What is a Ceramic Coating?
Ceramic coatings, in basic terms, are coatings that protect your paint both physically and chemically. They are extremely hard on the pencil hardness scale, typically rated around 9H and they are highly chemical resistant. Lastly, and most importantly, they keep your car looking cleaner for longer, meaning less visits from us!
Do I Need a Ceramic Coating?
Maybe! Ceramic coatings are not cheap, but help keep your car in great shape, allowing the vehicle to retain more value over time. They prevent oxidation, reduction of gloss, and they are super hydrophobic for a long time, which will help any liquid roll off the vehicle, taking dirt and grime along with it.
They also last long. Very long. The coating we prefer to use lasts up to 5 years with proper maintenance (which is really just keeping it generally clean). This means you don’t need to detail your vehicle as often as you would without a coating - counterintuitive to business, but we don’t mind!
Prep Work
As with many things, the most important part of the ceramic coating process is the prep. Without proper prep of the paint, the ceramic coating will simply amplify and scratches that are on the vehicle, which just doesn’t look great.
The process involves a proper wash, chemical decontamination to get iron particles off, then claying the paint to get any other baked on contaminants off to make the paint smooth to the touch. After drying, we must do a minimum of a one-step paint correction to correct and remove up to 75% of marks (those being the light and medium scratches, swirls, and marring). A two-step correction will remove even more, up to 90%. You can see more about paint correction here!
After paint correction, but before applying the coating, we must remove all of the polishing oils from the correction process. We use a dedicated product specifically for this that does not dry out the paint, and leaves it bare and ready for your ceramic coating.
Some Science Stuff
Do you remember high school chemistry? You may have learned about the difference between physical bonds and chemical bonds. A chemical bond is an interaction between atoms or ions that connect through sharing valence electrons. The “silanes” in ceramic coatings, made up of silicone and hydrogen, is the bonding agent the creates a covalent bond to the paint. This is what separates ceramic coatings from waxes or sealants - the ability to chemically bond to the paint and retain its integrity through physical or chemical abrasion.
You can get in touch with us today to find out if a ceramic coating is right for you!
