Ceramic coating noob questions

Dlurker20

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Hey all, complete noob when it comes to ceramic coating. I’ve done PPF on my last few BMWs but moving up to a Porsche (Taycan 4S on order...arriving in forever++) I see everybody saying ceramic is a “must”...plus PPF. I’ve watched a few videos on this from detailers, There’s zero chance I’m going to try this myself (my local dealer will do this prior to handing over). And I’ll also freely admit that being in the frozen north With 6 months of winter (aka Minnesota) I will not be hand washing my car but going through touchless car washes.

So...assuming all the articles and videos online are correct and this is highly valuable for the paint health of a car (that would be implied question number 1)...(The explicit #1) Am I even a decent customer for ceramic (admitting I will not be doing the hand washing), (2) How long does the ceramic REALLY last? (3) How much life does the touchless really take off of the ceramic? (4) It’s a bit varied & unclear on what to do to care for / maintain the coating until it’s time to reapply.

Any thoughts & guidance are greatly appreciated.
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Hey all, complete noob when it comes to ceramic coating. I’ve done PPF on my last few BMWs but moving up to a Porsche (Taycan 4S on order...arriving in forever++) I see everybody saying ceramic is a “must”...plus PPF. I’ve watched a few videos on this from detailers, There’s zero chance I’m going to try this myself (my local dealer will do this prior to handing over). And I’ll also freely admit that being in the frozen north With 6 months of winter (aka Minnesota) I will not be hand washing my car but going through touchless car washes.

So...assuming all the articles and videos online are correct and this is highly valuable for the paint health of a car (that would be implied question number 1)...(The explicit #1) Am I even a decent customer for ceramic (admitting I will not be doing the hand washing), (2) How long does the ceramic REALLY last? (3) How much life does the touchless really take off of the ceramic? (4) It’s a bit varied & unclear on what to do to care for / maintain the coating until it’s time to reapply.

Any thoughts & guidance are greatly appreciated.
On my Aston I did paint correction, full Xpel ppf and ceramic. If I were to do it again I would skip the ceramic on the ppf. The ceramic isn’t as slick on ppf as it is on paint. Ceramic on ppf also has a shorter warranty. Ceramic requires an annual decontamination and maintenance coat to keep the warranty valid. I just did the annual treatment this week. It took the detailer about 2 hours and cost $150. There is a prototype ppf that already incorporates ceramic in the film. This will probably become more common shortly.

I never bring any of my cars with ppf to a car wash. In lieu of the commercial car washes, I would recommend the waterless car wash sprays when you cannot hand wash. I was highly skeptical at first, but I have used it in a bind when regular hand washing was not possible and the results have been great with no scratches if you follow the directions and high quality microfiber clothes.
 

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I just did my black 4s, and the plastic parts (made them Darker), if I would have done it again, I would have inspected the paint correction closer, see some imperfections and you will have those for 12-24 months depending on how the coating is treated, but it is durable stuff and I got an amazing deal, guess you can find imperfections in everything. Very shiny for sure,
 
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On my Aston I did paint correction, full Xpel ppf and ceramic. If I were to do it again I would skip the ceramic on the ppf. The ceramic isn’t as slick on ppf as it is on paint. Ceramic on ppf also has a shorter warranty. Ceramic requires an annual decontamination and maintenance coat to keep the warranty valid. I just did the annual treatment this week. It took the detailer about 2 hours and cost $150. There is a prototype ppf that already incorporates ceramic in the film. This will probably become more common shortly.

I never bring any of my cars with ppf to a car wash. In lieu of the commercial car washes, I would recommend the waterless car wash sprays when you cannot hand wash. I was highly skeptical at first, but I have used it in a bind when regular hand washing was not possible and the results have been great with no scratches if you follow the directions and high quality microfiber clothes.
Thanks so much for the clarification on annual maintenance and your experience with PPF & ceramic.

I’ve brought all my cars with PPF to touchless car wash and never had any issue with the PPF, so honestly that’s my going in plan. In MN where winters are often brutal (cold, snow, and length) the car gets caked with ice (and “salt” & sand). Doing hand washing when it’s 15 degrees in the garage on a car caked in ice...well that might be for some but I’m self-aware enough to know I’d definitely not do it. This will be my daily driving car hence considering year round impact.

I love the sound of the ceramic benefits but want to make sure my honest assessment of care will not result in a coating that only lasts a year or two. And @Cpoarchy are you saying the ceramic itself on the plastic parts made it darker or did you do something else? I have a black 4s on order so I’d follow your plan on that.
 

