Wash your car regularly
While the coating makes your car look cleaner, it does not eliminate the need for regular maintenance.
Washing your car regularly can help prevent and remove contaminant build-up on the surface of your vehicle. This prolongs the life of the ceramic coating.
As a general rule, you should wash your car once a week or fortnightly at the minimum.
Avoid washing your vehicle in direct sunlight
Exposing your vehicle to direct sunlight generates heat – an element known to be detrimental to professional car coatings. Thus, it is important that you wash the car in a shaded area.
If you cannot avoid this, you can consider cleaning it during periods when the level of sunlight is at the lowest.
Use a dedicated car wash product
Soaps and shampoos that are not formulated for cars may contain harsh chemical agents, contaminants, or abrasives that will damage your vehicle.
As such, car owners are recommended to stick to a high-quality automotive-specific soap or shampoo.
Use the two-bucket approach to washing
The two-buckets method involves the usage of two buckets; one is filled with soap while the other is filled with water.
To use this method,
- dunk the dirty mitt/sponge/cloth into a bucket filled with water to rinse it clean and
- dip it into the second bucket filled with soap before proceeding to wash the next panel of your car.
Doing this helps to greatly reduce the chance of reintroducing debris that has been previously removed.
Avoid going to an automatic car wash
Automatic washes use brushes with highly abrasive bristles that can damage the exterior of your car.
Furthermore, they also tend to retain debris and contaminants from previous washes. This can cause deep micro scratches to the coating of your vehicle.
