Ceramic Detailing: Talking To The Pros And The Joes
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The game has changed. As a young man working for David Hobbs BMW I used to watch in amazement as our in-house detailer laid down and rubbed out a half-dozen coats of wax on a brand-new M6 or M5 or 750il for some zillionaire customer who couldn’t be bothered to wash his own car. He used a dozen tools including a massive Porter Cable buffer and there was always, always, much discussion about “burning the paint”. Fast-forward fifteen years, and I’m spending my whole weekend twice a summer using clay and compound to rub my three Porsches down to mirror-glass smoothness before building back up with no fewer than five coats of Zaino each. I was a Zaino advocate in my twenties, then became a Zaino zealot when a German shepherd tried to get in the window of my 2003 Discovery 4.6. He hit the door with his claws and freewheeled furiously for at least ten seconds before I drove away. Afterwards, there wasn’t so much as a scratch on the Disco. I credited the Zaino Brothers for this miracle. Wasn’t that worth losing two full days per vehicle, each and every time?
Well, as Este Haim says, those days are gone. Today it’s all about ceramic coating. Easier, cheaper, works better, lasts longer. There are few ways to do it: the pro-detailer way, and the everyday-mook way. We’re going to talk about both. First, let me introduce you to Tommy, who put the IGL Kenzo two-stage ceramic coating on the “Singer Milan” back in 2022. Two years later, it was still beading water. Not until 30 months after the original application did I have to go through and do a ceramic coat of my own — we’ll talk about that, too.
Expect to hear some crazy-sounding stuff about air dryers and foam cannons and all sorts of other stuff that, until these discussions, I only associated with kink. We’re going to use photos from Tommy’s latest project to illustrate some of the wisdom he has. He’s going to read the comments and answer your questions, so fire away!
What is this stuff, anyway
Most of the time, when we talk about “ceramic coatings” we are discussing SiO2, or silicon dioxide. It’s not the only game in town, but it’s the one that people take seriously. One way to measure the seriousness of any given product is the “pencil hardness”. Don’t ask me why companies use a hardness scale that was originally intended for graphite pencils for a ceramic coating — but that’s how it works.
My Milan was done by Tommy with the first-generation IGL, which could reach 8H hardness and last for up to five years in optimal conditions. (It lasted two and a half years with me beating the car unmercifully in all weather across the country.) It’s a two-step process that is best applied by experts. Why? We’ll get into that. Nowadays the IGL Kenzo ceramic coat is graphene-reinforced, and it’s good for ten years under optimal conditions.
“When you store a car outside,” Tommy noted, “it’s UV more than anything else that breaks it down.” Even after a few years, however, it can require a two or three stage polish to get the residue off for the next coat. Which is critical, because just like with Zaino, the best ceramic coatings require completely clean and smoothed paint. “Your ceramic job will only be as good as your prep… People think ceramic will fill in your scratches. It doesn’t work that way. Will never work that way.”
How do you do the very best prep? Start with a foam cannon. Tommy recommends Griot’s “THE BOSS”.
Use their foaming surface prep, followed by their foaming surface wash, then the foaming surface protectant. Then you use an air dryer, never a drying towel, to finish the job. When I told Tommy that PCA members think an air dryer will blow scratches into a car, he laughed. “Touching a car is how you scratch it. The less you are touching the car the less you are screwing things up. Every time you touch the car, you’re risking a scratch. In fact, the best reason to use a long-lasting ceramic coat is that you’re less likely to have scratches as you wash it in the future.”
Next up: sanding. “It depends on which color you get. There’s no need to wet sand silver or white. Black paint… you have no option, you must wet sand the car. Other colors could go either way. Evaluate the paint and make a decision.” Next up is a polish. Light colors get the Adam’s one-step polish with the correct pad. Darker colors get a Meguiar’s pad-and-polish kit. “On a white car,” Tommy notes, “I start with Meguiar’s 205. Other colors usually start with 105.” Once the paint is completely smooth, use ceramic prep spray (if you’re a pro detailer with an IGL kit) or isopropyl alcohol.
After the alcohol, you’re ready to start with the ceramic coating proper. Pro detailers use multi-stage products, and there’s a reason for that. The pro stuff doesn’t have a lot of “carrier” in the product. It’s mostly ceramic. So it can “flash” and dry before you get it done correctly… at which point it’s time to polish it out, again.
A full polish out and ceramic detail using IGL or another pro-level kit can take between ten and twenty hours. Assuming you’re not short on time, and can actually put 10-20 hours into the car yourself, why use a pro? Tommy says: “The main reason to hand it over to a professional is if you’re not comfortable doing the polishing and learning how to use the polisher, pads, and products. Not everyone is going to succeed at this, and if you don’t think you will, why not hand it over to a pro?”