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Thanks so much for the clarification on annual maintenance and your experience with PPF & ceramic.

I’ve brought all my cars with PPF to touchless car wash and never had any issue with the PPF, so honestly that’s my going in plan. In MN where winters are often brutal (cold, snow, and length) the car gets caked with ice (and “salt” & sand). Doing hand washing when it’s 15 degrees in the garage on a car caked in ice...well that might be for some but I’m self-aware enough to know I’d definitely not do it. This will be my daily driving car hence considering year round impact.

I love the sound of the ceramic benefits but want to make sure my honest assessment of care will not result in a coating that only lasts a year or two. And @Cpoarchy are you saying the ceramic itself on the plastic parts made it darker or did you do something else? I have a black 4s on order so I’d follow your plan on that.
With the type of debris that you will be getting on your DD, I do not think the ceramic hype will live up to your expectations. Before I had mine done, I thought the surface would become so slippery that water and dust would not take hold. Although it helps a bit, it is far from what is hyped. Also with PPF, different ceramic coatings work differently. I was very disappointed with the first ceramic product. The detailer was very accommodating and stripped it off and switched to the another ceramic that was more compatible with the XPEL ppf. I think the ceramic coatings work much better when applied to painted surfaces that do not have PPF. Read some of the detailing forums and you will see that things like water spots and bird droppings will damage the ceramic coatings if not cleaned promptly.
 


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I would strongly recommend the PPF on the car. Ceramic is a nice thing in good weather situations, but with salt and sand and other debris, it will not protect the paint from chips and damage. There are special ceramics to apply over PPF but I have no experience of these.

Nice weather driving on dry good roads is ideal for ceramics and easy to clean etc. But any sand, automatic car washes it is PPF for me everytime!
 

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With the type of debris that you will be getting on your DD, I do not think the ceramic hype will live up to your expectations. Before I had mine done, I thought the surface would become so slippery that water and dust would not take hold. Although it helps a bit, it is far from what is hyped. Also with PPF, different ceramic coatings work differently. I was very disappointed with the first ceramic product. The detailer was very accommodating and stripped it off and switched to the another ceramic that was more compatible with the XPEL ppf. I think the ceramic coatings work much better when applied to painted surfaces that do not have PPF. Read some of the detailing forums and you will see that things like water spots and bird droppings will damage the ceramic coatings if not cleaned promptly.
Our Macan Turbo daily driver's paint was coated with Modesta BC-04 Titanium Glass coating three years ago and has held up perfectly with touchless car washes and annual touch-ups by the installer. Bugs, bird droppings, tree gum, etc. are spot cleaned with a can of plastic-safe window cleaner from Costco (drives the installer nuts, but works well). Still beads water like it was just waxed.
 
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Dlurker20

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I would strongly recommend the PPF on the car. Ceramic is a nice thing in good weather situations, but with salt and sand and other debris, it will not protect the paint from chips and damage. There are special ceramics to apply over PPF but I have no experience of these.

Nice weather driving on dry good roads is ideal for ceramics and easy to clean etc. But any sand, automatic car washes it is PPF for me everytime!
I would strongly recommend the PPF on the car. Ceramic is a nice thing in good weather situations, but with salt and sand and other debris, it will not protect the paint from chips and damage. There are special ceramics to apply over PPF but I have no experience of these.

Nice weather driving on dry good roads is ideal for ceramics and easy to clean etc. But any sand, automatic car washes it is PPF for me everytime!
Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions. I greatly appreciate your knowledgeable insights and will heed your advice.
 


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I´ve had paint protection film mounted on my latest vehicles, due to haters seem to love scratching car with a key or whatever. I don't know what the idea or fun about damaging others property is, but that what the world has come to I guess. Sadly, this is in a way included part of the economics of owning a car, at least for me. When my Taycan arrives, I would therfore need to have the PPF installed before I can start enjoing it.

Some of the PPF´s I have tested previously was not strong enough to stand the vandalism, and I would definitely hate being forced repainting my brand new Porsche. I was not pleased having to total repaint my earlier car, so I sold it off with a heavy hart. This time I have done some research, and chosen to go for the stronger and more expensive self healing type. I have and landed on the "Stek DynoShield" which is almost invisible, self reparing, hydrophobic and high gloss protection film.

There are a lot of installation companies, and some of them are not qualified enough wich result will show rather quickly. My experience is that you usually get what you pay for, and I rather pay the extra to have the job done most professionally. The total cost is somewhat a bit high, but still less expensive than repaint: It's cheaper and an easier taskto replace the film on different body parts, if damaged more than the self healing can handle. Aditionally I can keep the originally paint in good condition and unharmed. Also I like to se the nice Jet Black colour I ordered for my Turbo S.

