ciaka

My PTT is the deep black black color, probably most difficult to keep clean. So I started looking around to see how much it would cost me for a full paint correction, followed by a ceramic coat (with lifetime warranty). Got quoted $1350 total for all services.
Anyone on here get ceramic coating and how do you like it, how do you compare caring for your car before and after ceramic coating. Thanks for help.

small car lover

I applied a ceramic coat to my white PTTS myself last summer. I paid a professional to install PPF on the windscreen, mirrors, fenders, hood front bumper cover and headlights. The car only needed a minor paint correction prior to ceramic coating. I applied the coating over the remaining painted surfaces not covered by PPF. I used a two layer product and have been quite happy with the performance. I have been surprised how much cleaner the car has remained over this past winter, particularly the rear bumper cover which typically gets contaminated enough over a winter that a clay and cleaner wax is required in the spring to remove a slight darkening haze that has built up on the white paint. I have observed none of this with the ceramic coat. I also have a white Cayman that is not ceramic coated and has the same issue with getting a haze on the rear bumper cover. I have been impressed enough with the ceramic coat I will apply the same product to the Cayman after the spring.

It is quite time consuming to prep and the apply the coating. As with anything, prep is critical. The cleaner the surface the better performance you will get from the coating. With professional 2 stage coatings, the application process procedure must be followed to the letter. It was a 3+ day job from starting the paint correction process to a finished coating. To answer your question, I spend less time caring for the paint after coating. The wash process goes a little quicker. The coating manufacturer does not recommend applying any spray wax or detailer spray to the coating. Such products will only serve to attract and retain more contaminants than the bare coating. With my other vehicles, I apply a spray wax after every wash. With the coating I wash, dry and that's it. I actually miss the waxing a little bit.

Having lived with the coating for about 8 months there is no question to the superior performance of the coating compared to something like a synthetic wax. The coating has higher gloss, stays cleaner, washes slightly quicker and doesn't require maintenance like wax. It seems to resist light scratching but I can't say that conclusively yet from personal experience as I'm very careful with the paint on any car. Understand a ceramic coating is not a substitute for PPF. The ceramic coating offers zero protection against paint chips or even stone dents the way PPF does.

Ceramic coating is something you can apply yourself if you have some basic detailing and paint correction experience. There are quality professional level coatings available to the consumer. I can recommend MicroDetailer (no affiliation) without hesitation. The owner responds to email questions promptly and provides a very high quality product at a fair price. I can get into much more detail about the prep and application process if you decide to try applying this yourself. All that's required is time, patience, follow directions and ideally have a small test area to try before working on your Panamera. I coated the hood of my tractor before I did the car.

Hope this helps...

Outlaw

Paul Rathjen

I don't agree. Small 1-2 person operations can charge significantly less for detailing services. I paid $800 for full paint correction and ceramic coating of the whole car. It wasn't perfection but I was satisfied. He is also happy to sell me product for touch ups, give pointers on how to self perform future applications. In my case my car had very little paint damage so that was a factor. I also had the headlights covered with Xpel in that price. He spent about 3 days on the car, and runs his business out of his garage but has been so successful over the last 5 years, has purchased a small metal building so he can store cars and employ one other person - his brother. I had him detail 2 of my previous cars so I had no issue trusting him with my Porsche.

100% I would get an xpel film on the front nose, hood and mirrors. That is considerably more protection than ceramic. Ceramic works great, and it will last a year (not the 2-3 years some people claim) no problem but its really just protection against water spots and frequent waxing!

small car lover

Ceramics can last much longer than a year. It depends on the amount (concentration) of dissolved solids in the coating and the formulation of the product and of course the environment the coating is exposed to. The more durable coatings are more time consuming to apply and are considerably more expensive. I think this is part of the reason there can be a wide variation in the cost of paying a detailer to apply a ceramic coating. There are quick spray on / wipe off coatings that have a shorter life (a year roughly) and there are multi step professional targeted coatings that are much more time consuming to apply correctly but can last many years. When discussing ceramic coatings we really need to know what products we are talking about.

