Can You Apply a Ceramic Coating WITHOUT Polishing First? Pro's Listen Up!

[@jayd6068]

Coatings bond to bare paint, not corrected paint. The correction per say is to bring the gloss levels up and remove contamination that a chemical/clay bar can’t remove. If the paint is contaminated after decon, correction is necessary. If not, then correction is not necessary. Scratches do not equal contaminated paint.

[@jawbreaker007]

As a business owner, I don't have a problem with clients not electing for paint correction prior to applying a ceramic coating. The client is educated on the process and any questions are answered. The client will be emailed an invoice. It will state the client has elected to not have the vehicle paint corrected, etc. As a professional detailer, I would prefer the vehicle be paint corrected. Not everyone is looking to spend $1,200 and up for this service. I will most likely have them become maintenance clients. This service will exceed the entry level ceramic coating or one and done client. My ego is in check. Be good everyone.

[@joelcleare]

I didn’t even know what a swirl was until I took a deep dive into the detail world. I’m an advanced hobbyist and I put CSL on my buddys new 2022 Sequoia. Did all the prep except for a polish. I showed him with a detail light that I couldn’t find any scratches or swirls. We coated it. He was amazed how well it turned out. It’s a daily driver that’s kept outside. Polishing would not made any difference for him.

[@ryleedenney7872]

I had very light minor swirls that weren’t bad on my car and wasn’t worried about fixing them and applied adams graphene ceramic spray coating in august of last year. We had a horrible winter in ky and there was tons of salt it continued to power through. In my county we also have a touch less car wash station and determined to put adams through the ringer I went through the car wash once a week. It’s finally warmed up and I deep cleaned my car and it’s still performing great. I’ve also applied turtle wax ice seal n shine to my gfs car excited to see how it stacks up.

[@launylan3476]

Graphene spray and ice seal are not coatings just saying, if your car was prep properly any spray coating will stick. The spray isn't semi permanent like a real coating

[@ryleedenney7872]

@@launylan3476 I see what you’re saying but that is besides the point as long as the coating is able to adhere and bond with clear coat the fact the there are swirls, marring, etc doesn’t matter it is just a matter of if you are personally okay with the minor defects existing for the lifetime of the coating that is applied whether it needs 7+ months to 5 years and a lot of it has to do with maintenance as well

[@tr3alme]

Hello, in my short detailing life 100 car's ceramic coated. Never apply ceramic without polishing car. After wash, decon. Heated with IR lamp because od water spots in clear coat. If you heat clear coat IT will push out minerlas and after that you can polish it out perfectly. Then two times wipe with panel prep then wait one hour. That it's now is car prepared for coating.

[@isabelnunez3349]

Luke you rock man!!! My new SUV will be arriving soon and I was asking myself this same question!!! This advice will save me so much time m!! Thanks so much!

[@alanwallace3253]

We could write volumes on this topic. In my short life of detailing professionally, I’ve had few cars come to me new and chosen in every case to do at least a cleaning polish..Think Angel was perfect finish or Carpro Essence. Some were major hard water removal and oxide removal as they baked in sun and had nothing but car lot rinse and wipes ruining any finish on the car.( Think Lincoln navigationar with the top having multiple layers of hard water ) What convinced me that this is a good idea...a cleaner polish being the minimum, was a coated car that I took in , decontaminated, iron remover, strong cleaner wash. Then I went over it with essence and carpro’s soft white foam pad they recommended. Mind you this car was spotless under 5 x magnification. ( I’m a retired jeweler and watchmaker). The pad comes up almost black😱. My conclusion, is there are either surface oxides we can’t see or micro dirt in the valleys of orange peel that don’t come up or out easy. After that I added a layer of gliss as the car was coated In CQuartz 3.0 and topped with Gliss originally by me a couple years back. It was a small car and an easy application to get another year or so out of the coating before I have to remove and replace. Today I use a minimum of a 5 year coating as the prep time and not the coating time is the main driver of cost. The difference in a consumer or pro grade coating is pretty much noise.

