Understanding Ceramic coatings

The following information will help you to understand ceramic coating and the coatings we install a little better. if you are already well versed in paint coatings you can jump to the bottom to see some off the packages we offer. If you want to learn more about the history of coatings and a little more in-depth explanation of coatings you can check out a section on our blog about them here

Ceramic coatings have been all the buzz the last few years in the automotive detailing world. If you have spent any amount of time online or on social media you probably have seen some slick marketing of products that you can buy direct and usually come with what seems like some pretty outrageous claims. You may have seen a video where a sales person repeatedly strikes a hood with a lighter making “scratches” that just wipe off. Or perhaps the video where they either set a hood on fire or even take spray paint to a freshly coated hood. Truth be told, most of the damage they inflict and then magically wipe away could be revered on any properly prepped surface that was coated with just old fashioned carnauba wax! So what makes ceramics so special?

Modern ceramic paint coatings add extra protection on top of your existing clear coat finish similar to wax. Rather that lasting a few months as wax does, the protection can last for years. All paint coatings provide enhanced protection from harmful UV rays which can dull and oxidize your finish. Coatings also help protect your car from damage from bird droppings, bugs, tree sap, hard water stains and environmental fallout while maintaining a hydrophobic finish (ability to repel water). One of the most over hyped aspect to Sio2 coatings are scratch resistance. Unlike wax, paint coatings do offer a small level of  light scratch protection. Coatings add a measurable level of thickness to your cars overall finish. This creates an additional layer available for paint correction and to take some light abuse from things like car washes and snow brushes. Light scratching and scuffs may not even make it to your clear coat layer. Some coatings can add as much a 1 Mil or  1 thousands of an inch on top of your clear coat. A typical clear coat is 2 to 3 mils thick. Coatings also help protect your cars finish by having a hardness level as great as or greater than the original clear coat itself. The standard for hardness testing is the ASDM D3363 Test. It uses a lead pencil under varied pressure to check for scratching resistance. Coatings and paint are rated on a H1 to H9 scale, with H9 being the most scratch resistant. Clear coat on factory installed paints varies greatly by brand but typical fall into the H3 to H4 range.  By comparison some aftermarket paint coatings can test off the charts, H9 on the scale. 

Scratch resistance is the last thing we talk about when speaking with new customers about coatings. We wish that online marketers would not use it as a reason you should buy their product since its one of the least important part of a installing coating. If you are most concerned about scratch protection you should be looking at things like PPF or Paint Protection Film. 

At We Care Care Care we LOVE coatings for a few reasons. First is the length of time they last. We offer 3 choices when it comes to coatings or final protection step on your vehicle. Every exterior detailing we do includes a 6 month spray ceramic sealant without an upcharge. We also offer two different ceramic coating packages that include either a one year coating or a 3 year coating. The science behind all three are the same. They are all a SiO2 based product. The higher the percentage of SiO2 the longer the product can stand up, higher amount of gloss of the finished surface and overall level of protection. The higher amount of SiO2 in the product, higher the cost of the product to us to buy. Installing any SiO2 product onto a painted and prepped surface is like installing a layer of glass on top of your paint because, SiO2 or silicone dioxide, is the main component of glass. 

Another aspect of a good quality of coating we love is the ease of maintenance after the install. Just like any other car on the road, if you want it to look good you need to clean and take care of the exterior. A good SiO2  coating has great hydrophobic properties, or the ability to bead water. All painted surfaces are actually quite porous. If you were to look at your paint’s surface under a microscope it would look more like a concreate driveway and not a smooth surface like you would think. An applied coating actually bonds to that surface and fill some of those micro voids making the overall surface smoother. It makes water bead up which gives the coated surface some anti-fouling properties or ability to stay cleaner longer as well as some self-clean with rain. On our own personal vehicles find ourselves washing half as often as we did before applying the coating. This could save you time and money over the life of the coating.  In the winter, ice and snow clears off a little easier as well. We can always tell when we are working on

a coated vehicle since washing and decontamination removal is much easier. 

Packages We Install

Our one and five year coatings cost more then a standard exterior detailing for a few reasons. First there is a lot more prep involved before installing a long life coating. As mentioned before, the coatings act like a piece of glass on top of your paint. This creates a deep gloss and will give a nice wet look to the paint when its clean. If you have any imperfections in the paint, such as scratches, the coating can magnify those marks. We recommend at a minimum at one step paint enhancement prior to coating even to brand new vehicles. This ensures a smooth, flat,  level surface free from contaminates  which helps in the bonding process. Most of the vehicles we install a coating onto go through a multi=step polishing process to remove as many defects as possible. We typically go so far as wet sanding, cutting then polish the surface to get to close to perfection as possible prior to install. Keep in mind you are locking in your new finish for three years or more. All those steps are very labor intensive and time consuming. Another factor into the price of a coating is the actual cost of the coating itself. A traditional wax or spray wax coating could cost under $1 per car. Our 3+ year coating  by comparison, costs us close to $200 for just the bottle of coating and that does not factor into the cost of consumable products such as applicators and towels. 

Our coating appointments require a non-refundable deposit. The coating is very expensive and has a somewhat short shelf life so we tend not to carry much in inventory. We can have new product in our hands in just a day or two. If you are looking to have an advanced coating installed by our detailing service rather then in our Studio we need to take the weather into account for scheduling. Your vehicle needs to remain out of the rain for 4 hours for our one year coating or 24 hours for our 3 year coating. If you do not have a garage at home we need to make sure there is no rain in the forecast or if installing at your office, no rain for your ride home. When installed in our Studio, vehicles typically require and overnight stay in our climate controlled area for optimal curing. 

Click below to see our package pricing and options on our Detailing Studio Page.