Here is an article I came over regarding the different types of the best paint protection film on the market:
https://ftadetailing.com/blog/xpel-vs-suntek-vs-stek-vs-flexishield-paint-protection-film/

Further more, I'm going to install my dashcam inside my Porsche as well, so I might catch the bastards eventually. I´ve caught a few situations on film already, which I will use as evidence for later. Where I live the police does not have capacity to investigate this type of crime, and those time I have reported vandalism, the case is closed a few days later anyway. So in the name of self defence, I hopefully catch the next vandalizer myself :punch: A big plus is that if an hit-and-run occurs with damage, the camera record the license plate, and will probably at the first incidence save you more than the installation cost already.

I am very pleased with mine, which can record in 4K-UHD at front and in Full-HD to the rear, with possibility for microSD cards up to 256GB and should be enough for several days of continuous recording. Also it has WiFi connection, cloud storage, impact detection, motion detection, timelapse + events recording. I have seen some connected the system to 4 channels, so it should be possible to record almost 360 degrees. The flashing led light in the cameras itself seem to scare most people off, and that is a good effect in itself :bandit:

Here is a link for my dashcam BlackVue DR900S-2CH: https://blackvue.com/product/dr900s-2ch/
 
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Thanks so much for the clarification on annual maintenance and your experience with PPF & ceramic.

I’ve brought all my cars with PPF to touchless car wash and never had any issue with the PPF, so honestly that’s my going in plan. In MN where winters are often brutal (cold, snow, and length) the car gets caked with ice (and “salt” & sand). Doing hand washing when it’s 15 degrees in the garage on a car caked in ice...well that might be for some but I’m self-aware enough to know I’d definitely not do it. This will be my daily driving car hence considering year round impact.

I love the sound of the ceramic benefits but want to make sure my honest assessment of care will not result in a coating that only lasts a year or two. And @Cpoarchy are you saying the ceramic itself on the plastic parts made it darker or did you do something else? I have a black 4s on order so I’d follow your plan on that.
Yes, it did make it darker, (looks great, it kind of lost some of the angles on the side skirts), might carbon fiber wrap them. but you are right, I think ppf is stronger than ceramic, every ceramic ad repeats it won't protect against a rock chip and only lasts 12-24 months
 

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DO BOTH! (I do this on ALL my cars...)

Do the PPF or XPEL first. Do not apply any ceramic coating until AFTER the "plastic" protective coating is applied. You can get all the benefits of BOTH the XPEL/PPF if you do the plastic first and then top it with a ceramic coating. Ceramic will apply just fine on top of the protective coating but you can NOT apply the protective coating on top of the ceramic coating.

Once you get the PPF/XPEL applied, then clean the car thoroughly with a detergent (dawn). Wipe it down with an alcohol solution (50/50 or greater). I then like to lightly buff the car with CarPro Essence, top it off with a couple of coats of CQuartz UK 3.0 ceramic coating. (CQUK30 can be applied directly on top of an Essence prep). You can then top that with Carpro Reload or Gliss.

All-in-all, (inc dry times) it takes about 3 days to properly clean and apply a ceramic coating the first time. Its easy enough to do this yourself and you will get intimate knowledge of your car in the process.
 
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Dlurker20

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DO BOTH! (I do this on ALL my cars...)

Do the PPF or XPEL first. Do not apply any ceramic coating until AFTER the "plastic" protective coating is applied. You can get all the benefits of BOTH the XPEL/PPF if you do the plastic first and then top it with a ceramic coating. Ceramic will apply just fine on top of the protective coating but you can NOT apply the protective coating on top of the ceramic coating.

Once you get the PPF/XPEL applied, then clean the car thoroughly with a detergent (dawn). Wipe it down with an alcohol solution (50/50 or greater). I then like to lightly buff the car with CarPro Essence, top it off with a couple of coats of CQuartz UK 3.0 ceramic coating. (CQUK30 can be applied directly on top of an Essence prep). You can then top that with Carpro Reload or Gliss.

All-in-all, (inc dry times) it takes about 3 days to properly clean and apply a ceramic coating the first time. Its easy enough to do this yourself and you will get intimate knowledge of your car in the process.
And valuable to do both given my admission of Touchless automated car washIng all winter (which, remember, is at least half a year here)? From what I gather the XPEL Ultimate+ essentially covers the benefits of PPF + Cermaic (arguably until the top layer is no longer effective...I see some debate on this when I poke around).
 