[@abidfarooqui4899]

I just spent 20 hours washing, prepping, cutting and polishing my son's new Honda HRV which is black. The detailer at the dealer did a great job putting scratches and swirls and hard water marks everywhere including on the windows (glass). I have to correct that next with cerium polish. Now the car looked fine and new but when I put a scan grip inside the garage on it, the hard water spots were etched in bad and there were a few bad areas with scratches and the darn black metallic paint showed everything. I probably went OCD on it a bit because my son could only find 2 minor scratches with an inspection light today after I was done correcting and one of them is now gone, the other is reduced but not completely gone. It will be a daily driver but hey, it will look good for a long while I hope.

[@chriscotton4207]

Remember teaching scratches means you are removing a lot of your clear coat. Making it as thin as the damaged area. Don't go too crazy.

[@Patsmobileautocare44]

Good information but question on cure time on coatings. Still need 12 to 24 hrs out of elements before returning vehicle to customers?

[@Andresthebigkat]

Depends on the coating some vary from others

[@camerongeraghty4709]

I can't see why paint correction would affect the life of the coating as long as the paint is free of contamination and has been prepared by washing and ipa wipe. It's more that the coating could highlight the imperfections and as the coating is semi permanent you are better off getting the paint perfect before applying the coating. Because removing the swirls and scratches after the fact will require removing the coating, correcting and re applying coating.

[@jamessowder193]

If you're worried about minut final polishing marks, a true ceramic will fill some of that in. Letting it cure for the 24 hours afterwards is a major step as well. And this is where it comes to worrying about the final polish marks or anything like that. I have found, that if you throw a second coat on it then you have better results when it comes to the final overall look of the ceramic coating. I've seen that after the first coat your filling some of those little marks. Once you put on a second coat, then you're actually going over top of everything that was filled. What I'm saying is I've had better results with two coats.

[@Los714]

Do you wash the car again after the 24 hours and then apply the second coat?

[@cheferman65]

Each situation is unique and different, I beleive you can ceramic coat and protect w/out correcting. It won't be perfect as if you were to correct. I beleive some surface prep will beneffit and prolong the coating, how much? I guess some clients would be ok with their car looking half assesd., at that point why bother w/ coating. Sell them a wax job and see them in 2 months. For me, why bother if you are not going to get the palate close to perfect then protect. To each their own. Just make sure your client knows the ceramic will not be "improving" the car's appearance, mearly preserving the current condition it's in.

[@Arash.vahidzadeh]

Can ceramic coating apply on side mirrors and sunroof and navigation systems?

[@wturn5354]

If you are satisfied with the existing surface look, then just prep it so the coating adheres and coat it! Simple!

[@ALO-hs5by]

Spot correct the few flaws and protect and save the clear coat. Todays vehicles have soft water based paints. Is this a daily driver or show car? Key is to maintain your vehicle.

[@adrianrobinson7953]

How much and how can I get this done ?

[@ovenman991]

i have prepped car on first application of ceramic i am now ready to apply ceramic again can i do a panel wipe and reapply ceramic or will it affect longevity of ceramic ?

[@Mdetailing]

No swirls and scratches dont affect so much....but the light or heavier oxidation ,even is not noticable on yhe human eye. So ..at my opinion at least a very light polish i think is nesesecery. But ....i think ...noone can say that it cannot be without polish.

[@camerongeraghty4709]

I don't see why you would have to clay bar before a ceramic coating unless there is actually contaminants on it. Wash the car, run your hand of the panels and feel if it is smooth or gritty. If so do a chemical decontamination and re assess and then only clay bar the necessary sections. Once smooth polish the paint to perfection, if that's what your after or just IPA wipe the panels and slap the ceramic coat on.

[@nextmrbondful]

Would it be possible to just lightly polish the vehicle just to remove embedded contaminants without chasing swirls? Like half the time of a normal polish. May be 1.5 to 2 hrs.

