MOBILE CERAMIC COATINGS AND PAINT CORRECTION IN WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA

Why are ceramic coatings so expensive?

The most important question of them all, right? It’s a fair question. Just like anything that requires high skill, good quality, and long term durability, there’s typically a premium price tag attached to it. However, when you pay for a ceramic coating, you’re really paying for a multi step process that requires taking your car from its current condition, to a near showroom floor condition.This process involves a thorough wash, decontamination, preparation, paint correction, and finally the ceramic coating application itself. Each of these steps require a certain level of skill, patience, and attention to detail and we want to walk you through each of these phases so you have a better idea of  where your hard earned dollars are going.

Ceramic coating pre wash

Before getting started with any job, service, or project it's usually best to start with a clean, blank slate. The same applies to a ceramic coating. It is crucial to thoroughly wash the vehicle before anything else. Removing loose dirt, debris, grime, bugs, droppings, tar, and any other substance from the paint is an absolute must. The goal of a ceramic coating is to protect your vehicle, AND to bring out its best shine, gloss, and slickness. To do this, the vehicle MUST be clean. 

Ceramic coating decontamination

After the vehicle is thoroughly washed of any loose dirt and debris it is often the case that the vehicle is still not clean. How is this possible, you ask? It is very likely that your vehicle has what we in the detailing world call “embedded contaminants.” This is also commonly referred to as industrial fall out, brake dust, rail dust and iron particulates. The clear coat on your vehicle is a microscopically thin layer of hard plastic, and it is porous. This means that the embedded contaminants can get lodged into the clear coat as you drive your vehicle. To know if your vehicle has these contaminants, lightly glide your fingers across the surface of your car, if it has a grainy, sand papery feel to it then it has embedded contaminants. These contaminants MUST be removed so that the ceramic coating can properly bond and adhere to your vehicle. To remove them, your vehicle must undergo a “decontamination” process. This is a two step process whereby we spray an industrial fallout remover (also known as iron remover) to the paint, followed by scrubbing your car down with a detailing clay bar. This one two punch leaves your car feeling smooth to the touch, and one step closer to ceramic-ready. 

What is paint correction?

Polishing. Buffing. Compounding. All of these words refer to paint correction. But what does that actually mean? In its most basic form, paint correction means removing the scratches, swirls, hazing, oxidation, and other imperfections to your clear coat with a polishing tool. To be absolutely clear, nothing at all is being done to your vehicle's paint itself. “Paint” correction is only done to the clear coat layer of your vehicle, which in turn restores the look and luster to the color coat (paint). Let’s drill down some more. The scratches and swirls that you see on your car are the result of tiny peaks and valleys  that form when your vehicle comes into contact with something. If you were to look at your clear coat under a microscope , what you would see is a bunch of small jagged edges across its surface. If you swipe a branch, something falls on your vehicle, your keys rub up against your door, or if you take your car to an automatic car wash, scratches and swirls (peaks and valleys) will form. These SHOULD be removed before applying a ceramic coating. To understand how scratches and swirls are removed, it may be best to use an analogy: nail filing. When we file our fingernails, what we are really doing is rounding out, or making the edge of the nail smooth by shaving it off. The same logic applies to paint correction. We remove scratches and swirls through a combination of liquid polish or compound, and a machine polisher. It effectively evens out those peaks and valleys of the clear coat giving the paint a scratch-free uniform look.

Ceramic coating application 

 Now that your car is cleaned, decontaminated, and corrected it’s time to apply the ceramic coating. This is a delicate and time consuming process that requires a lot of patience and attention to detail. Most ceramic coatings are all applied in the same fashion: using an applicator pad or block of some type with just a few droplets of the ceramic coating, and section by section, panel by panel, slowly and delicately wiping the coating up and down, and side to side over each painted surface of your vehicle. During this process, your detailing technician will be inspecting the coating to make sure it is bonding to the paint properly, and not causing any irregularities. After 24-48 hours, the coating should be cured to the paint. Congrats! You now have a professionally installed ceramic coating. 

What is paint enhancement?

Earlier you learned about paint correction, it’s time to discuss paint enhancement. You can think of paint enhancement as paint corrections baby brother, or sister. While the goal of paint correction is to remove as many of the imperfections in the paint as possible, and restore the look of the clear coat to that factory new (barring any damage); the goal with paint enhancement is just that, to enhance it! Okay, more specifically, when we enhance the paint, we are looking to simply improve it. Most customers realize that they don’t need or don’t care about correcting every imperfection out of their vehicle. Instead, they opt for just an enhancement. This usually means removing anywhere from 40-60% of the scratches and swirls in the clear coat and giving the car a level up in look and feel. While it is totally fine to opt for a paint enhancement rather than a full paint correction, it should be noted that to get the most longevity and overall performance out of your ceramic coating, paint correction is the suggested route. 

What are some of the benefits of a ceramic coating?

You’ve read this far, and now you may be wondering: So what are the real benefits of a ceramic coating? We’ve mentioned a few upsides of a ceramic coating throughout this page, but to tie it all together, you can expect the following:

-Enhanced paint and clear coat durability

-Preserved paint color

-Long term gloss, shine, slickness to vehicle

-Eliminate fading/oxidation caused by the elements

-Prevention of long term water spot damage

-Barrier to bug guts and bird dropping etchings, tree sap, road grime and tar

-Added hydrophobic (water repellency) properties