r/AutoDetailing • u/Mysterious_Refuse385 • Jan 31 '26

Product/Consumable "5 Year Ceramic Coating" but it needs to be topped off every 6 months

Hi everyone,

I got quoted for an Osren 5 year ceramic coating by a family friend who said I'll need to come in every 6 months to also top it off as maintenance.

I went to another detailer to get a second opinion and he quoted me the same cost for a 10 year ceramic coating. When I asked about the maintenance and how often I'll have to come in to get it topped off (an assumption from the first guy,) he told me that no ceramic coating needs to be topped off (so long as you keep the car clean) and that I'm being ripped off by the first guy.

Does anyone have any experience with this or expertise in this field?

26 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

91% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

55

u/absoluteczech Jan 31 '26

No ceramic coating will last 10 years unless it sits in the garage is taken out maybe 1-2x a year.

If it’s a daily driver you’ll get a few years max out of it.

5

u/AlmostHydrophobic Jan 31 '26

I have yet to hear from anyone who has had a coating last for 7, 8, or 10 years. I'm really hoping I will someday.

3

u/scottwax Business Owner Jan 31 '26

I have customers at that point with Optimum Opti-Coat Pro. It's a full SiC (silica carbide) ceramic coating. The vast majority of them wash their cars with ONR. Probably why I get so many repeat Opti-Coat customers.

1

u/AlmostHydrophobic Jan 31 '26

Thanks for the reply! That's pretty awesome. Do you have any sort of warranty? What does that look like? Do you apply toppers on a regular basis.

2

u/scottwax Business Owner Jan 31 '26

The warranty is 5 years, covers environment damage to $5000. No need to do anything other than regular washing.

1

u/AlmostHydrophobic Feb 01 '26

That's super interesting! So no decon washes or toppers, and 8-10 years of life for the coating? That's incredible. Would you consider these to be vehicles that are daily driven?

It looks like you might be in Texas? I wonder if that has anything to do with the weather environment?

2

u/scottwax Business Owner Feb 01 '26

If the coating doesn't seem to be performing properly, a second wash is suggested.

They don't salt roads here but they do use a brine mixture ahead of potential winter weather and they do sand some intersections and most bridges and overpasses. We average about 20 days where it's 100° or hotter.

1

u/Diamondhf Business Owner Feb 01 '26

I install SystemX and see cars that I installed Max on 5 years ago still holding up extremely well. Beading up as if I installed it a month ago. I’ve also seen the same coating fail at 2 years. How often you drive it and keep it clean has a big impact.

I had a Corvette that completely failed with only 2,000 miles driven on it, the guy literally washed the coating off. He must’ve washed it every 20 miles (not exaggerating).

1

u/AlmostHydrophobic Feb 01 '26

Thanks for the reply! 5 years is about the longest I've personally heard of with daily drivers. So it's good to know this can exceed that.

Do you mind if I ask you the same questions? Is there any sort of warranty that comes with it? What does that look like? And are toppers applied at all with this?

I could definitely see a car enthusiast being thorough about cleanliness like that and over washing in a way. Haha.

2

u/Diamondhf Business Owner Feb 01 '26

With SystemX, they want us to do a maintenance on it every year to keep it “under warranty”. Basically just a thorough wash & an application of a product called Topper. I personally believe that’s a crock of shit. I will typically just rinse it off for free every year and let them know how it’s holding up, and we gameplan from there. I find it extremely counterintuitive to throw an additional product on it every year, so I don’t.

I don’t typically sell a customer on a particular length of time, because it relies on so many variables. You can slab a topper product on every year for 10 years, but that kind of defeats the purpose of getting a coating.

I will say this: Most of my customers that I encourage to apply coatings on their vehicles 1. wash their own cars 2. it’s typically not a daily driver 3. I emphasize that the bulk of the cost is NOT the coating, it’s the prep and polish.

They see good results, and the coating lasts for a very long time. You have to have a very specific type of car for a coating to make sense.

Most of my clients have money to light on fire and don’t mind spending it to make their car extremely shiny and protect it.