[@Starriddin]

If you are going to polish at all, spend the time to get the swirls. Many polishes today are 1 step and can get almost all medium deep swirls out. If you don’t, it will drive you crazy every time you wash the car thinking of how much better it could have looked with a minimum amount of added time.

[@dirtlifemagazine]

Great tips! Thanks for the advise!

[@sunilraj7692]

I'm of the belief that if someone wants a ceramic coating and doesn't want any sort of polishing done to the paint they don't really understand what a ceramic coating is IMO. I think most coating manufacturers wouldn't honour their longevity warranty either without "Proper Prep" . I beleive that polishing is a cleaning step aswell as a correction step. On the other hand polishing also adds other contamination such as oils dust etc..that needs to be removed before coating.

[@sphdg]

I would think scratches would actually help the ceramic bond to the panel better. Just on a count when you paint something you want to scratchit/scuff it so the paint sticks. Obviously you don't want to be looking at scratches. But I don't think it would hurt ceramic performance.

[@ryleedenney7872]

That’s kind of my thought too ngl

[@acn238]

Not really, chemical bonding is very different than the physical bonding you described. Search "crosslinking process", that's what these type of coating use to bond to a surface. That said, it can bond to whatever surface as long as it's perfectly degreased and free of moisture (although moisture plays a part in crosslinking through hydrolysis, it's the humidity contained within the air that is used). Just bare surface and you're set ;)

[@sphdg]

@@ryleedenney7872 it sounded good in my head. But I would say you are most definitely right.

[@blah697]

Big question! Do you still detail without a water tank and generator? Or now that you have a bigger Buisness you had to buy them?

[@noobfisherman1626]

Im trying to get into this business and bought enough chemicals to do interior and exterior. What do you think is the best type of service I can provide as I am just starting out. Ill be looking to service just locally through facebook groups as a start.

[@grandmasterkevv]

Id say an interior detail. But you should start with whatever service you know how to do. If you can't do ceramic coating or do paint correction then I'd say to just do what you can do right now. Don't complicate things at the start. Learn newer things as you go. It's what I'm doing, I just started too.

[@stanleyrimpson5756]

It definitely mars the paint! As a beginner detailer I tried it on my own car and I can definitely see where I marred my paint. Obviously I wouldn’t do this on anyone’s car until I knew exactly what I was doing but if you’re not comfortable paint correcting…DONT DO IT!

[@marioskosmidhs9454]

Great video again. Luke

[@illusionzauto]

Defects shouldn't really hinder the performance of the coating as the product is being absorbed into the clear coat making the clear coat more durable but i will say if you are referring to defects such as hard etched water spots that are permanent and can't be polished out. This will greatly impact the performance of the coating and also magnify the water spot defects. Most clients that drive an everyday vehicle really do not care if there are some defects or imperfections because what they mostly care about is the hype of the water beading and durability.

[@Weyco23]

Ultimately it is up to the customer As a customer, I don’t want a coating over my swirls. Fix the paint first.

[@godwarrior7122]

I totally agree with you i work on whatever the customer want regular less if i disagree. Like you said I'm making great money with less work.

[@nelsonrivera4976]

Como la cerámica sabe que 🤔 es un carro Nuevo y Dura 10 años

[@164diecaststreet8]

Do the least amount of paint correction possible. Its a new van, you've already outdone yourself with the claybar. Thats sufficient enough. People worry too much about a car thats gonna get beat by being used daily anyway. The ceramic coat is a great idea from new, but wiping it all day with a diaper is a waste of time and Huggies ultra leak guard. Only detailers and pretentious people care to notice imperfections on other people's cars and only Detailers want to help with a solution and thats called business. 🤣 Great channel and info bud!

[@losttheplot26]

Most folks can't see the swirling from the drive through wash and scratch. Most cars are just sponge washed and no paint protection.

