CERAMIC COATINGS | KOKOMO INDIANA
WE INSTALL THE MOST EXCLUSIVE, PROFESSIONAL GRADE CERAMIC COATINGS IN KOKOMO, INDIANA.
What Is A Ceramic Coating?
Aside from pricey Paint Protection Films, Ceramic coatings are the auto detailing industry’s newest and best form of automotive protection. Gone are the days of traditional waxes that only provide a few weeks of protection at best. Generally speaking, a ceramic coating is a layer of liquid Silicon Dioxide (basically glass) that gets applied to the entire exterior of your vehicle’s paint, glass, and other surfaces. Once it’s cured, the Ceramic Coating has hardened to become slick, durable, and resistant to most harmful elements. Not only do ceramic coatings give an unmatched rich, glossy appearance to the car’s paint, but a Ceramic Coating is designed to last somewhere between 3 and 7+ years depending on the Coating you choose. Ceramic Coatings have been formulated to provide exceptional long term protection, while maintaining extraordinary gloss and shine!
How Does A Ceramic Coating Work?
Now that the vehicle has been properly cleaned, decontaminated, and we’ve created a smooth surface through Paint Correction, it’s finally time to apply the Ceramic Coating! A small applicator pad is used to apply a thin layer of the liquid silicon dioxide solution to the paint. It is applied in a cross-hatch pattern, in small sections at a time. Once applied, it is then left for a few moments to properly bond to the clear coat. Once the product has bonded, it will begin to display an iridescent appearance. At this point, the Coating gets carefully buffed away with a designated microfiber towel, then any excess product gets buffed away with a second, plush microfiber towel. What’s left is a thin, crystal clear, layer of the Ceramic Coating that has bonded to the clear coat. Once the Ceramic Coating has been applied to the entire vehicle, it is left to sit for up to 24 hours in order to properly cure. Once the Coating has fully cured to the vehicle, it now has years of protection. The extreme hydrophobic properties of Ceramic Coatings are designed to repel and protect against everything that touches the paint from the outside world: bird droppings, bugs, rain, pollen, light surface scratches, and much more. Ceramic Coatings exist in order to keep all of those things from damaging the factory clear coat. While normal auto detailing services can help clean and protect the paint temporarily, Ceramic Coatings form a glossy shield that protects your investment until the day it’s traded in which means more money in your pocket!
Why Are Ceramic Coatings So Expensive?
A canister of Professional Grade Ceramic Coating can cost upwards of a few hundred dollars. Most vehicles will use one to two cans of the product, depending on their size. So, there is a decent cost in just the product itself. That’s not including the cost of all the other products needed to properly clean & decontaminate vehicle and correct the paint before the coating can be applied.
That brings us to the actual labor involved. In order for a Ceramic Coating to properly bond to the vehicle’s clear coat, that vehicle needs to be as clean and defect free as possible. Therefore, it requires a full exterior detail & decontamination, and a full Paint Correction process. Each of those processes can take several hours a piece to accomplish. The application of the Ceramic Coating itself will usually add several hours as well. Depending on the size of the vehicle, the entire process could actually take a total 2 to 4 days, with cure time.
Lastly, in order to be able to install PROFESSIONAL GRADE Ceramic Coatings, we have to be certified through a specific Professional Grade Coating company. We chose one of the top tier companies in the world, SystemX Ceramics. In order to get certified through them, they put us through some serious training. In fact, we spent about 90 days going through the most reputable professional Paint Correction and Ceramic Coating training there is. Not to mention all of the practice that followed. So at the end of the day, we are also charging for our expertise.
What Do I Need To Know About The Ceramic Coating Business?
In the auto detailing industry, there are 2 main ceramic coating categories:
Retail/Consumer Grade Ceramic Coatings
Professional Grade Ceramic Coatings
THEY ARE NOT THE SAME! While having a place and still being highly respected in the auto detailing industry, RETAIL GRADE Ceramic Coatings only have about half the thickness, half the durability, and half the lifespan of professional grade Ceramic Coatings.
Like we mentioned in the last section, in order for an Auto Detailing business to apply PROFESSIONAL GRADE Ceramic Coatings, they must be certified through a specific Professional Grade Coating company. However, that can be rather difficult for a small business to pull off, because it requires a good amount of time, finances, and resources to be pulled away from the day to day operations of the business in order to focus on the training.
