[LandShark159]

From ceramic coating to regular washes, what would you recommend for my first detail and how do manage your regular upkeep? City driving mostly, no garage.

[oldguy00]

Originally Posted by LandShark159

From ceramic coating to regular washes, what would you recommend for my first detail and how do manage your regular upkeep? City driving mostly, no garage.

If money is no object, then people will prob recommend PPF film on front of car and a ceramic coat on top of that.
That should only run you about 1-3k lol. I personally think thats ridiculous, but thats just me.
I wash my car at least once per week if weather permits. I did put a coating of Adams Graphene on it, and usually use a detail spray or butter wax every so often after washing.
Mine isn't garaged either, and come spring, I plan to do paint correction myself (iron remover, clay bar, adams swirl killer polisher with appropriate pads and compound, etc) and apply a ceramic coating myself - its roughly $100 to buy the real stuff that shop use from any place online.

Cheers

[malvern_man]

PPF and ceramic coating, but some people will disagree.

[LandShark159]

PPF is a bit too expensive for how much I care

[P1]

All my vehicles wear a layer of Power Lock. If you don't mind applying it a few times a year, I don't see why anyone would shell out thousands for ceramic.

Since your paint is new, you really don't need a polish. Just put on a layer of Power Lock, or even do your own ceramic coating. It's not rocket science. The detailing industry just makes you believe that.

[M2 CCO]

I ceramic coat all my vehicles when they are new. I would recommend at least a one step polish, but you should inspect the paint to see if you have any areas that need correcting before you coat the car. Ceramic is really easy to apply. Some products are more difficult than others though. My two favorites are the CarPro CQuartz 3.0 topped with CarPro Gliss v2 or the Gtechniq Crystal Serum Light topped with Gtechniq EXO. Both are easy on/off and will hold up for several years depending on your environment and maintenance wash habits. A ceramic coated car is much easier to keep clean in my opinion. Hope that helps!

[asparmar]

Thought about PFP and then ceramic coating......but decided to just ceramic coat it. Couple years down the line wrap the car with a different colour.

Putting PFP and then having notches on it from road debris, will then need to re-pfp it. Might as well save the cost and just wrap it later on with a new colour!

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by LandShark159

PPF is a bit too expensive for how much I care

PPF is generally not needed IMO unless you live on a dirt road, live in a snow state and do a lot of winter freeway driving, drive behind Semis daily, etc. And, at least in the Bay Area, respraying the front end is cheaper than PPF. But, that said, some love it for OCD reasons or emotional needs (i.e., "I know I'm protected") or whatever. Personally I don't like the look: it has that car-in-saran-wrap look and I can instantly spot it, so that bothers me more than the few paint chips I get around NorCal & West Coast driving.

With that, that core question is: Who's going to wash it and how?

Basically there's no difference between a resin-based professionally applied ceramic coating and a water-based spray on coating you apply IF you or your detailer use good technique washing the car AND you apply the spray on coating every few months (or as a drying aide like I do) AND the original application was down on a decently prepared surface.

I only do cheapo, fast "rinseless" washes (using that term super loosely), but I use Turtle Wax Flex Wax or Seal-n-shine as a drying aide and do a wash every few weeks, 3 or 4 at the most, and it keeps it pretty clean & nice.

Here's a pick unwashed after 3 weeks of no washing, and after a drive from NorCal to Whistler in Canada, including through rain. I think it looks pretty damn good:



BTW that car has driven the entire West Coast a few times, has ~15k and I have one tiny paint chip on the hood that my body shop said they're fix for $25 so ... yeah, PPF not worth it for me BUT, behind those front wheels is mini-chipped to shit. It's not visible unless you're detailing the car in bright sunlight, but if I had OCD I'd be freaking out, so for that area I'd DEFINITELY recommend PPF!

[gqxxflip]

Initially I thought about getting PPF on the front clip + sills and door jams as well as ceramic afterwards. But thought about it more, and decided to only do ceramic mainly to make hand washing the car easier for me.

[LandShark159]

with a ceramic coating what type of upkeep do you do on it? Normal hand wash? detail and wax?

[sdhotwn]

Meguiars hybrid ceramic had gotten good reviews for cheap and easy. I've used their spray on and was surprised the results were actually decent. I have my CS fully ppf and ceramic professionally. My X5 is partial ppf and a ceramic I did myself, and our i3 has no ppf and just get occasional spray addition when it gets hand washed.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by LandShark159

with a ceramic coating what type of upkeep do you do on it? Normal hand wash? detail and wax?

There are two types of "ceramic" coatings:

* Resin-based (little glass jars)
When applied to a properly preppped car these are highly chemical resistant (road spray, bird poo, bugs, etc) and usually last at least a year and usually way longer.