[@alanhefter4659]

I would be more concerned about making sure the surface is free of any previous waxes, sealers etc so ceramic adheres to a virgin surface. Imperfections shouldn't matter. If the owner doesn't care that swirls etc will visible under the ceramic then that's fine with me.

[@Gotallofthem1]

If the owner doesn't care about "swirls" in the paint then.....WTF does he care about or even want a ceramic coating for?

[@nextmrbondful]

You can use a high ph soap like carpro Descale. It can safely remove previous coating. IMO, an iron remover could not hurt as part of clay bar decontamination. An panel prep spray is a must as well.

[@crunkshank]

What does a price difference look like when you don’t need a correction? Since the majority of the work is in the preparation are you just charging for the product and an hourly fee at that point? Say your paint correction is $750 and ceramic coating is $1000 including paint correction. Do you just charge $250 or is that selling yourself short?

[@HH-le1vi]

If you don't know how to do it yourself have someone else do it. And if you're paying someone to do it then let them decide if your paint actually needs correction. Unless your car is fresh out the factory and still has the factory film on it or you've had the car very briefly you probably need correction. Also pro grade ceramic coatings are alot more than 250. Put a 1 in front of that and that's about right for a cheaper pro grade one.

[@jamessowder193]

Also I really don't have the conscience to not do it correctly all the way out. If I'm going to do it I want it done exactly how it's supposed to be done. Meaning the decontamination stage, washing, claying, sanding out any deep scratches before the polishing process. After that's done then you apply your ceramic.

[@citus44]

Will the average car owners untrained eye see the slight/small/minor imperfections in the paint of their vehicle. The answer to that question is NO, absolutely NOT. Most people ( 90% or more ) look AT the paint, Not INTO the paint, there is a difference, a huge difference between looking at the paint or looking INTO the paint. The coating will last as long as there were no other coatings/ waxes/ oils/ etc. left behind. In my experience none of the coatings last as long as advertised, you can expect about 50% or less, actual/REAL World protection. IOW, if it claims 7 Yrs. expect about 3 Yrs. in the real world. Just my Real World 2 Cents.

[@losttheplot26]

I over complicate or over price cars because most folks don't get it until you show them.

[@spiceetaco]

Hey Wilson, what’s a 24 year old detailer have to do to get on the phone with you for 15 mins?

[@brianlyle2501]

First question. No preparation soaes not Mar anything

[@rblaclewell]

Hey man my question is this. If I have a layer of turtle wax seal and shine and topped with beadmaker. Do I have to strip those before I apply a ceramic coat?

[@JorgeToonGaming]

YES!

[@knightautopcd]

Absolutely

[@mattrox1221]

Dude wear a mask when you’re applying a coating! One designed specifically to protect against VOCs. The fumes will harm your health.

[@STILLNIGHTPEARL]

The reason why it’s recommended to do at least a 1 step polish before a coating is because a ceramic coating does not fill in defects like a wax or sealant does, it literally shows everything, it doesn’t hide. That’s why you can get away with just a wash, clay, seal sometimes, the sealant hides some of those defects, a ceramic coating will not. In theory you can wash, clay, ceramic coat, it won’t look the best, but it’s still going to protect the clear coat.

[@jesusgaona5189]

I have a junk test panel that I miss around on for the fun of it I put ceramic over 3k sanding marks and it completely made the marks dissappear

[@STILLNIGHTPEARL]

@@jesusgaona5189 I believe it, but 3k grit isn’t deep though, 3K looks more like a haze than anything, they’re not deep scratches, try 600 grit and then apply the ceramic coating, do a scuff on that panel of 600 grit, do a few swipes, then apply the ceramic coating, that mimics more of a deeper scratch, you’ll see that all of a sudden the ceramic coating isn’t going to fill them in, a clear coat will better fill them in, it’s thicker. You can wet a headlight that’s been sanded with 3000 grit and it looks clear while it’s wet, but when it dries it looks cloudy, the ceramic coating is pretty much doing what the water does, except it doesn’t dry like water, that’s why it looks clear when you did your experiment on the 3k grit marks. Scratches that need to be compounded and corrected will show through a ceramic coating, that’s why you need to correct them before applying it or else you’ll still see them, a ceramic coating is not going to fill those deeper defects or else people wouldn’t even bother with that step before hand. The ceramic coating works whether you correct or not though, that stays true, leveling off scratches is an appearance thing, and most people simply want them gone before a ceramic coating, that’s all it is.

