A ceramic coating is transparent and permanent for its rated life. Whatever the paint looks like on the day it goes on is what you are looking at for the next two to five years, defects included. So correction comes first.
The reverse is also true: correction without protection does not hold, because bare clear coat re-marks quickly. That is why SF City Wash sells correction only bundled with at least a 12-month sealant — the two halves need each other.
This is the single most misunderstood sequence in detailing, and getting it wrong is expensive because a coating is not something you casually remove.
A coating bonds chemically to the clear coat and cures into a hard, transparent layer. Transparent is the key word. It does not fill, hide or disguise anything; if anything it adds gloss and clarity, which makes existing defects slightly more visible rather than less.
So coating over swirled paint gives you swirled paint with excellent water behavior, for the rated life of the coating. Removing a coating to correct underneath means abrading the coating off, which is more work than correcting bare paint would have been, and then the coating you paid for is gone.
This is also why decontamination comes before correction, which comes before coating. Bonded contamination under a correction gets dragged around by the polishing pad. Bonded contamination under a coating gets sealed in permanently and prevents the coating bonding properly in the first place, which is the most common cause of a coating failing early.
The full order is: wash, decontaminate, correct, panel wipe to remove polishing oils, coat, cure. Every SF City Wash coating package includes the wash, the full interior and exterior detail and the complete decontamination process as standard, precisely because skipping any of it compromises the result.
Ceramic coating installs run 7 to 8 hours or more, and on a larger vehicle or with correction first it becomes a two-day job.
Full hand wash, iron decontamination, tar and sap removal where needed, and a clay bar pass. This leaves genuinely bare clear coat, which is what correction and coating both require.
One, two or three machine stages depending on the quote. A one-step is 4 to 6 hours; a two-step 6 to 8 or more. This is the part that determines what the finish looks like for the coating's whole life.
Every panel wiped down to remove polishing oils and residue. Coating applied over residual oil does not bond and will fail early. This step is invisible in photos and it is not skippable.
The Gtechniq coating applied panel by panel, levelled within its working window, and inspected under light for high spots. Application temperature and humidity both matter, which is one reason we plan the date around the forecast with you.
The car needs to stay dry. This is the constraint that shapes scheduling in San Francisco, and it is the reason a coating is planned rather than simply booked.
The coating continues to harden after it is touch-dry. We give you the care instructions before we leave, including when normal washing can resume.
Correction is an adder on top of the protection tier. Every package already includes a full interior and exterior detail plus the complete decontamination process, which is why these numbers are higher than a coating-only quote elsewhere.
| Sedan / coupe | No correction | One step | Two step | Three step |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12-Month Sealant | $399 | $649 | $899 | $1,149 |
| 2-Year Sealant | $549 | $799 | $1,049 | $1,299 |
| 5-Year Gtechniq Coating | $649 | $899 | $1,149 | $1,399 |
| 5-Year Plus | $849 | $1,099 | $1,349 | $1,599 |
Midsize SUV and large SUV or truck pricing is higher across the board. The full matrix, all four packages by all three sizes, is on the ceramic coating page.
The two decisions — how much correction, and how long the protection lasts — are made together after we look at the paint. A car with light marring and a five-year plan is a very different quote from a heavily swirled car being sold next year.
Send photos with the quote request, ideally taken at night with a torch held close to a panel, and we will come back with a realistic range before we ever see the car.
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Done in the wrong order it is expensive to undo. Quoted together, after we look at the paint.