After applying and maintaining many coatings I can personally tell you my own vehicle will always have one, the benefits are too numerous.
I have IGL Quartz installed on my personal car and have been extremely satisfied for over a year, Quartz is a 2 year coating but is showing no signs of deterioration. Without rushing I can wash my vehicle in 25 mins, if I’m rushing I can do a great job in 10mins. Dirt and grime falls off the coating with ease making the job so much easier.
(Before on the left and after on the right, notice the swirls are greatly diminished
if not fully removed after a two step paint correction process. The gloss has also been greatly improved.
Most if not all these swirls were caused by an automatic car wash, the owner liked to visit a few times a month instead of hand washing or using a touchless)
👉 For ceramic coatings, similar to your cars paint, their lifetime mostly depends on how you take care of them. A perfectly maintained one year ceramic coating could last years on a vehicle that is garage kept and brought out mostly for show. Meanwhile a vehicle using Automatic Tunnel Washes with all those spinning rags and bristles once a week is actively damaging their vehicles ceramic coating which then leads to paint damage. These bristles trap dirt from previous cars and then slap your car thousands of times with that trapped dirt, causing swirls, scratches and just not good things for your cars paint and certainly not good for even a professional grade ceramic coating. Avoid them at all costs.
👉 The Laser Jet touchless style car washes are mostly safe and can do a decent job especially on coated cars. They have a couple downsides that you should be aware of, one being the chemicals they use themselves and improperly drying the vehicle. Those blowers never work which leads to puddles all over the car, these puddles often contain the very strong chemicals from the wash process which if left to dwell can penetrate the coating over time and damage your vehicles paint causing water spots and etching. The other problem is no matter what they don’t actually get your car clean! You need a little friction to agitate the traffic film and grime to actually remove it.
✅ Hand washing is your safest and best bet to care for your vehicle and your ceramic coating. Following a “two bucket wash process”, one for washing, one for rinsing and a separate wash bucket for your wheels. Use a soft Mitt and any quality car soap will do, I often use ONR if the vehicle is in a decent condition, or Mothers Gold Class is another good option that’s actually found in auto parts stores locally. Utilize straight lines when washing, zig zagging and really pushing down is unnecessary and will only cause swirls and scratches, which is why we’re avoiding those bristles in the first place. Use a drying towel and once again use straight lines when drying or use a dedicated leaf blower to do the job, one with a filter is best.
🛡 For our customers coatings we also use a ceramic booster or sealant every 6 months to rejuvenate the coating and provide a little extra security by adding an Sio2 layer. You can do this yourself after a proper hand wash or you can let us do it which is recommend so that we can perform a coating check and give it a full decontamination bath.
(The Hydrophobic Effect of these ceramic coatings are pretty awesome to look at as well!)
-Josh Raines