Beware of U-Coat-It....

[SS #8484]

Well guys I know that I'm no Viper owner, but I am an avid car enthuiast so I just thought I'd drop by to share my rather anoying experience with U-Coat-It. I know that to most people this wouldn't mean much, but I did quite a bit research to choose the right product for my garage & the aspects that sold me on U-Coat-It are quickly disappearing.

I put down my new floor coating last week & it's not worth the time or money that I spent on it to say the least. I've got several large areas where the finish is dull & blotchy even though I followed the directions methodically & prepped the floor as good as can possibly be done. It specifically says on the instructional video that the "bond coat" is to be a thin & uniform coat, but the places where I put it down thick is actually where I got the best results (the finish coat follows after the bond coat is fully dried). I've checked their web site for trouble shooting tips (apparently I'm not the only one with this type of problem) & all of the possible reasons that they list (proper ventalation, appropriate drying time, stain removal etc.), I took care of ahead of time.

So, almost a week & 10+ phone calls later, a tech support guy finally gets in touch with me. After talking through the whole process with him he admits that I did everything correctly & offers to pay half of another coat (min. another $100), but that "it's really in my best interests to go with the $200 U-Gloss option instead". (Personally I don't know why anyone would want to put a gloss coat on a floor that looks terrible to begin with, but that's just me.) In my opinion, if the U-Gloss option was so vital, it should have been included in the kit from the begining. So at this point I have basically no confidence in the lifetime warrenty they offer anymore or the customer service they were supposed to be so superior with because they didn't even get through the install process with me.

He also admitted that saying on their instructional video that the bond coat should be a thin coat was "probably" incorrect that they that should "probably" change that to say that you should use all the materials instead, but according to him I was just supposed to know that already. I guess maybe he expected me to have walked back across the wet floor to put down a thicker coat when I was done, I don't know. I'm sure that would have looked really nice right?

So if anyone is looking to do this to their garage, I would highly recommend looking at as many products as possible first & try to find one that actually backs up what they claim.

Shay

 

[Hisserman]

Thanks for the post.

 

[jgfurr]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I too looked at U-Coat-It. However, I ended up with the Rust-Oleum Garage Floor Coating. It's only been down for 8 months, but it looks like I did it yesterday. Best thing was the cost: $150 to do my entire 700sqft garage.

 

[SS #8484]

Yeah, I think I'll just try that in my next garage. I've heard nothing but good about it, but the only thing I wasn't thrilled about when I checked it out was that you have to wait a week before parking on it again. For me that would mean finding a place to park the car for a while.

Shay

 

[Jay Herbert]

Yeah, I think I'll just try that in my next garage. I've heard nothing but good about it, but the only thing I wasn't thrilled about when I checked it out was that you have to wait a week before parking on it again. For me that would mean finding a place to park the car for a while.

Shay

I opted for Epoxy too, but went with Valspar. Forget about waiting a week to park on it..... it will take you that long to properly prep the floor, it took me much longer.

My floor was "used".. so I had to do some oil spot removal, it took three different products before I found one that worked well (Rubbermade commercial grease and oil remover, got it at Walmart in the hardware section). Then after a half dozen power washings it was ready to acid etch.... than neutralize, then a few more power washings and I finally put down the two part epoxy.

Well, I must killed half my brain cells from the fumes on the first coat. The etching worked perfectly, the floor soaked up the first coat like a sponge, so much so that I was short paint I Could not find any more in state, so I picked up a few gallons on the way to visit my folks. When I got home, I finished the first coat and did half the second with the mixed paint, the next night I finished the second coat. Well, that was not a smart thing as the gloss turned out a little different on the last half of the second coat. Make sure you do an entire coat at once so you get uniform coverage and gloss. Oh well, it is a shop floor! All this took about a month of weekends and evenings. It was over two months before I put tires to it, but I would say wait at least two weeks as I could still mark it with my fingernail after a week. After two weeks it was hard, after a month is was solid. At this point (four months), it is pretty much hard as a rock and I've dragged stuff over it and all it did was remove paint from whatever was being dragged! So far, it seems to be wearing like iron.....

We'll see how it makes it through a full year of temp cycling before I'll say it is as good as I hope it is. At this point, I'd say a quality Epoxy paint job is worth it.

 

[VOI9 ASP]

I have the U-Coat-It product on my floors. I had them do the install rather than attempting it myself. I really like the look and finish. They have actually re coated the floor 2 times for nothing over the past 8 to 10 years.

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[SS #8484]

That's not a garage, that's a museum!

After applying the third coat, it did get the kind of finish that I expected & it turned out looking nice. I just didn't agree that I should have had to pay for it & wasn't happy with the way I had to track people down to get any help. It just doesn't leave me with much faith in their warranty anymore (that is what sold me on it in the first place) because truth be told, they really didn't do much to even help me get through the install process.

Live & learn though, I guess.

Shay

 

[Vipera Russelli]

Nice set up, Sir Fang! And here I was wondering how I was going to climate control my garage. Of course, the solution is obvious--think outside the box and move the car into the house! Yea! Now I more fully understand why most wives lay claim to ALL of the house beyond the garage, hehe. Way to go!