Ceramic Coating, is it worth it??

[trey99ek]

If you have a new car and you want to protect it, do it. Do it yourself. In no way is this worth 1k plus. I did 2 cars with a $100 cquartz pro kit. Now if you have an older car with swirl marks it makes no sense unless you correct the paint first. If you coat over swirls, you have swirls that your will never get out unless the closing wears off or your have it removed. This is not easy with she is the better coatings.

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[toolguy]

as previous thread noted..its all about the prep/ paint correction/ polishing/ claying process first...

then apply a liquid sealant protection..

a great middle ground and super simple long lasting liquid protection is liquid paint sealants..

application process is just like wax. and if you car is garaged.. it will last 1+ years.

my last liquid paint selant coating (wolgang deep gloss paint sealant) is still beading after 2 years.

paint protection is just like painting a room..all the prep work is the hardest part

 

[seLect]

If you have a new car and you want to protect it, do it. Do it yourself. In no way is this worth 1k plus. I did 2 cars with a $100 cquartz pro kit. Now if you have an older car with swirl marks it makes no sense unless you correct the paint first. If you coat over swirls, you have swirls that your will never get out unless the closing wears off or your have it removed. This is not easy with she is the better coatings.

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You must have missed his follow up posts where he was extremely happy with his decision to have it professionally done instead of DIY which I expected to be the case if his shop was a professional one and not your neighborhood detailer.

I had mine professionally done and I'm so happy with the results that I'm looking into having my '07 repainted entirely and have these guys apply ceramic coating on that one, too!

Like a couple of people said, it comes down to preferences and if you want to DIY, at least make sure you do it in a controlled enivorment and have the proper tools to do it the right way and make time for the project.

Professionally wise, do research on products local shops carry and make sure they are certified by said product manufacturer where they were trained. You shouldn't be seeing run-of-the-mill products at auto detail shops because products found there are more specialized, intended for the niche market and always shop around to make sure the prices reflect the work you want to have done. Their reviews on social media should be stellar backed up by pictures by customers (or even the shop themselves whos strong on their social media game, posting before/pics of all kinds of cars that's brought in.) For me it was exotic car brands and excellent reviews throughout the area on social media including Instagram, Yelp and google reviews that brought me to them. Free consultation was pretty nice too.

The investment was a no brainer for me, considering how my shop is consistently holding at least 5mil in car values from customers and luxury dealerships sending their new cars over to have it prepped for listing. That's saying something about their confidence in this shop I go for for detailing.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

I polished and ceramic coated mine last year and haven't touched it since and it was definitely worth it. Even dirty the paint looks good and shiny, and it's stood up to abuse and neglect very well. I hope to wash it before winter but if I don't I won't be too worried about it. It was a ton of work, but definitely worth it in the end

 

[toolguy]

the correct prep/ paint correction process is a lot of work...for applying any liquid paint protection..

the pros are justified in their asking price.

whether its worth it to someone to pay it, all depends on whom the buyer is..

then there are us stubborn DIY folks, with a garage overflowing of tools and products..

lol

 

[zhenpingcha]

Ceramic coating is a great thing! Despite of the fact that our roads are cleaner than 100 years ago, there is still a probability to have your car scratched or damaged in unexpected circumstances. Also, I like the fact that it's hydrophobic, so it is almost super clean even when I go to the countryside on rainy days. Btw, if you want to go for a long trip, you should notice about the quality of the substance. I can really remember how long it remains on the car, but if you buy a good quality substance, it will stay longer. I can only recommend you to check on http://ceramiccoatingreviews.com/, there I found out about ceramic coating and it's properties.

 

[GuraNird]

Yep, ceramic coating is more than worth!

 

[cbaty08]

Ceramic coating is a great thing! Despite of the fact that our roads are cleaner than 100 years ago, there is still a probability to have your car scratched or damaged in unexpected circumstances. Also, I like the fact that it's hydrophobic, so it is almost super clean even when I go to the countryside on rainy days. Btw, if you want to go for a long trip, you should notice about the quality of the substance. I can really remember how long it remains on the car, but if you buy a good quality substance, it will stay longer. I can only recommend you to check on http://ceramiccoatingreviews.com/, there I found out about ceramic coating and it's properties.

I've seen this link shared here recently, and it's worthless.

Mods, can we ban certain URLs? I feel this is just spam..

 

[RichinRidgewood]

Ceramic coating ad nausium ..