There are two ways that a business can get around having to do this. One way that a businesses can do this, is by sub-contracting their Ceramic Coating jobs out to a Professional Grade Ceramic Coating installer, and simply just marking up the price on their end, in order to maintain a profit. Since it’s not easy to get certified, this practice is becoming quite common, and widely accepted throughout the industry. The second way that a business can get around being certified, is by simply applying RETAIL GRADE Ceramic Coatings and just charging the cost of a Professional Grade Ceramic Coating.
It is rather easy, however, to find out how an Auto Detailing business handles their Ceramic Coating jobs. Simply ask who exactly is applying the Coating, and ask what brand the Coating itself is. If you can personally go online to that specific brand’s website and purchase that Ceramic Coating yourself, it is a RETAIL GRADE Ceramic Coating. Brass Tack Designs is 100% certified in all areas and we are here to provide this community with a superior experience.
What Do I Need To Understand About Ceramic Coating Durability & Maintenance?
Lets talk for a second about the 2 biggest misconceptions surrounding Ceramic Coatings.
The first misconception is that Ceramic Coatings are a completely impenetrable barrier for your vehicle. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Ceramic Coatings are designed to protect your vehicle from mother nature’s elements and regular driving conditions. However, they CAN be scratched through with something hard enough, they CAN be chipped by rocks & debris, and they can be prematurely worn down with lack of maintenance and/or improper maintenance. That brings us to our second misconception…
The second misconception is that Ceramic Coatings are a “set it and forget it” barrier for your vehicle. This is simply just false. Because Ceramic Coatings take a beating from the elements and many different driving conditions, they can get clogged with contaminants. If not properly removed on a weekly to bi-weekly basis, these contaminants can dramatically affect the Coating’s lifespan. Therefore, depending on how often your vehicle is driven, your Ceramic Coating could actually require a decent amount of regular, proper maintenance in order to last as long as advertised. A series of weekly maintenance hand washes and monthly exterior Maintenance Details will ensure that your Ceramic Coating will last as long as advertised.
Through years of experience, we have found, that on daily driven vehicles, there is a certain type of contaminant that can quickly degrade a coating in as little as 5 short weeks. These contaminants are extremely corrosive, microscopic iron particulates. These particulates usually come from brake dust, exhaust carbon, train rail dust, and basic iron fallout in the air. These itty bitty bad guys are the most common form of automotive exterior contaminant, yet they’re rarely discussed. What makes them the most dangerous, however, is that they are basically invisible. So they’re doing damage to your Ceramic Coating without you even knowing. Once they land on the surface of your vehicle, they can fully attach themselves to the Ceramic Coating within just 24 hours. Once they have attached themselves to the Coating, they begin to corrode into it. If not properly removed, these little guys can corrode all the way through your Ceramic Coating within just 5 weeks. At that point, they have left a tiny hole in the Coating that will quickly grow, creating a failure point in the Coating. So if you have hundreds of these particulates on any given panel of your vehicle, you can imagine how quickly they can degrade a Ceramic Coating.
As these little guys begin to etch themselves into your vehicle’s clear coat or Ceramic Coating, they may look like tiny yellowish/orange dots on your paint. This is because they are tiny pieces or raw iron and they’re starting to rust. Your paint may also take on sort of sand paper feel, even after the vehicle has been washed. This is because once these particles attach to the paint, they usually don’t come off with just a wash. At that point, they usually require a chemical removal process, and sometimes even a clay-bar treatment in order to be completely removed. This is why Ceramic Coating Maintenance is so important! We always educate our clients on Coating durability and maintenance BEFORE they purchase, so that they’re not blindsided by a prematurely failed coating or by the amount of work needed to keep a Coating healthy. If you are seriously interested in a Ceramic Coating, but you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to keep up with my vehicle that often.” No worries, we have actually set up a Ceramic Maintenance Detail Program for our clients to keep their Ceramic Coating in great condition, so they don’t have to! If that’s not an option for you either, maybe a Ceramic Coating isn’t for you, and that’s ok! We have other options available as well. Either way, we have the ability to keep your vehicle cleaned and protected with your time, needs, and budget in mind.