The downside is they're expensive, take work to apply correctly and need to be polished off. It's kinda like getting a tattoo: it's gonna hurt some going on and a LOT coming off.

The other downside is, if not properly maintained they look as shitty as anything else that's not maintained.

Maintenance is also a bit harder since they can get "clogged" meaning dirt & road film can get Sun-baked on and unless you remove it, it looks like crap. To do that, you'll need to hit them with an APC or light degreaser depending on how much you drive in the rain / how dirty the car is.

And you'll need to be careful because you don't want that APC to dry and you dont want to cause scratches getting the dirt off (NOTE: no ceramic or coating protects against marring or scratches)

Once clean, there's really no point in waxing since you already have a "wax'; the ceramic coating.

And this is another downside of resin-based ceramics: they look how they look ... forever! If you want to change the look you can't just wait til they wear out; you'll have to polish them off to put on something else.

* Water-based (plastic spray bottles)
These are easy to apply, but they don't last very long; usually a few months to a year at the most, which is the obvious downside ... if you care ... but why wouldn't you care? Because if you apply a water-based coating every time you wash, or at least most times, then you always have fresh protection and duration doesn't matter.

So the upsides of water-based are: cheap, easy, fast, functionally no different than resin-based ceramics if applied frequently, plus they're easy to remove and try other things.

In both cases, I'd learn & use The Garry Dean method.. It's WAY faster than 2-bucket, way less mess & hassle, and works better IME.

I just washed my car and it took about 20 minutes; I keep a bucket full of chenille mitts in my garage and if I wanna do a wash I dump in 1-2 gallons of de-i water from the grocery store, a capful of McKees N914 and I'm washing. Each mitt side does 1 panel and then I toss the dirty mitt aside and grab a new one. At the end all the mitts go into the wash and then back into the dry bucket. fast!

What you can add to the above is, after washing each panel, spray some "ceramic" water-based sealant onto a microfiber and wipe down the clean panel, then buff dry. I do that every 2 or 3 washes. It doubles the time, but now the car is coated again.

[malvern_man]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

There are two types of "ceramic" coatings:

* Resin-based (little glass jars)
When applied to a properly preppped car these are highly chemical resistant (road spray, bird poo, bugs, etc) and usually last at least a year and usually way longer.

The downside is they're expensive, take work to apply correctly and need to be polished off. It's kinda like getting a tattoo: it's gonna hurt some going on and a LOT coming off.

The other downside is, if not properly maintained they look as shitty as anything else that's not maintained.

Maintenance is also a bit harder since they can get "clogged" meaning dirt & road film can get Sun-baked on and unless you remove it, it looks like crap. To do that, you'll need to hit them with an APC or light degreaser depending on how much you drive in the rain / how dirty the car is.

And you'll need to be careful because you don't want that APC to dry and you dont want to cause scratches getting the dirt off (NOTE: no ceramic or coating protects against marring or scratches)

Once clean, there's really no point in waxing since you already have a "wax'; the ceramic coating.

And this is another downside of resin-based ceramics: they look how they look ... forever! If you want to change the look you can't just wait til they wear out; you'll have to polish them off to put on something else.

* Water-based (plastic spray bottles)
These are easy to apply, but they don't last very long; usually a few months to a year at the most, which is the obvious downside ... if you care ... but why wouldn't you care? Because if you apply a water-based coating every time you wash, or at least most times, then you always have fresh protection and duration doesn't matter.

So the upsides of water-based are: cheap, easy, fast, functionally no different than resin-based ceramics if applied frequently, plus they're easy to remove and try other things.

In both cases, I'd learn & use The Garry Dean method.. It's WAY faster than 2-bucket, way less mess & hassle, and works better IME.

I just washed my car and it took about 20 minutes; I keep a bucket full of chenille mitts in my garage and if I wanna do a wash I dump in 1-2 gallons of de-i water from the grocery store, a capful of McKees N914 and I'm washing. Each mitt side does 1 panel and then I toss the dirty mitt aside and grab a new one. At the end all the mitts go into the wash and then back into the dry bucket. fast!

What you can add to the above is, after washing each panel, spray some "ceramic" water-based sealant onto a microfiber and wipe down the clean panel, then buff dry. I do that every 2 or 3 washes. It doubles the time, but now the car is coated again.

20 minutes to wash your car....it takes me 2 hours just to clean the wheels 😂

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by malvern_man

20 minutes to wash your car....it takes me 2 hours just to clean the wheels 😂

Weeellll ... I did put 2 coats of Car Pro DLux + 1 of Gliss on my wheels and used rubber seal on the tires so they do clean faster but ... yeah. back of spokes & barrels can take awhile to detail.