You get the cure window in plain language, in writing, along with the guarantee registration for eligible coatings. Ask if anything is unclear — that is what the walk-around is for.
Ceramic Coating Aftercare · Regina, Saskatchewan
Maintenance & Care Rules
The coating does its job for years. What you do in the first week — and every wash after — decides how many.
Already coated? Read the rules below. They take five minutes and they are the whole job.
30 years
Jason correcting paint since 1996
Since 2012
Mercenary Auto Care, Regina
Accredited
Gtechniq Accredited Installer
4.3 ★
38 Google reviews
Here is the part nobody wants to say out loud after taking your money.
A ceramic coating can be ruined by the person who owns it. Not slowly, either. One trip through a drive-through brush wash, one dirty sponge dragged across a dusty hood, one bottle of hardware-store cleaner — and a surface that was meant to look like this in year five stops looking like it by autumn.
That is not a reason to avoid coating a vehicle. It is a reason to know the rules before you drive away.
None of them are difficult. Most of them take less effort than what you were doing before the coating went on. But they are rules rather than suggestions, because a coating is a surface you are looking after, not a force field you bought.
Read this once. Then you know it for the life of the vehicle.
Rules zero — before the rules start
The first week matters more than the next five years.
A coating goes on as a liquid and finishes hardening on your vehicle, not in the shop. Gtechniq’s published application guidance requires the vehicle to stay indoors and dry for a set period after application, and to go unwashed for a stretch after that while the coating reaches full hardness.
The exact window depends on which coating is on your vehicle and whether a top layer went over it. Jason confirms your specific numbers at handover. Follow those, not a figure from a forum.
Keep the vehicle dry and out of the rain. Garage it if you have one. No covers, no tarps, nothing resting on the paint.
No washing at all. If the vehicle picks up dust, leave it. If it picks up something worse, phone before you touch it.
Straight into the routine below. Two buckets, pH-neutral shampoo, clean media, out of the sun. The first wash sets the habit for every one after it.
Nothing about the first week is fussy for the sake of it. A coating that is still curing is soft, and soft coatings mark. Give it the window and it hardens the way it is supposed to.
The whole system, ten rules
The maintenance and care rules
Follow these and a coated vehicle stays looking the way it did on pickup day. Ignore them and you will get the coating’s worst-case performance while still paying for its best-case price.
Wash with two buckets, always
One bucket of soapy water, one of clean rinse water, and a grit guard in the bottom of each. The rinse bucket is where the dirt goes when you wring out the mitt, instead of back onto the paint.
This single habit prevents more wash marks than any product you can buy.
Use a pH-neutral automotive shampoo
Dish soap, degreasers and household cleaners are built to strip. That is the job they do well, and it is the wrong job here. A pH-neutral car shampoo — Gtechniq’s own G Wash is one — cleans without attacking the coating.
Never wash in direct sun or on hot panels
Water and shampoo drying on a hot panel is how you get water spots etched into the surface. Wash in shade, in a garage, or early and late in the day. Keep the panels cool and wet from start to finish.
Rinse first, thoroughly, before anything touches the paint
Every bit of grit you remove with water is grit that never gets dragged across the surface by a mitt. Rinse top to bottom and take your time with the lower panels, wheel arches and the back of the vehicle.
Work top down, straight lines, one panel at a time
The roof is cleanest, the rockers are filthiest, so work in that order and rinse the mitt between panels. Straight passes rather than circles — if a mark does happen, a straight one is far less visible than a swirl.
Wheels and lower panels get their own bucket and their own media
Brake dust is metal. Once it is in a wash mitt it is sandpaper. Keep a separate bucket, separate mitt and separate brushes for wheels, arches and the bottom few inches, and never let them near the upper body.
Dry carefully, with clean soft media
A large plush drying towel or a filtered blower. Blot and draw rather than scrub, and drop a towel the moment it touches the ground. Letting a coated vehicle air-dry is how hard water leaves spots on a surface that was doing fine until then.
