Ceramic Coating and Protection
Two ways in. Gtechniq coating kits if you want multi-year protection applied properly at home, or CERAMIC SEALANT if you want SiO2 protection you can top up in two minutes at the end of every wash. Already had your car coated? CERAMIC WASH and CERAMIC SEALANT are what keep it beading.
The aftercare routine we give our own coating customers is in Looking after a ceramic coated car.
Common questions
Coating or sealant, which do I actually need?
CERAMIC SEALANT is SiO2 you spray onto a wet car between the rinse and the dry. Two minutes of work, months of protection, topped up every wash. A Gtechniq coating is years of protection applied once, and it is a job rather than a step in the wash. If you are not ready to commit an afternoon, the sealant is the shortcut and it is not a bad one.
Can I really apply a coating myself?
Yes, and the kits carry the prep spray, the applicator and the take off microfibres so you are not guessing at the bits nobody tells you about. Be honest about the prep though. A coating locks in whatever is underneath it. On a brand new car that is ideal. On a car with swirl marks the coating preserves the swirl marks for the next five years, and correcting paint before it goes on is most of the work and the part we do in the studio.
How long do they last?
Crystal Serum Light up to five years. EXOv5 up to two, either on its own or layered on top of CSL for the water behaviour and the gloss. C5 Wheel Armour up to two years on wheels, which is the coating that saves you the most work per dollar because brake dust stops baking on.
30ml or 50ml?
30ml covers a small to medium car, 50ml a large one. For wheels, 30ml of C5 does the inside and outside of wheels up to 20 inches. Running out halfway through a bonnet is worse than having some left over, so size up if you are between the two.
Will washing strip the coating?
Not if the shampoo is pH neutral, and WASH and CERAMIC WASH both are. What usually happens is different: the hydrophobic layer sitting on top of the coating flattens off, the water stops beading the way it did, and the owner decides the coating has failed. Nine times out of ten it has not, and a wash with CERAMIC WASH plus a pass of CERAMIC SEALANT brings it back.