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I´ve had paint protection film mounted on my latest vehicles, due to haters seem to love scratching car with a key or whatever. I don't know what the idea or fun about damaging others property is, but that what the world has come to I guess. Sadly, this is in a way included part of the economics of owning a car, at least for me. When my Taycan arrives, I would therfore need to have the PPF installed before I can start enjoing it.

Some of the PPF´s I have tested previously was not strong enough to stand the vandalism, and I would definitely hate being forced repainting my brand new Porsche. I was not pleased having to total repaint my earlier car, so I sold it off with a heavy hart. This time I have done some research, and chosen to go for the stronger and more expensive self healing type. I have and landed on the "Stek DynoShield" which is almost invisible, self reparing, hydrophobic and high gloss protection film.

There are a lot of installation companies, and some of them are not qualified enough wich result will show rather quickly. My experience is that you usually get what you pay for, and I rather pay the extra to have the job done most professionally. The total cost is somewhat a bit high, but still less expensive than repaint: It's cheaper and an easier taskto replace the film on different body parts, if damaged more than the self healing can handle. Aditionally I can keep the originally paint in good condition and unharmed. Also I like to se the nice Jet Black colour I ordered for my Turbo S.

Here is an article I came over regarding the different types of the best paint protection film on the market:
https://ftadetailing.com/blog/xpel-vs-suntek-vs-stek-vs-flexishield-paint-protection-film/
Sad to hear that that type of vandalism is so common in Norway? I had believed that was not so common there. I hope that a good PPF can significantly reduce damages. Hope you will be pleased with the result!

I have just had my car in for paint correction, full PPF and a ceramic hydrophic coating on top. I ended up doing it with Xpel since they had a very good installer close to me and Xpel have precut film. So no sharp blade will be anywhere near the vehicle. Seems like the Taycan is a bit of a challenge to put film on. So checking the experience of the installer is probably more important than the choice of the three brands you have listed.

I saw samples of Stek and Xpel, and to me Stek seemed to have a smoother, shinier surface? No huge difference though, but unfortunately they do not have precut films or programmes for cutting with a plotter. So I choose Xpel.

Now the car looks amazing and knowing that it is protected from stone chips and others opening their doors too hard feels good. Parking spaces here on the Riviera are designed for Peugeot 105’s. So most cars here have a lot of parking battle scars!
 

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Sad to hear that that type of vandalism is so common in Norway? I had believed that was not so common there. I hope that a good PPF can significantly reduce damages. Hope you will be pleased with the result!

I have just had my car in for paint correction, full PPF and a ceramic hydrophic coating on top. I ended up doing it with Xpel since they had a very good installer close to me and Xpel have precut film. So no sharp blade will be anywhere near the vehicle. Seems like the Taycan is a bit of a challenge to put film on. So checking the experience of the installer is probably more important than the choice of the three brands you have listed.

I saw samples of Stek and Xpel, and to me Stek seemed to have a smoother, shinier surface? No huge difference though, but unfortunately they do not have precut films or programmes for cutting with a plotter. So I choose Xpel.

Now the car looks amazing and knowing that it is protected from stone chips and others opening their doors too hard feels good. Parking spaces here on the Riviera are designed for Peugeot 105’s. So most cars here have a lot of parking battle scars!
Thank you for the support and your input, which I appreciate!

I have also seen what an unexperienced installer can do to the paint, and I certainly will not trust anyone near my new Porsche with something sharp unless they know what they´re doing. So, you are absolutely right the experience of the installer is the most important, other than different PPF with almost similar quality.

Stek and Xpel is self-healing and hydrophic, so they both qualify. You´re also correct that the Taycan is a bit of a pickle to put protection on, as there are few challenging edges and angles. I would prefer a precut film, and avoiding possible damage by knife, but then the edges on the paint has no protection inf damaged – or the other way around.

I´ve quoted price on both Stek and Xpel, respectively around $3,5K and $6,5K. I find the huge price difference strange on Xpel, but the company claimed it was due to the expensive cutting machine. I also checked purchasing all the Xpel parts online, but the price was somewhat equal – so I chose Stek.

I´m happy to hear that you are pleased with the result your Porsche, knowing the car is protected from stone chips, car-doors and vandalism. I don´t doubt for a second it looks amazing - my congratulations. By the ways, may I ask what you had to spell out of the wallet for the Xpel - and did you put a full complete protection on all parts for your vehicle? All the best!
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