Remove bird droppings, bugs and sap immediately
The coating buys you time, not immunity. Bird droppings in particular are acidic and will etch given long enough in the sun. Keep a quick detailer and a clean microfibre in the vehicle and deal with it the day it lands.
No wax, no glaze, no parts-store “ceramic” spray on top
Putting a cheap sealant over a professional coating covers up the surface you paid for and can leave you fighting a smeared, patchy finish.
If you want to top up the water behaviour between details, use the maintenance sealant the coating manufacturer specifies — for Gtechniq coatings that is C2. Ask before you buy anything else.
Bring it back once a year
An annual inspection and maintenance decontamination catches bonded contamination, checks the coating is behaving as it should, and keeps the maintenance condition of the guarantee satisfied. Gtechniq’s guarantee terms are conditional on the coating being looked after — that is the manufacturer’s condition, not fine print we invented.
What you actually need
The whole kit fits in a corner of the garage.
- Two buckets and two grit guards
- A pH-neutral automotive shampoo
- One good wash mitt for the body, a second for the lower panels
- A separate wheel bucket, mitt and brush set
- A large plush drying towel, or a filtered blower
- A quick detailer and a few clean microfibres kept in the vehicle
That is the list. No machine, no chemistry cabinet, nothing that needs a licence.
The short list of real damage
What actually undoes a coating
Almost every coated vehicle that comes back looking worse than it should has met at least one of these.
Avoid all of the following:
- Automatic car washes with brushes or cloth strips, of any kind
- Dish soap, degreasers and household cleaners on the paint
- Old sponges, chamois, bath towels and shop rags
- Washing in direct sun, or on a panel that is hot to the touch
- Scraping ice or snow off paint with anything but a soft brush and patience
- Letting bird droppings, bugs or sap sit through a hot day
- A weekend polisher in untrained hands
- Leaving the vehicle unwashed all winter and hoping for the best
Touchless automatic washes are the least bad of the automatic options, but the strong chemistry some of them use is not a friend to a coating either. Occasional is fine. As your only maintenance for four months, it is not.
Nothing on that list is exotic. Which is the point — the coating is rarely undone by anything dramatic. It is undone by ordinary habits that were never good for paint in the first place.
Regina rules, not generic rules
Winter is the season that tests the routine.
Road salt. Brine and de-icer. Frozen grit in the wheel arches. Minus thirty for a fortnight. And a wash bay full of brushes you must not touch.
Salt does not care that the vehicle is coated. It sits in the seams, the arches and the underside and it works away all winter. The coated surface makes it easier to get off — but only if somebody gets it off.
- Wash more often in winter, not less. Every couple of weeks, and after any warm spell that turns the roads to brine.
- Use the wand, never the brush. At a self-serve bay, the brush is the single most damaging object on the premises. Rinse only.
- Rinse the underside and the arches. That is where the salt sits and where rust starts.
- Bring it somewhere warm enough to dry. Water left to freeze in door shuts and mirrors causes its own problems.
- Never chip ice off paint. Warm the vehicle and let it release.
A coated vehicle in a Saskatchewan winter is easier to look after. It is not exempt from being looked after.
There is more on cold-weather protection on the Winter Defense page, and on summer sun and heat on UV and Heat Protection. Summer has its own short list: park in shade where you can, rinse off sprinkler overspray before it dries, and keep hard water off hot panels.
One thing washing cannot fix
A stone chip is a breach, and it needs dealing with.
A coating is not armour against a rock thrown off a gravel truck at highway speed. When a chip goes through to primer or metal, the protected surface has a hole in it — and Saskatchewan road salt finds that hole.
Left alone, a chip becomes a rust bloom, and a rust bloom becomes a panel. Repaired properly, it stays repaired.
Chip repair here runs on Duxone Paint Systems by Axalta — the same class of refinish paint a body shop uses — matched with a digital spectrophotometer against the manufacturer’s formula database rather than eyeballed with a touch-up pen. That is why customers who know exactly where the chip was still have to hunt for it.
