How to Wash Your Car Before Applying Ceramic Coating – Step by Step Guide

Ceramic coating for cars had become quite of a trend nowadays. It’s suddenly all over the internet and countless car owners are trying the new trend out.

But here comes the real question- Is ceramic coating worth it? Even if it does, how to do that yourself?

Well, don’t raise your eyebrow yet. If you like your car to be ceramic coated, you don’t have to spend hundreds of bucks calling a car mechanic. You can start doing it by all yourself.

But before beginning with the ‘actual’ coating, there are some pre-tasks. And washing the car is the most important of them.

Although washing the car sounds creamy. But when it comes to washing the car before applying the ceramic coating, things become a little complicated. Because I’ve seen many noobs to leave this part incomplete and ruin the entire coating layer.

If you want not to end up with any such mess, this is the post written for you. We’ll be showing you the entirely DIY process on how to wash your car before applying the ceramic coating.

Enough of the intro. Let’s get going-

What Is Ceramic Coating Technique

In simple words, ceramic technology is the adoption of a 9th-century Mesopotamian trick.

Sounds weird? Well, potters back them used to use a technique to create metallic nano-glaze on the surfaces. It used to create a glittering outlook and enhance the car’s durability in terms of style and outlook.

In technical words, the ceramic-polymer is a protective liquid product that’s supposed to be applied to the exterior of cars. It’s made out of ceramic nano particles which turn to resin when applied. Also, the whole coating turns into a virtually impermeable surface with strong chemical bonds.

For these reasons, people are loving it more and more to apply a ceramic coating on their cars.

Many of us are looking forward to what advantages ceramic coatings can offer. Here is a quick list-

• A protective layer to car’s original paint.
• It lasts longer than sealants, waxer, and other similar methods.
• To enhance the car’s lifetime & durability, the ceramic painting had been effective.
• Ceramic coatings stay cleaner and nicer.
• Once you’ve ceramic coating installed on the car surface, it’s almost unnecessary to wax frequently.
• It’s a bang for the buck. Because ceramic coatings cost less than waxing.

Why Washing Is Important Before Applying Ceramic Coatings

Ceramic coating sounds great and looks even greater. But that shiny outlook has a lot of works done behind. And the whole process of applying this coating on the car starts with washing it off.

There are many reasons why a complete wash is a must. Have a look at some of them-

• To wash away containments and oils.
• To paint-polish intermediate level containments and spots.
• To take care of the deep level scratches and stubborn layers of abrasive material.

All three types of elements we’ve listed just now need proper washing to be wiped away. Otherwise, any of these can ruin your entire effort and turn them into smoke.

Steps to Clean the Car for Ceramic Coating

Here we come to the sole part of the content. Here, we’ll showcase steps towards the entire cleaning process before you apply a ceramic coating on it.

Here you go-

Step 1: Clean Up All the Containments

Surface containments are the greatest of all enemies when it comes to ceramic coating your car. So, follow one of a couple of options to remove them entirely-

Option 1: Detailing Clay

For those of you who don’t know what detailing clay is- it’s a chemically engineered resin material that is used to remove car’s paint, fiberglass, glass, metal etc.

You need to rub the bar across the surface of the car to start the process. The clay is tacky by its chemical structure. And with proper rubbing, it will bring out the containments that are stick to the car surface.

It can be both natural and synthetic. But most brands are seen to produce synthetic clay.

Note: It doesn’t remove iron containments.

Option 2: The Nanoskin Auto scrub Tower

This may sound new to many car users. It’s a product made with a rubber polymer coating on one side of it.

To use it, the steps begin with folding it in half and use it with a lubricant. Then, mist the car surface and rub the towel back and forth on the surface. Don’t forget to be gentle while rubbing.

While properly applied, a nano skin scrubbing towel will clean up all the containment, and leave it in a smooth, dust-free state. Also, you can wipe out bugs, sprays, paints, rail dust, and other sorts of fall-outs with it.

Step 2: Go for Paint Polishing

Before making the final rinsing, it’s time to take care of spots and containment of even harder states. We call it ‘paint polishing’.

It basically takes care of the spots and containment that still left over after step 1. Go through these few steps to get it done-

• First of all, take away your car from under daylight. Because daylights won’t expose the scratches and spots which fluorescent lights will do.
• Next on, decide the areas to be sanded. Because an important part of paint polishing is sanding.
• Now, start sanding with a soft touch. Focus on small areas at a time, and use masking tapes if you want to protect the hard edges of the car.
• What to do next is- rub the sanding block all over the places wherever you see scratches, and marks. Don’t forget to be gentle and do it with light pressure. Take time if you need to master the rubbing work.
• Lastly, don’t cut any wide grooves in the car surface. This may lead to a frustrating imperfection while you’re done washing the car.

If properly executed, you’ll see the swirls, water spots, scratches, and below surface containments no more. It will leave the car as a smooth and highly glossy state.

Step 3: Do Machine Compound Polishing (if Necessary)

Now, this step isn’t for every car user out there. Only if you have an old car and you’re looking forward to applying a ceramic coating on it, go with the next part of this step.

Machine compound polishing is something only used to deal with ultra-stubborn swirls, marks, and scratches that are deep. And to do that, take help from a local car mechanic shop.

It’s the best way to leave this part up to professions. Also, you may not need to buy all those heavily equipped machines to execute the act.

Again, if your car doesn’t have that many deep scratches, you can skip the step and move to step 4.

Step 4: Rinse Wash The Car Surface with Water

If you’re done with the aforementioned steps, now it’s time to wash the car up.

For deep washing, we prefer pressurized washing, also called as rinse wash.

What it does is, it implies a good amount of water force on the surface and brings out all the dust and contaminants that you’ve dealt with in previous steps.

While washing, focus more on the areas where you’ve done plaint coating or deep paint coatings. Also, don’t forget those areas of the car surface where it’s hard to reach through hands.

If you want, you can add foam canon wash with this step to make it even more perfect.

Step 5: Clean It Up and Dry The Surface

In this step, we’re going to put an end to the washing procedure by during the car surface up.

Although, you can let the water dry itself. But that may leave some marks on your car surface once again. So, we’d rather suggest you to take a soft and clean foam to dry up it.

If you’re done with all the five steps that we’ve listed, you are ready to go for the next level. Your car will look as clean as it was when brought freshly.

Bottom Line

Now, these were the steps to do washing for DIY ceramic coating on your car. But we’ve still a piece of advice to check your expertise in this regard.

If you’ve never done it before, we’d recommend you to take expert help. Learning the whole process may take some time. But if you rush on that, the entire outlook of the car will fly away.

Anyways, best of luck with your car’s coating with ceramic.