Question on ceramic?

I have a new truck coming in during the next week or so. A friend who owes me a trade has offered the following to settle the debt:

(2) long term waxes, that he says will help to protect the truck and is good for almost a year

or

a ceramic coating, that will help to protect the truck, he says this is good for up to two years

I don't know much about detailing or anything... to me running it through an 8 dollar car wash is the high end treatment, so I'm looking for opinions. Any advice would be great.

 

Do the ceramic coating it's better than a sealant (long term wax)

 

After i get that done, am I still ok to do regular washes and waxes? Or do I need to do anything different with the coating on?

 

Regular washes is all. I would ask what brand it is. Some brands make a booster product.

 

If you gona try to do it yourself get cquartz UK edition, carpro also makes spray on selant for that coating to apply once a year just for hell of it, i had coated my friends evo and i did washes on it and it lasted 2 years (he traded it in so no idea how long it lasted since)

 

Wasn't planning on doing it myself. It's being done by a professional detailer. Based on his normal prices, it would cost me about 350 if I was paying him to do it.

 

Worth the price. Does he include paint correction before he puts it or or just wash, claybar and coating?

 

I asked the same question. His response was that paint correction is mandatory.. otherwise we are just "polishing a turd"

 

Good to hear

 

I don't know a lot about it. Is it really necessary to do paint correction on a brand new vehicle?

 

Yes id say so, hope you told dealer not to touch the car when it comes in, if they gona do new car prep like they do in states, you deffenetly gona need paint correction after that lol. When my friend got his new brz i told him to tell dealer to keep all white plastic on and i removed it when he dropped car off. New car just needs very little polish (menzerna 85 or 106 would do). Just to make it shiny and flawless, plus you need to claybar it and sometimes clay bar can leave marring on paint so that would need to be polished out.

Result depends on the prep. If you have contamination that got on car while transporting it or rained on it, it needs to be dealt with (clay, polish). Paint needs to be bare, and oil free, ceramic will not bond to organic material

 

Yeah, I'm not sure on the whole process (but I will ask). He says he needs the car for minimum three days, two of prep, and then the coating the last day.

 

If all that for 350 then its a hell of a deal. Find out what brand coating he is doing

 

I will certainly ask him for the brand. He just replied to my message and says that he guarantees paint corection to 95%, anything past that point is out of reach for his operation and he won't guarantee it.

 

Yeah for a truck u dont need more then that, u gona get scratches from washing it no matter how careful u are, as long as he removes any halograms or marring it will look good

 

What would you recommend I do from here on out? Is this a treatment that I should try to get every couple of years? Or more often? And what do I do in between? Is a car wash ok? Or should I stick with a hand wash?

 

Hand wash is ok, use 2 bucket method, get it done when coating wears off, you will see it stop beading once it gone, some panels will wear off quicker probably. You can still put sealant on top to make it last longer but its not really needed

 

Depends on what the dealer has done to it. I have seen vehicles with swirls sitting in the showroom floor. Looks like they are dry dusting the vehicles.

Claybar is mandatory. So he will probably have to correct after clay. Good possibility of inducing imperfections due to clay.

 

Update.. just got it back form the Ceramic guy... he kept it two extra days because in his words "the #$&*@^ morons at the #$^*@# dealership who did a glorified @#&*#$ rattlecan undercoat made a mess everywhere". She looks great though.. as soon as its not hiding undercover from the weather I will throw some pictures up.

 

Is this guy a professional?