“Nano- is a unit prefix meaning "one billionth". Used primarily with the metric system, this prefix denotes a factor of 10⁻⁹ or 0.000000001. It is frequently encountered in science and electronics for prefixing units of time and length. Examples: • One nanometer is about the length that a fingernail grows in one second. • Three gold atoms lined up are about one nanometer long. • If a toy marble were scaled down to one nanometer wide, Earth would scale to about 1 meter wide. •”

“To help better explain that, we turn to Ceramic Pro, one of the most popular brands used by professional detailers: “Primarily composed of silica and titanium dioxide, these two substances together form a covalent bond that is hydrophobic in nature and forms a nano-ceramic shield above the vehicle’s clear coat.” Ceramic coating is typically applied as a liquid polymer and once it cures, it forms a protective layer on your car’s surface. “

(I dont know why this link says this but it works)

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

 

[mmike87]

I use Mother's CMX, the car wash and the coating. Maybe it's not as good as more expensive options, but IMO far superior to wax, cheap, and ridiculously easy to apply. I can do the who truck in 30 mins or less.

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[zcruiser]

the correct prep/ paint correction process is a lot of work...for applying any liquid paint protection..

the pros are justified in their asking price.

whether its worth it to someone to pay it, all depends on whom the buyer is..

then there are us stubborn DIY folks, with a garage overflowing of tools and products..

lol

Yeah even clay-barring before ANY wax is a lot of work.

 

[Signal]

I think it's worth it but no on within a hour of me does it.

 

[toolguy]

Yeah even clay-barring before ANY wax is a lot of work.

yup...everything..

and the 4runner is a lot of work for even a standard car wash...

the height of the 4runner (especially the roofside) has me pulling the stepstool out to get topside reach.

love the 4runner but man..its a lot of work to clean, clay, polish and apply wax/ sealant...

 

[gsla72]

Just finished ceramic coating my 2017 super white last weekend. I've owned the car since new and it's only ever seen two-bucket hand washes, but I still spent about 3 evenings with a DA polisher to get the paint ready for the coating.

My process was to wash the car with an iron remover, full claybar, full paint correction, alcohol wipe down/prep, 3 coats on the ceramic. I've been using paint sealants up to this point.

The ceramic is hands down a better product IF it's installed correctly. I would estimate I have about 15 - 20 hours in the whole process. The coating itself isn't hard to install as long as your patient and ensure you're following the directions to the letter.

I believe I should be good to go for another 3-5 years on the coating before having to fully re-do it.

 

[toolguy]

congrats.. its a lot of work and 3 days sounds about right

for the claying process.. take a look at nanoskin products..much faster....

 

[aweaver65]

You just never know

I have mine professionally ceramic coated and have the entire hood done in Expel clear bra...

Even with that, I have 3 rock chips that WENT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE CLEAR BRA ON THE HOOD!!!

I was going down the highway about 75 MPH and a Dump Truck pulling a Flat Bed trailer that was COVERED in BIG ROCKS, came bombing out from an on ramp directly in front of me, rocks flying everywhere...

The degree of seething anger I felt as I watched the rocks bouncing off of my hood and cracking my windshield cannot be articulated adequately...

But it's Oklahoma. It will probably happen again next week so you live through it and keep going.

 

[RichinRidgewood]

I have mine professionally ceramic coated and have the entire hood done in Expel clear bra...

Even with that, I have 3 rock chips that WENT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE CLEAR BRA ON THE HOOD!!!

I was going down the highway about 75 MPH and a Dump Truck pulling a Flat Bed trailer that was COVERED in BIG ROCKS, came bombing out from an on ramp directly in front of me, rocks flying everywhere...

The degree of seething anger I felt as I watched the rocks bouncing off of my hood and cracking my windshield cannot be articulated adequately...

But it's Oklahoma. It will probably happen again next week so you live through it and keep going.

My windshield has 2 cracks in it and its barely 1 year old. The windshields are crap on 4Rs

 

[toolguy]

try rain x windshield damage repair kit..

i bought 2 kits and repaired several windshield cracks on several cars, including a nickel sized one on my 4R.

pending the extent of your damage, the kit will make the initial area of the impact cosmetically 80-90% better.. so it unnoticeable unless you look for it.

the kit will not help with spiderwebbing of the crack..

just as important .. it will help seal the crack to minimize further spiderwebbing (the extent of this benefit of the kit, will vary based on the damage)..

it will help, but extensive damage will be beyond repair capabilities of this kit.

always best to repair a crack as soon as possible, as the crack will spiderweb/spread during temperature fluctuations..

 

[toolguy]

the 1st rock chip damage is the worst...

until you see the 2nd / 3rd/ 4th one..

i try to keep distance from the car in front of me, but even that doesn't guarantee prevention..

 

[Ripper238]

I recently got and used Turtle Wax Graphene Flex Wax and it was easy to apply and it worked fantastic. Apparently it prevented pinstriping on my last off road trip. Looked like i had a ton but once i cleaned the truck i realized it was superficial. So slick and protective.

It lasted well through a 3000mi trip off roading camping and a bunch of rain. Best part is its super easy to touch up once applied ill probably never use anything else again.