Chips are repaired before a coating goes on, never after. If you find one on an already-coated vehicle, phone and we will look at it properly. Full detail on the paint chip repair page.
Where the shop fits in
When to stop washing it yourself and bring it in
Home maintenance handles the routine. A few things are worth a professional set of hands and better lighting:
- The annual inspection and maintenance decontamination
- Water spotting that will not come off with a normal wash
- Bonded contamination — the surface feels rough after washing
- The coating stops behaving the way it did when it was new
- New defects in the paint, or damage that needs correction
- Any stone chip through to primer or metal
Correction and coating work is quoted at $125 per hour of service performed, because no two vehicles arrive in the same condition. You get a realistic estimate of hours before anything starts.
Where correction is needed, the method here is a controlled blending of the clear coat that removes swirls and defects while keeping the clear coat itself intact — the whole approach is set out on the exterior services page.
★★★★★
Brought in my truck for a full ceramic application. Jay and his team were super accommodating and worked with me to customize a plan that was affordable and made sense. The finished product looks amazing and no detail was spared.Mike H. · Google review
Straight answers
Frequently asked questions
How soon can I wash my vehicle after it is coated?
Not immediately. Gtechniq publishes a cure period for its coatings, and a further period before the first wash. The exact window depends on which coating went on and whether a top layer was applied over it, so Jason gives you your specific numbers at handover. If in doubt, phone before you wash.
How often should I wash a coated vehicle?
Roughly every two weeks as a working rule, and more often through winter or after a trip that leaves the vehicle heavily contaminated. The point is not the calendar — it is not letting road film, salt or organic contamination sit on the surface for months.
Can I take a coated vehicle through an automatic car wash?
Not one with brushes or cloth strips. Those are the fastest way to put swirls into any paint, coated or not. A touchless wash is a compromise rather than a solution — some use aggressive chemistry — and it should not be the only maintenance a vehicle gets.
Do I still need to wax it?
No. A coating replaces wax rather than sitting under it, and putting a cheap sealant on top can leave you with a patchy, smeared finish over the surface you paid for. If you want to top up water behaviour between details, use the maintenance sealant the manufacturer specifies for that coating and ask first.
What happens if I get it wrong?
Usually less than you fear. Wash marks, water spots and light contamination can normally be sorted out. Bring it in, we will look at it under proper lighting and tell you honestly what is happening and what it takes to put right.
Does following these rules keep my guarantee valid?
It is the part you control. Gtechniq’s guarantee terms depend on the coating being applied correctly and maintained properly — application is our side of it, maintenance is yours. Every eligible install is registered with Gtechniq so the guarantee is a document rather than a promise.
Which coating should I be on in the first place?
It depends on how you drive, where the vehicle is stored, its current paint condition and how long you plan to keep it. The Coatings Recommender walks through those questions, and there is full detail on the ceramic coatings page. If easier washing is your main reason for considering it, start with Easy Maintenance.
Protect it properly, then keep it that way
The rules are easy. Getting the protection right underneath them is the part worth talking about.
Tell us a little about:
- Your vehicle
- How and where you drive it
- Where it is parked overnight
- Its current paint condition
- How long you plan to keep it
The Coatings Recommender will point you at the option that fits, and you can request an appointment from there. Already coated somewhere else and not sure what you have? Phone and describe it.
Wash it right. Dry it right. Bring it in once a year.
That is the whole maintenance programme.
Straight answers, no pressure. Tell me the vehicle and what is bothering you about it.
If You Want It Done Right, Hire A Merc!
P.S. — Every month a vehicle spends being washed badly is damage being added to the paint underneath, and correction is priced by the hour because it is priced by the condition. The cheapest correction anyone ever pays for is the one on a vehicle that was looked after. The rules above cost nothing to follow.
P.P.S. — Not coated yet, and reading this to decide whether it is worth it? Start with the Coatings Recommender, or call 306-533-9668 and describe the vehicle. Finished work is in the gallery.