How to Prepare & Apply Ceramic Wax On Car Exteriors

In this article, you will learn:

The pro’s way to prep your car for a ceramic wax

How to prep and apply a ceramic car wax coating in 4 simple steps

The easiest way to maintain your car’s ceramic coating

Protecting your car’s paint with an ultra-durable, ceramic based coating no longer needs to be a giant hassle or cost a small fortune. Sure, you could hire a professional detailer to do the job for you. You could pay them thousands of pounds, and you could give up your car for up to a week while they do it. Or, with the right DIY products and a few hours, you can do it yourself right in your drive or garage at a fraction of the cost!

Thanks to breakthroughs from the Turtle Wax R&D labs, coating your car with technologically advanced ceramic chemical polymers is now just as easy as a conventional wax job! And the long-lasting shield of silicon dioxide protection with hydrophobic properties is incredibly powerful. Using a combination of these Hybrid Solutions Ceramic wash, wax and coating products, you’ll create a chemically bonded, water beading barrier between your car’s painted surfaces and damaging UV rays, chemical contaminants, mineral deposits and soils. Protecting against these damaging elements will help your car continue to look new, even when it’s not.

In fact, when you use Hybrid Solutions products, following our simple preparation and application instructions, you’ll get up to 12 months of paint protection per application. Want even more protection? Extend the life of your ceramic coating by maintaining it with our easy-to-use ceramic protection products!

Easy to apply and long-lasting? Sounds almost too good to be true, right? The power of science makes it possible. Let’s dig into the facts behind these easy-to-use, super-effective spray wax coatings.

Preparation makes perfect

Any professional detailer will tell you a properly prepared surface is critical to the outcome of any car wax or paint sealant job. Surface preparation isn’t particularly complicated or difficult, but knowing a few handy tricks can make all the difference.

First, your car’s exterior needs to be perfectly clean. This may require more than just a thorough car washing. Almost every car on the road has some degree of contamination embedded in the clear coat. You’ll need to remove those contaminants as part of the prep. And, of course, you’ll want to repair any existing scratches, swirls, stains or oxidation so you don’t lock them under the protective layer of wax or sealant.

Fear not, this is all simpler than it sounds. Here’s a quick primer on preparing your car’s clear coat for a ceramic coating:

1. Wash and dry your car.

Use a hose on the jet setting to spray your vehicle with a strong stream of water. Start with the roof and work your way down, so that soils break up and rinse to the ground.

Using two buckets of water, grit guard flex inserts, a high-quality car wash shampoo, and a microfiber wash mitt, scrub all soil, road film and debris off the paint using the two-bucket car wash method. Start at the roof and work down and around the vehicle. Rinse your mitt frequently in a bucket of clean water. This will help you avoid scratching the paint by picking up soils from the dirtiest parts of your car and spreading them around. Once finished, dry the paint with a soft, microfiber towel; or, for no-touch drying, use a leaf blower.

2. Remove any embedded contaminants.

Typically, you won’t see these contaminants with your naked eye, but removing them can make a huge difference in the results of your finish. To find out if your clear coat is contaminated, place your hand in a plastic, zip-top bag and gently slide it across the paint. If you feel grit or tiny bumps, those are contaminants. Following the package directions, use a synthetic detailing clay bar or mitt with some clay lubricant to remove these embedded particles.

3. Correct the paint.

Most cars have some level of clear coat damage in the form of scratches, swirls or even oxidation. Some quick polishing will make short work of those, returning your car’s paint to showroom condition. In this case, we recommend using Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Polish & Wax. The advanced polishing agents corrects paint defects quickly while the integrated ceramic-infused wax starts building up your car’s protective shield.

Applying the ceramic coating

Once the clear coat is prepped, applying the ceramic coating is fast and easy. Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Spray Coating and Hybrid Solutions Pro Graphene Flex Wax both works as simple spray-on and wipe-off treatments. Take your pick and simply spray the coating onto a 60 cm x 60 cm panel of your car and wipe the solution evenly across the surface of the paint using a clean, folded microfiber cloth. Turn the cloth over and wipe away any excess product. That’s all there is to it! Keep working around the car in 60 cm x 60 cm sections until you’ve completed the job.

Pro Tip: You can extend the life of your ceramic coating by occasionally using a ceramic spray wax as a topper. We recommend Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Spray Coating or Hybrid Solutions Pro Graphene Flex Wax for this purpose. After you’ve washed and dried your car, you can use either product in the same spray-on and wipe-off application described above.

That’s it, the easy way to protect your car’s paint for a year or longer! As always, if you want to learn more about detailing your car, be sure to keep visiting this How-To section. We have articles covering just about every job. Until then, spray on…and wipe off.