A ceramic coating is a great way to protect and give your car’s paint the perfect shine. I used car wax because I liked the look of it until I was introduced to Modesta glass coatings in 2014 and immediately made the switch. If you’ve never experienced having your car coated, I’d highly suggest you try them out and have a professional detailer you won’t have any regrets.
Something I don’t think I’ve ever really touched on is ceramic coating maintenance. It sounds like a difficult thing to do, but I can assure you it’s super easy. You want to maintain your coating during the life of the coating if you want it to perform longer. We have personally seen our coatings last 5-7 years, whereas with wax, you’re looking at 6 months tops.
Basics of Ceramic Coating Maintenance
Ceramic coating maintenance is a fairly straightforward process. Check out how your ceramic coating performs when washing your car or when it gets wet. Does the coating look like the performance has decreased its ability to bead and sheet water off the vehicle? If so, it’s time for a decontamination wash. You’ll want to do this process sparingly, at most every four months (depending on your driving conditions), but most people can do it every 6-8 months on most daily-driven vehicles.
The number of times you’ll have to do this decon process will increase depending on how far you drive and how much time your car spends on the road. On the highway, your vehicle will be exposed to more harsh chemicals (oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid) than it would on most state roads. These chemicals will inevitably end up on your car, and they will “try to eat” away at the protection on the vehicle. This is exactly why you have a ceramic coating. It will be much more impervious to hazards relating to the use of your car and prevent damage to your finish as a result of these contaminants. However, these chemicals will build up on the coating over time, reducing its performance.
We counteract these decreases by performing a decon wash or a “reset wash.”
My Decontamination Process with Modesta M4 smoke
This process is pretty simple. When washing your car, you’ll do a two bucket wash.
- Put 2oz of Aenso One Shampoo in your wash bucket
- Foam your vehicle like usual. I suggest letting the soap dwell for about 5 minutes in this application. Remember to keep your car out of direct sunlight during the entire wash process. You can rinse the whole car down using deionized water and re-foam the car for some extra bite. However, this isn’t necessary.
- Wash your vehicle with proper 2 bucket system
- Rinse your car thoroughly with deionized water to help clean and leave less residue. During the rinsing process, you’ll be able to see if this was effective. 90% of the time, this will be more than sufficient. If it’s not, now you can dry the car and move on to the iron remover.
