This all depends on how much effort you put into your ceramic coating. This is very much a product of you only get out what you put in! If you put a 2 year coating on a car, park it in a sealed shed and don’t move it for 10 years the coating will still be active, on the other hand if you put a 9 year coating on and never wash your car, park it under trees and allow contaminates to sit on the car for months, your coating will diminish very quickly. But don’t worry we will go over the correct washing methods to keep your coating lasting as long as possibly.

Yes, ceramic coating can still be highly beneficial for a daily driver parked outside. It protects against dirt, water spots, bird droppings, UV damage, and makes cleaning easier. However, we are always honest with our customers and would recommend the 5 year ceramic coating option as this is a much more realistic life expectancy on a daily driven use vehicle.

Products with high pH levels can damage the coating, while products with low pH levels can neutralize the coating's hydrophobic properties. To maintain the integrity of your ceramic coating, it is best to use pH-neutral products for washing. These are readily available from your local automotive shops and we will give you the brands and names of products we use and trust or alternatively grab one from the stocks we keep for cost price.

The main reason people choose dealer coatings is because they can add it to their finance package, which means they don’t have to hand over hard earned cash upfront. However, what you might not know is that you can have your ceramic coating done by us before you pick up your car. Just let the dealer know you'd like XYZ done by Detailia, and the dealership will coordinate with us. We’ll invoice the dealer, and the cost gets added to your total package. This works the same way for other services, like tinting, wheels, or pretty much anything you want.

The best time to apply a ceramic coating to a new car after picking it up from the dealership is generally immediately. But as we all know sometimes this time frame is not realistic. There is no set time frame for application BUT the closer to pick up the better the outcome will be.

Generally we like to say in the first 4 weeks of life is spot on. This limits the exposure to paint contaminates, bird droppings, water spots, swirl marks and scratches before you apply the protection and reduces the need for a heavy cut on the polisher to remove imperfections.

This is probably the most common question I get: How legit are dealer coatings, and am I wasting my money?

Well, 9 times out of 10, the paint protection that the dealer applies is a spray-on SiO2 product with a lifespan of about 3-6 months. I'm not saying this is a bad product — I even use a SiO2 spray for my detailing packages — but it is not a true ceramic coating. And it definitely won’t last 20 years like the dealer promises. When you complain to the dealer, they’ll reapply the coating, and you’ll notice it stops working again. The dealer will reapply it, and that cycle continues for years — or until you get tired of going back.

Now i can’t speak for every dealer so there of course will be situations this wont apply, but my piece of free advice is always ask if the ceramic coating is done in house or external. If its in house, high chance its not a true ceramic coating.

The main explanation to this question I always say is an example of paint thickness. A 1957 Chev I had in for a polish i thickness tested the paint and it was 189 microns (this is paint lingo for thickness) and a brand new 2024 Ford Everest I had in was 56 microns.

Car manufacturers are becoming worse and worse with paint on newer cars, this basically means the amount of protection on your $85,000 car is under 2mm! Adding another layer of protection saves your clear coat from abuse and allows the coating to do its job and take the thrashing of every day use.