.
The closest option in terms of durability isAutobrite Direct Magiseal, a ceramic-infused sealant that promises two months of protection from a single application. The downside with Magiseal is that it's not suitable for convertibles, and the fact you'll need to use more product than Flex.
In fact, while Flex can't compete with the competition in terms of volume, the super-concentration makes it the best value for money. The fact that 5ml of product is enough to protect a car outshines the competition and makes this exceptionally good value for money, Duel Autocare even claim that Flex costs 75p per application.
Verdict
It's outstanding that something so simple to apply can offer such outstanding results, especially when you factor in the cost. It's easy to set up, takes five minutes to apply and lasts up to eight weeks, a dream for anyone who doesn't want to spend 20 minutes hand-applying paste waxes. The protection is excellent, even if the gloss could do with a little boost from a quick detailer. If you're regularly washing your car with a pressure washer, it's no big deal to slot Flex into your routine and ensure that your car is properly protected.
5/5
Pros:
• Super easy way to protect a car's paintwork
• Extremely good value for money
Cons:
• The coating only lasts two months
Specifications
Volume 100ml
Durability Six-eight weeks
Protection Polymer
Extras Includes a syringe and measuring beaker
More items to consider
How we tested it:
Duel Autocare Flex was applied to a car following all printed instructions. The car in question (a BMW 5-Series) was cleaned and had no existing protection applied to it. The hydrophobic qualities were examined after drying the car before being enhanced with Duel Autocare Hybrid Oxide. We then monitored the durability of the product over a number of weeks.
Other products used in this test: Nilfisk Core 140 | Autobrite Direct Magifoam Custard | Duel Autocare Bahama Shampoo | Duel Autocare Hybrid Oxide