Professional detailing is about the customer having a realistic expectation of what the final product will be for a given price and then delivering on that expectation. That said, I would not expect 40 hours of skilled labor plus the cost of product for $1300. A thorough correction and top quality coating application can easily take that amount of time. To me, $1300 sounds like a 1 day job. A quick 1 pass paint correction followed by a single layer ceramic coat of reasonable quality.

Paul Rathjen

This is all true.

THE REFINERY

Sounds reasonable - assuming they're using a good quality coating, which it sounds like they are if you were quoted a lifetime warranty.

Ceramic coatings are a fantastic technology. It makes cleaning and maintenance easy, and eliminates etching and embedding damage from minerals, airborne contaminants, road dirt and grease, tree sap, bird droppings etc. And with a quality coating you should expect several years of longevity - not just 1 year.

And as was said previously, if you're concerned about rock or salt chips on the front end, consider doing PPF before the ceramic coating. That's the ultimate combo for paint protection and long lasting good looks: paint protection film with a ceramic coating on top.

Regarding paint correction: it all depends on the current state of the paint work. A young car with minimal defects can get away with 1 Step paint correction, which is about 6-8hrs of work. On an older car that needs more aggressive compounding could double that (if doing the whole car). Some shops will do a "quick polish" which uses a machine, but isn't really doing correction (ie completely removing defects). It's improving gloss, but not fixing anything but the most superficial defects. That might take 2-3hrs of work.

Good luck with your car! I think you'll love the look and ease of future cleaning.

Outlaw

THE REFINERY

Think of your PPF as the *new* clear coat on your car. You want the ceramic coating on top of the PPF to protect it from the elements, just like on a clear coat. PPF is porous, and if left without wax/sealant/coating it will stain, discolor, and lose it's gloss over time.

If you bury the ceramic coating under the film, you're preventing it from doing its job: providing a hydrophobic and chemically resistant barrier on the surface that's exposed to the elements.

Now, if you've already got a coating and now you've decided to up the protection via PPF? You should still reapply a coating/sealant to protect the exposed surface of the new film.

HTH!

K777

These guys did mine (in UK) with Gtechniq CSL, and rest of car, and some paint correction, albeit a new car so not so much correction I guess.

They charged me £800+20%tax. December 2017 (c $1300)

Did my biz partners car too,

https://www.facebook.com/azuricarcare/

They are not a huge outfit, but as you can see my car wasn't the best they have ever done. So small company's can actually be much better than large companies, and can offer better prices often.

Riz

I need to get this done. Anyone know any real good ppf film/ceramic coating place in NJ?

ciaka

I saw couple videos of his work and looked awesome.
The paint correction is 3 stage process they did explain. Wash, degrease, wash, remove contaminants and iron, wash, clay bar, do stage 1 correction, stage 2 correction, stage 3 correction, then I drop in to see result before ceramic coating applied ( remember them saying 7 layers plus few siliac layer of sorts).Comes with lifetime warranty and price is for cash customer plus offered me 10% off price too. Guess I am a nice guy.
The cars I saw him do really looked outstanding.


By the way - what is PPF?

small car lover

Paint Protection Film

small car lover

The prep work above is at least 30 hours work. Realistically more considering the Panamera is a large car. This is 30 hours not even considering the time to apply a 7 ??? layer coating. That is one heck of a deal for $1350. Honestly, something sounds fishy with this. Each coat application of a professional coating takes at least 3-4 hours and most coatings need a overnight cure prior to applying the next coat. What you have described is essentially a ultimate, cost no object process. This is a $5k+ job. Seven layers of professional ceramic coat at least $600 in product. I suggest you do some research to understand what is actually involved doing the work described. I'm very concerned you are being sold a bill of goods. It's simply not possible to do that extensive amount of work at that price.

EricAvalonKing

With a good quality ceramic coat you should never do PPF on top, big risk of peeling off...