[@STILLNIGHTPEARL]

@@jesusgaona5189 I believe it, but 3k grit isn’t deep though, 3K looks more like a haze than anything, they’re not deep scratches, try 600 grit and then apply the ceramic coating, do a scuff on that panel of 600 grit, do a few swipes, then apply the ceramic coating, that mimics more of a deeper scratch, you’ll see that all of a sudden the ceramic coating isn’t going to fill them in, a clear coat will better fill them in, it’s thicker. You can wet a headlight that’s been sanded with 3000 grit and it looks clear while it’s wet, but when it dries it looks cloudy, the ceramic coating is pretty much doing what the water does, except it doesn’t dry like water, that’s why it looks clear when you did your experiment on the 3k grit marks. Scratches that need to be compounded and corrected will show through a ceramic coating, that’s why you need to correct them before applying it or else you’ll still see them, a ceramic coating is not going to fill those deeper defects or else people wouldn’t even bother with that step before hand. The ceramic coating works whether you correct or not though, that stays true, leveling off scratches is an appearance thing, and most people simply want them gone before a ceramic coating, that’s all it is.

[@STILLNIGHTPEARL]

@@jesusgaona5189 I believe it, but 3k grit isn’t deep though, 3K looks more like a haze than anything, they’re not deep scratches, try 600 grit and then apply the ceramic coating, do a scuff on that panel of 600 grit, do a few swipes, then apply the ceramic coating, that mimics more of a deeper scratch, you’ll see that all of a sudden the ceramic coating isn’t going to fill them in, a clear coat will better fill them in, it’s thicker. You can wet a headlight that’s been sanded with 3000 grit and it looks clear while it’s wet, but when it dries it looks cloudy, the ceramic coating is pretty much doing what the water does, except it doesn’t dry like water, that’s why it looks clear when you did your experiment on the 3k grit marks. Scratches that need to be compounded and corrected will show through a ceramic coating, that’s why you need to correct them before applying it or else you’ll still see them, a ceramic coating is not going to fill those deeper defects or else people wouldn’t even bother with that step before hand. The ceramic coating works whether you correct or not though, that stays true, leveling off scratches is an appearance thing, and most people simply want them gone before a ceramic coating, that’s all it is.

[@macallanvintage]

If you want optimum bonding of any coating, wet the paintwork with strongly diluted APC, let dwell, agitate with mit, FLOW away with loads of water to FLOW the oily filth down onto the ground instead of stupidly using a small cloth with a mild solvent to wipe and push around the oily stuff which is not optimum. Why do you shower under running water???? Why dont you just use a silly littlr cloth moistened with detergent or soap and just wipe your body? Nothing is a logical as using lots of water to flow away the filth or to soak your body. Same as applies to how the car shd be decontaminated before applying coating. Flow away that APC loads of water, blow dry. Pat dry any remaining drops of water. Squeeky clean. And you’re not wasting money buying un-cheap “prep wipe” products.

[@ChannelBri]

I bought a new car that had 27.3% imperfections

[@johnt272]

I love you man, but you really need to talk slower.

[@Gnetbird]

Yes, I think prepping and coating without polishing is a good Idea for the cheap and low life that want a complete professional job for flea market price. I only do the work I get paid for.

[@SwAutospas]

Whats up Luke!! - Chris from @Southwestautospas

[@nimitzopsoi]

Dude you keep repeating yourself over and over again. Just get to the point. This video should not be 8 min long.