Please educate me a little on ceramic coating

I have a 2018 X5 that is in mint shape that I bought used with 39k. It was probably garage kept. I only have a 1 car garage.

I saw the X5 the day it was traded in for a new X5. It was pretty spotless. They detailed a little before delivery. I have seen YT videos like SamCrac and others promoting a ceramic coating than you can use yourself.

What do detailers generally charge?

If I do it myself, what brand do you recommend? Thank you.

I have paid as little as $1200 and as much as $3000. The variability is usually the size of the vehicle. The cost always includes paint correction, which typically covers clay bar work or other repairs, prior to the application of the chemical coating.

You can DIY. I haven't researched the work involved, nor the cost. I am certain there are Youtube videos out there you can learn from.

Really just depends. Give your local detailing shops a call and see what their quotes are. We went with Xpel as our local detailer carries it. They are professionals and applied it perfectly and also maintains it for us yearly for about $100 to ensure the warranty holds up. I don't know about applying it yourself unless you know what you're doing. Up to you though.

Before ceramic coating, the car needs to be decontaminated paint wise, machine polished and corrected to remove hazing, blemishes and light surface scratches. If you’re not used to that type of prep, I’d leave to a professional detailer. In the UK and Europe, Gtechniq ceramic has a good reputation.

Good info:
I’ve done my own, and after 2.5 years, it is still holding up pretty well.

FrankL wrote

I have seen YT videos like SamCrac and others promoting a ceramic coating than you can use yourself.

You can DIY install 99% of ceramic coatings.
The tricky part is not applying the coating itself - that is easier than applying wax. The bulk of the effort and time (DIY or paying someone) goes into polishing the paint before you apply the coating.

FrankL wrote

What do detailers generally charge?

Prices vary regionally, and with how much time and effort would be required to perfect the paint before applying ceramic coating.
Coating itself can be applied in ~1 hour, and a bottle will cost you $50-200. The rest is cost of labor to 1-2 stage correcting and polishing the paint before the application.

FrankL wrote

If I do it myself, what brand do you recommend?

There are tons of options out there, most of them are very similar.
Here is a link to my post where I documented my personal experience with a few products:
At home ceramic coat [#5]

This channel reviews a few dozen of them after 18 months in service:

Another thing to know about Ceramic Coating. It provides a very thin sacrificial layer, but the real benefit is its hydrophobic properties that make cleaning the car much easier.

For a much thicker sacrificial layer, consider PPF (paint protection film).

Another thing, you can apply Ceramic Coating over PPF. But you cannot apply PPF over Ceramic Coating without removing it first.

And some PPF has a ceramic coating on it!

+1 to the prep comments above — the coating is the easy part, the paint prep is where your Saturday disappears 😂

If your X5 paint is already in great shape, a careful wash/decon + light polish + consumer coating can look excellent. If you’re seeing swirls under garage LEDs, pro correction is usually worth it before locking it in.

Rule of thumb I use: if you enjoy detailing, DIY is fun. If you want perfect and zero stress, pay once and enjoy the shine.

Yeah I did a ton of research from Youtube and detailing forums and have done it myself...twice now plus a set of wheels. I enjoy the process and detailing has now become a hobby of mine. It's definitely time consuming but easy enough to DIY.

I've used Gyeon MOHS coating twice now with great results.

I strongly recommend watching Project Farm's video on coating brands.
If you have the time to do it yourself, I strongly recommend Adam's Graphene Advanced (the Advanced spray one, not the Advanced bottle). Super easy to apply, has some sort of rainbow (think antifreeze) effect that lets you know when it's time to buff it off. Very intuitive and beads wonderfully. Makes drying with a blower or towel really seamless.

- Hand wash the car, then use a waterless wash for touchups (I use Adam's CS3)
- Use a clay bar or clay mitt to axe any bonded contaminates (I skipped this because my paint was in great shape already)
- Use Adam's Surface Prep, which is a stripping agent
- Paint correction, but that's up to you (I skipped this)
- Follow the Adam's Graphene ceramic coat procedure at https://adamspolishes.com/pages/graphene-ceramic-coating-explained?srsltid=AfmBOorYWcFmRwTJrXE0oPffj9fqkKcaqcro06wyyNDeojxQtX9TNjj6

The only differences between the Adam's offerings are ease of install and how long they last.

A technique all my car friends use is to pay to have a shop do a full clay/decon/paint correction, then do the ceramic at home yourself, since you really only need the coating, application sponges, and microfiber towels.

I have recently paid $750 to have my new car ceramic coated and I am impressed with the way the car looks. It black and he paint seems clear and easy to wash. I may end up putting a clear wrap on the for t prevent rocks because he ceramic coating only help protect the pain from discoloration issues, not rock chips.

Equilibrandt wrote

the Advanced spray one, not the Advanced bottle

I do agree, I'm on my 2nd bottle of it, and their stuff is now on all 3 cars. I'll just say that if you use it, it's a semi-serious coating (that's been working for 6+ months or so for me) and not one of the types that you can just go to town with. So you want to spray it on an applicator an then treat it like other coatings applied that way. If you go spray it right on the car, you'll miss wiping where a lot of it goes and it's a lot harder to know where you've been with it. Also spray it down wind of the car so you don't have the mist carry over to the car itself.

SCOTTYRAMOSKILO4 wrote

I have recently paid $750 to have my new car ceramic coated and I am impressed with the way the car looks. It black and he paint seems clear and easy to wash. I may end up putting a clear wrap on the for t prevent rocks because he ceramic coating only help protect the pain from discoloration issues, not rock chips.

You will have to strip that ceramic coating for PPF installation. Just an fyi.

I paid $1500 for my Z4C to be done around 7 years ago. Had the 13 year coating applied and it's still like new. Water acts like it's on a freshly waxed car. If I were to do it again I think I would do it myself, the guy had a few drops that weren't smoothed out which irritates me still. Had a F250 done in 2020 for $500 for 3 year coating which worked great at first but didn't last even that long.

Our03z4 wrote

the guy had a few drops that weren't smoothed out which irritates me still.

You probably already know, you can polish through these and reapply it to those spots yourself. It doesn't take a very aggressive polish for it. Meguair's Scratch-X for example, and a good microfiber of course so it doesn't cause additional scratches (no terry cloth or old t-shirts).

tracer bullet wrote

You probably already know, you can polish through these and reapply it to those spots yourself. It doesn't take a very aggressive polish for it. Meguair's Scratch-X for example, and a good microfiber of course so it doesn't cause additional scratches (no terry cloth or old t-shirts).

Been there tried that. Whatever that coating is is unbelievably tough. Even a razor blade didn't touch it. No one else will notice it so it is what it is at this point.

Our03z4 wrote

Been there tried that. Whatever that coating is is unbelievably tough. Even a razor blade didn't touch it. No one else will notice it so it is what it is at this point.

That doesn't sound like a ceramic coating. A fine polish would easily remove a high spot caused by a coating.

The best solution is to polish it and the put PPF, ceramic coating just keeps the dirt away, doesn't protect from little rocks, scratches will appear even if you apply the best one

Why do you have to clay bar if you want to remove ceramic coating and re-apply? Or was I told the wrong thing

broniel wrote

Why do you have to clay bar if you want to remove ceramic coating and re-apply? Or was I told the wrong thing

Clay bars pull bits of junk off the car that are embedded into the clear coat. So that when you polish or do other things, that junk doesn't get knocked loose and start scratching things. It can be part of a series of steps if you're looking for a good job to be done.