Ceramic Coating - do it yourself?

I'm wondering if anyone has applied a ceramic coating themselves? What product did you use? What was the process like, how long did it take you, and would you do it again?

Cheers!

 

search around the detailing forum. In the "ask the detailer" thread, there's a few of us that have/do with different products. i've done 3 vehicles so far. i'm not a pro, but believe i do a decent enough job. check with the guys like @Ckatz53 and @ToyoMafia on their experiences too

 

I did my previous Tundra with great results. I used Armor Shield IX and used most of three bottles, but I did everything but my tires. So all paint, glass, plastics and wheels. It was guaranteed for two years, but I kept up with ceramic maintenance products and it lasted until I traded in my Tundra which was probably 4 years or so. It was extremely easy to apply too. The hard part and what took the longest was prepping all of the surfaces. With that being said, I had it done by a shop for my 2022. I got paint protection film on everything but the bed side fenders and then a self healing, 3 year coating over the top of that on all vehicle surfaces. IMO, it is most definitively worth it. Not just from appearance but from the standpoint of protection and ease of cleaning.

 

If you are going to do a coating I would recommend Underdog Pro. You can check out the detail threads as mentioned by @Fotnot to get information on prep.

 

so i'll go ahead and add this.
With prep work of washing, drying, , decon, clay bar, polishing, ipa wipedown, then coating, times are as followed:
2017 blazing blue lifted tundra crewmax coated in 2021 (had a lil bit of minor compounding to do: about 14 hours
2019 Pearl white Honda Odyssey coated in 2020: about 12 hours
2021 Sequoia coated about 4 weeks after I got it: about 10 hours
tundra and odyssey i coated with avalon kind armour shield ix
sequoia was coated with carpro cquartz uk 3.0

 

@Fotnot which did you prefer, armor shield or carpro? I'm not sure if its still available, but when I bought armor shield, they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal for about $100.

 

i remember that. i bought it when was on sale too
i personally felt like the armour shield had an easier application and more forgiveness, but don't let that take away from carpro's coating either. theirs was still pretty easy and i was just as happy. but i also feel like i trust/like the carpro just barely more. i still have the odyssey and sequoia, and the odyssey still have beading/sheeting action while making the cleaning/washing a breeze. i top that one with beadmaker every month +/- a week.
the carpro seems to have a slight upper hand in terms of beading/sheeting action as well as it's self-cleaning properties. i've topped that one with carpro reload right after and topped with hydro 2 about 3 months after. i need to apply another hydro2, but it's still beading/sheeting amazingly.

all in all, i'd suggest both

 

Not difficult, just time consuming and tedious. I do all my vehicles. I use cquartz.

 

What would paint correction alone cost on a new vehicle? If a guy paid for that, which seems to be the worst part/most time consuming part based upon my very murky and possibly wrong understanding, and then you immediately the ceramic yourself, would this save the most of the headache and some money?

 

That's hard to know without seeing the vehicle. It likely only needs a one step correction at the most and that could cost around $1K or more. The clay bar and decon was enough on mine to not need paint correction. I got lucky my paint came out of the factory and made it to the dealership in fantastic shape.

 

Keep in mind the cure time and having a place to store it...like a garage or shop. Typically can't get wet for 24-48 hours.

 

And another week of rain free weather to be on the safe side. I took a week off work, bought groceries and hunkered down for a week with my truck in the garage after I did it. With as much work as it took, I wasn't taking any chances, lol.