Central Valley Options

Ceramic Coating Preparation for Your Car - Clay Sponge

Trying to keep your car's paint in excellent condition takes time and money, but it makes a big difference in the overall quality and appearance of your car or truck. Recently, many products have appeared that you can buy that claim to be the very best which will protect the paint on your vehicle.

Ceramic coating has really been at the forefront of everything over the past several years or so. We are going to go over ceramic coatings and whether they are worth it. The ceramic coating industry has increased in popularity over the last ten years, providing the very best paint and clear coat protection available.

The technology is being promoted just about everywhere, from your local detailing store to automotive YouTube channels, in addition to everywhere in between. There are plenty of people that swear by this stuff. People get turned off by the cost the first time they look at it. First let's figure out what ceramic coating is. Ceramic coatings are often called nano coatings, and they contain silicon dioxide or silicon carbide.

It comes in liquid form which allows it to be put on to a car or truck and protect finish.

Once solidified, the Silicon dioxide and other characteristics of the coating combine to produce an additional protective layer that repels water and provides some protection from the sun's UV rays and other harmful rays. For the longest time and I mean a long, long time, waxes ruled the paint protection and car detailing industry. It used to be that when old horse carriages needed a good shine, they used animal fats. But that quickly changed, thankfully, into more cruelty-free solutions using plant-based products. Throughout the 1900s different waxes were used to detail vehicles and bring that nice glamorous shine that their owners sought after.

If you wanted to keep your paint looking good, repel water and add just that good little bit of layer of protection, adding a good layer of wax was your solution.

360 Products (available at ADSO stores) make a line of products created with nano-ceramic technology. And this literally changed everything. But like, why?

What made this product so revolutionary? Is there anything that separates a car wax from a ceramic coating, and why is it so expensive? Ceramic coatings offer much longer lifespan than wax coatings. A good wax will last anywhere between like three or six weeks, before you're gonna have to do a re-application. A ceramic coating will, on the other hand, typically last for about two to five years, depending on the quality and application.

Ceramic coating also does a better job of protecting against UV rays and other natural things that can harm your paint.

It works fine, you've seen the videos of people throwing mud on their car and it just slides off and they can just rinse it off. Many times people overhype things a little bit. It is my understanding that some detailers and people who promote ceramic coating tend to stretch the truth just a bit because it is so popular. Meaning there are some common misconceptions about the product and ceramic coating.

It does not eliminate or prevent water spots. Unfortunately, it is the truth, even though it does help. Using a ceramic coating that has hydrophobic characteristics, water and moisture droplets may flow off the surface much more easily, which is why water spots are less likely to appear. Thanks to the hydrophobic properties of the ceramic coating, water and water droplets easily run off the surface, which is why it appears on the videos, which lowers the chance of water spots appearing. Ceramic coatings don't protect your car from rocks chips and scratches.

Even though it may protect against light scratches here and there, I wouldn't see it as a 100 proof solution. For something like that, you're gonna wanna look at investing in some protective film or Clear Bra or something like that. And number three, it's really not as expensive as you might think.

It was pretty expensive when ceramic coating first came out, costing upwards of $1500 Having said that, now you can have your car or truck professionally ceramic coated for just under $700 by a professional detailer.

In many cases, when you get a quote for having your car coated, you'll need the paint of the car corrected first(paint correction). That's where a lot of the extra cost comes from. Or, I mean, if you wanna just get a bottle of the stuff and do it yourself, learn the process, maybe mess it up once or twice, more power to you.

Everything costs more when it's new, and eventually that price goes down, that's just how things are. Getting your car ceramic coated however involves paying someone to apply the coating. In the end, you have to decide if it is worth it for you and your vehicle.

I would recommend protecting those paint jobs if your vehicle is really nice. Invest a couple hundred dollars in getting your car ceramic coated. And your car isn't the only thing that can be coated either. It is extremely popular to have ceramic coatings on your wheels. It's so popular that we've started offering Whip Our Wheel And Tire packages as an add-on when you're checking out, we can literally ceramic coat them for you before they head out the door and honestly it makes cleaning them so much easier.

But that's not all either, we've seen people get things like their seats and other interior parts ceramic coated, a bunch of things that they just don't wanna have to worry about scrubbing down to really get all Central Valley the dirt off, it just makes the whole process so much easier.

If you think that's something worth it to you, then go for it. Honestly, the technology of ceramic coating has helped a ton of people and I know a ton of people here have it done to their vehicle because they just absolutely swear by it. You've got to think about it from all sides, and it's gotta be worth it for you to be protecting your car or part of your car with it.

You want to protect your investment. So let us know your thoughts on ceramic coating down below and whether or not you've had it done to any of your cars or your wheels or seats, cause that's a thing apparently.