Coating questions? Do they degrade? Are you married to them? Can you go back to a wax or sealant?

[Mike Phillips]

Coating questions? Do they degrade? Are you married to them? Can you go back to a wax or sealant?




Anytime I get questions via e-mail, a PM or a FB message I prefer to invest my typing time where

A: It's easier for me to share links, pictures and videos.

B: More people can read and thus benefit from the information. (no just one set of eyeballs


So I get an e-mail asking,

Hey Mike,

I think you should do a piece on re-applying ceramic coatings when they degrade.

Seems to be a TON of confusion there. I've read they have to be completely buffed off after they degrade in 2-3 years to be reapplied.

Is this true? I

have also read that once you apply ceramic you are married to it from then on, you can't go back to wax and sealants


Thanks


David

Great questions David and "yes" I know first hand there's a LOT of confusing surrounding the topics you bring up.


I think a person could write a book on this topic and unfortunately I don't have time for "this" book so below is my short answer...



First - nothing lasts for ever, not even you or I. I guess if you apply a ceramic coating to your car's paint and then park your car in your garage and never take the car outside again then I guess a ceramic coating could last forever but you wouldn't get to enjoy the car very much, at least not from a driving point of view.


In my opinion, there's no way to REALLY know what's on the surface of your car's paint at the molecular level. Someday when science can shrink us down to the size of an Atom I guess we could shrink ourselves down and walk around on the surface of our car's paint and take a real-time inventory. Until that day then the next best thing you can do where you can REALLY take comfort in knowing you've removed anything that was previously applied and got back down to a clean base of paint - is to go ahead and re-polish or if you think it's needed then re-compound the car and put the car though the coating process all over again.

As far as being married to a coating after using it I call BS on that one. I won't even take the time to type out why I say this.

If you're done with using a coating, wash your car, clay if needed, machine polish the paint and put whatever you want on it and my guess is it's going to LOOK GREAT!



My own personal take is this (I've shared this for the last couple of years on this forum)


If the car in question is a daily driver and especially if you live in an area where you drive the car in the rain, then the COATING is going to get a dirt stain from road grime just like the paint on a car gets if you use a car wax or a synthetic paint sealant on it to protect it.

To me this means that coatings or ANYTIHNG that claims to last more than a year is a great idea but if you want your car to look it's BEST then at least once a year you need to do some form of mechanical cleaning to the paint to remove the dirt stain that build-up as normal wear-n-tear for daily drivers.


So in my opinion, if you want to apply a coating to your car, you only need a coating that boasts it lasts for a year.


I think that most of the people that would be a member of this forum or lurk on it or any Facebook group, are also the type of people that CANNTO go an entire year without doing something to their car's paint thus a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. paint coating is irrelevant.

Instead, find an easy to use product that makes your car's paint LOOK GREAT - is easy to apply and affordable to re-apply.


Then good at washing your car and once a year, do a light polish and re-coat.

KISS = Keep it Simple Simon

[Mike Phillips]

And for anyone that doesn't understand what I mean when I say that your car's paint gets a build-up of dirt stain from road grime then click the link below, read the text and look at the pretty pictures....



Road Film - If you drive your car in the rain your car has road film


Here's why you need to polish paint...

[Mike Phillips]

And "yes" I've seen coated cars get this dirt stain ON the coating.

And when I say ON the coating I mean the dirt stain has impacted and embedded ONTO the paint in a way that normal washing does not remove it.

Thus the only way to remove it is via some mechanical means i.e. machine polishing.

[rajon]

Coating questions? Do they degrade? Are you married to them? Can you go back to a wax or sealant?


I think that most of the people that would be a member of this forum or lurk on it or any Facebook group, are also the type of people that CANNTO go an entire year without doing something to their car's paint thus a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. paint coating is irrelevant.

Hahahahahahahaha - a whole year. How many people here have waxed a whole car more than once inside of a week for a slightly less than sane reason? (or is that just something I do?)

[custmsprty]

Great inofrmation, thank you for posting this Mike.

[willowcat11]

EXCELLENT Post Mike! Thankyou for sharing this!

[MshawnBauer]

Great info as always! Here's an add on Question! How do you feel about layering & Coatings? Yay or Nay?

[Kamakaz1961]

As always thank you for your input on this matter.

[LSNAutoDetailing]

thanks Mike! To the OP Dave, there are pro's and cons to each. I have coatings on all three of my vehicles. One of those vehicles falls into the category Mike mentions where it doesn't get driven, the 2nd, gets driven very little, but the third vehicle is the dog hauler, grocery getter, and everything else. I call it my little UTE.

I originally didn't want to coat the UTE (Honda Fit) but did because after I moved to AZ, the Fit has to sit outside as of now I only have a 2 car garage (that will change soon). Because of this I opted to coat with CKUK and DLUX on all the trim, plastics and lights. Mainly for the monsoons, dust storms, and heavy amounts of constant UV slamming the car. Honda's are thin/soft paint to begin with so I didn't want CC failure in 6 months until I get a 3 car garage.

Coatings can provide ease of weekly washing and blow drying, because of the hydrophobic qualities. The longevity at least keeps the weekly maintenance pretty easy.

One could make the argument, as Mike points out, that regardless if a vehicle is coated or not, a typical daily driver will at least get a FULL detail annually, with Iron-x, clay, and some form of polishing, either HD Speed, 360, etc.. So the effort is pretty much the same.

I've never heard you can't remove a coating once it's applied and go back to wax, probably someone mentioned that because one might like the coating so much they will never go back?? A trusty DA, some pads and product will make short work of the coating though.

[FASTFATBOY]

I sent the Email to Mike, some of the questions came from this vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93MmQhNwqxk&t=4s