Want to do it yourself?
Consumer products, like Meguiar’s or Hydro-Silex, have much more carrier in the bottle. So it’s slower to dry, less likely to “flash off” or become wavy/ragged on the surface of your paint. The trade-off, naturally, is that you’re putting less product, and potentially a lower-quality product, on the car itself. The consumer-grade ceramics are also much easier to remove.
For amateur detailers who want more performance, Tommy likes the Adam’s “gold” graphene ceramic coating. It’s rated to 9H hardness, which is as good as the pro stuff, and it’s less likely to flash off or cause trouble during the application.
Want some of the ceramic magic without the effort of sanding, polishing, and application? Tommy recommends McKee’s Hydro Blue SiO2, with a nod to Adam’s CS3. It will get you a week or two’s worth of ceramic protection. “Great for a lawn mower, or something like that,” he notes. “But you’re going to be doing it a lot more often, which removes a primary time and protection benefit of ceramic coatings.”
A ceramic skeptic chimes in
One of my readers, Kevin, talks about being unimpressed by his foray into ceramic coatings: “For the budget minded among us, I’ve tried the Turtle Wax offerings and don’t see any improvement over the regular stuff I’ve used for years. I really like (and still use) Turtle Wax’s Wax and Dry and tried the ceramic version of it and the ceramic wash. Both did not perform as well as the regular stuff. The wash barely suds up and the drying spray didn’t last any longer than the spray I’ve already been using at half the price.”
I’ve spoken to a few readers who are simply in the habit of doing traditional wash-and-wax. They’re not interested in changing how they do things. Which is fine. Let’s not pretend that washing and waxing a car doesn’t account for a significant percentage of the enjoyment that many people get from it. There’s no reason to change how you do things if you like the results you’re getting.
My main man Rodney, who has been detailing the cars of professional female clients for a long time in addition to the other services he provides, won’t touch ceramic and has zero interest in learning anything about it. “What I do works,” he notes, “and that applies to more than just detailing a trunk lid.”
Ceramic on a new car, JB’s way
Last October I took delivery of my Chrysler 300C Final Edition. There were just three color options; my brother ordered a red one, and the white one was the same paint code as the Ram work trucks, so that left me with black. I was pre-panicked when it showed up at the dealer, but they honored my request to do absolutely zero prep on the paint. I took it home and soaked it in the citrus car wash from the Chemical Guys — or is that the Chemical Brothers? — then I wore out a fist-sized lump of Griot’s Paint Cleaning Clay on the car until it was absolutely smooth to the touch.
After that was done, I applied three coats of Hydro-Silex Recharge. I didn’t use a prep spray because in theory the car had nothing on the paint. After a year and 5,600 miles, the coating was still in very satisfactory condition, but since nothing lasts forever I washed it with citrus, clayed it down again, and applied three more coats of Recharge. So far I’ve been very happy. Insofar as this car sees a fair amount of 120mph-plus driving (on the track!!!!) there’s always some risk to the paint. So far it’s been nothing but good news.
In a perfect world, I’d pay Tommy to do the newest 10-year IGL on it — but he’s a long drive from me, and I don’t want detailers without a full race license touching my Chrysler, just on grounds of pure aristocratic disdain.
Ceramic on a race car?
My crew now uses the Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Detailer on our race cars. Why? It’s demonstrably better at keeping dirt, oil, and other streaks off the car than what we used before, which was Griot’s Speed Shine. When you’re hitting 155mph once every one minute and 27 seconds, and there’s a ton of junk flying through the air at you, it’s really easy to see what’s slippery and what isn’t. Naturally, there isn’t a lot of surface prep that’s worth doing on
a) British fiberglass, like the SR8
b) vinyl wrap, like everything else.
Still, I've been impressed enough by the “HCD” to start using it on my motorcycles as well. It’s no more expensive than Speed Shine, and it’s a lot better than anything else I’ve tried.
Questions, complaints, experiences?
Put them in the comments. Tommy will address whatever questions you ask him, and I’ll keep an eye on everything as well. Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
Im adding a comment here that I hope Jack will pin.
If you like to do hand wash and hand dry, cool! I cant post a pic of my supplies cabinet but Jack can vouch. Ive tried them all. Current best is McKees 37 graphene auto wash (yes you CAN let it dry on a black car in the hot sun, its amazing) followed by drying with a Griots Garage “PFM” drying towel, and the best drying aid, by 8 trillion miles, is Optimum Opti-Seal. One spray per panel as you dry. Life changing.
I’m too lazy and too cheap. My S2000 has 121k hard miles and wears its wear with honor. My Jeep, is a Jeep. Scratches encouraged.