Car Ceramic Protection

Q: How often does my coating need a ceramic decontamination wash?

• Every vehicle has a very unique life. From the daily driver that gets parked outdoors to the garaged weekend vehicle that never sees rain or snow, you may need a decontamination wash to bring back new life to your coating as much as 3-4 times a year to as little as once per year. 

• If your car no longer has the self cleaning behavior, a slick feel or hydrophobic behavior, your best course of action is to have us use specialty chemicals designed to extend the life of your coating and restore its extreme performance.

• Just because your coating seems to have failed or has degreadaded performance, it is not an indication of premature failure. something as simple as a water spot or mineral deposit remover can be all it takes to revive teh coating and have it perform at the level it did when it was freshly applied. 

Q: How is a ceramic coating different than a wax?

• A ceramic coat offers ALL of the same benefits that a wax provides. The difference is a ceramic coating has none of the downsides of wax. 

• Carnauba wax can severely degrade due to heat, road salt, and all the road grime splashed on to your car from normal driving. 

• Ceramic protection can withstand temperatures over 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Wax starts getting baked off at 160 degrees Fahrenheit. A car parked in direct sun can easily reach temperatures exceeding that threshold

• Carnauba Wax can be washed off with regular soap and water. Ceramic coats usually have to be polished off or have specialty chemicals used to strip them before their normal life cycle.

• A wax lasts weeks instead of the months and years of protection a ceramic coat lasts. 

Q: What are the benefits of having a ceramic coat on my vehicle?

• Ceramic protection provides sacrificial layer to the clear coat and provides extreme UV protection to reduce the suns wear and tear on your paint.

• Bug guts and bird bombs are able to stay on your car longer with out etching into the clear coat. When it comes time to remove the bugs or bird drippings, they can be removed with out using harsh chemicals or physical abrasion that would otherwise wear down your clear coat.

• Makes washing and drying time significantly reduced if you already love to take care of your vehicle at home.

• If your car gets regularly washed or detailed by the professionals, it reduces your cars down time and eliminates the need to upgrade to wax and sealant services to add gloss and protection to your vehicle.

• Ceramic protection provides self cleaning properties, driving on the highway in the rain will help get rid of dirt that would otherwise immediately stick to the car. Protected vehicle will stay cleaner longer in inclement weather due to its anti static properties and its hydrophobicity.

Q: Is a ceramic coat a waste of money?

• If you get a ceramic coating and don't plan to maintain it properly, or go trough unlimited tunnel car washes, your investment will not yield any benefits. The physical abrasion of drive trough car washes will wear down and make the ceramic coat fail prematurely. Neglecting a ceramic coated daily driver will allow contaminants to bond to and wear down a ceramic coat and cause premature failure which will not allow it to live out its claimed life cycle.

• If you want the best protection, gloss and ease of care that only a ceramic coat provides, it is a good investment. Professionally waxing a car monthly or seasonally is more expensive and will provide none of the benefits a ceramic coated vehicle enjoys.

• If you plan to maintain your ceramic coated vehicle at home on your own because you love taking care of your own vehicle, a ceramic coating will significantly reduce the amount of effort needed to achieve perfect results every time. The drying process on an uncoated car causes the most paint marring and micro scratching. A ceramic coated car will already be mostly dry after rinsing off the soap from your hand wash and can be 100% dried with no contact solutions like a dedicated blower. When you do use a drying towel, the slick surface provided by the ceramic coat will allow your towel to glide with less friction and reduced chances of marring and micro scratching your paint.  

Q: Does a ceramic coat give my car a force field against scratches?

• While a ceramic coat does provide a sacrificial top layer to take some damage in place of the clear coat, it is not scratch proof. Driving trough a thorny bush, dry wiping dust and debris, scraping away at the hood with an ice scraper, driving trough a tunnel car wash that has brushes full of mud and rock fragments from the pick up truck that went in ahead of you will still cause scratches and damage your ceramic coat and car paint.

• A ceramic coat has 10X the heat resistance of a wax but it is not fireproof as some marketing social media posts may suggest.

• Rock chips, brushing up against your car in a tight parking space with your zipper hitting the paint will still cause visible damage, the only solution to protect against physical abrasion is a PPF (paint protection film) but that costs upwards of $8,000 for full car wraps and those still need to be ceramic coated to allow the film to receive protection against the UV rays, provide self cleaning and hydrophobic properties.

Q: My local dealership offers a similar sounding coating, is this the same thing you offer? Why is there such a price difference?

• Dealerships typically use what detailers consider "paint sealants". They provide similar benefits but must usually be reapplied every few months by the customer. Typically its a spray and wipe products the customer is expected to apply using small plastic spray bottle and rags provided in the kit or be brought into the dealership for reapplication to maintain its "warranty". 

• Most dealership protection packages come at hugely inflated costs and are applied by lower skilled porters and car wash employees that are not given the proper budget, training, products or time frames to deliver a result that lives up to the claims given by the sales person who does not fully understand or apply the coatings they are selling to the customers.

• Dealership chemicals are typically bought in bulk, meant for high production and can sit for indefinite amount of times after being open. 

• Detail specialists use products that take a higher level of skill to apply properly and specialty chemicals that have to be bought in glass bottles because they can not be store in plastic containers and will cure by turning to solid glass if not used immediately after opening for the first time. Typically high percentage Sio2 bottles can not be bought in bulk due to their short shelf life from date of production and bottling. 

• While some ceramic coating packages can come close to the typical $1,500-$2,500 cost of dealership installed protection, you get more for your money with a detailing specialist and you are never expected to reapply a product you already paid a detailer to install the first time. Spray and wipe product used inside and out with a single rag vs a detailer using proper prep, paint decontamination, blemish removal, paint correction buff and polish stages, and flawless application of superior more difficult to install chemicals.

• The reason you can find sub $500 true ceramic coats is due to the labor and material cost. Less durable and less paint correction bring an appropriate lower price tag vs a more durable, harder to work with ceramic and hours of professional machine compound and polish bring a higher price tag closer to the $1,200 range.