Ceramic Coating Kit
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Coating a car yourself is about ninety percent preparation and about ten minutes of actually wiping coating onto panels. That ratio is the reason this kit holds three prep products and one small bottle, and it is the reason most home coatings fail: the coating bonded perfectly, just to a layer of polish oil nobody removed. The order is decon, prep wipe, coat, level. You can see how the rest of our kits are built on the bundle guides hub.
Who should be doing this at home
You want an owner who has already washed, decontaminated and either polished the car or accepted its current finish, because a coating locks in whatever is underneath for a year. Swirls stay swirls. Water spots stay water spots, now under glass. If the paint is not where you want it, correct first and coat later, or the coating becomes an expensive way to preserve a mistake.
Time is the other filter. Set aside a full day with the car indoors or under cover, out of the weather, at a temperature you can stand for several hours. The rest of the protection shelf sits on the Wash Bay hub if a wax or a spray sealant suits your week better.
Decon, prep wipe, coating, leveling towel
Iron Buster is the chemical decontamination, and it is the step that tells you something. P&S describes it as a "color changing, fast acting, pH balanced cleaner formulated to safely dissolve ferrous particulate from wheel and painted surfaces." Spray it on a cool panel and the product turns purple wherever iron is sitting in the finish, then rinses away. Cool panels, shade, rinse before it dries. Never leave it to bake on a hot wing.
Paint Coating Surface Prep is the wipe immediately before the coating goes on, and it is not the same thing as a wash. P&S describes it as "a surface preparation solution to clean paint surfaces prior to application of automotive coatings," made for use with the Inspiration line as part of the Double Black Renny Doyle Collection. The maker states its purpose is to cleanse the paint surface of wax, silicone or other contaminants that could hinder the coating performance. Polishing oils are exactly that sort of contaminant. If you polished yesterday, this bottle is doing more work than you think.
The coating itself is P&S Inspiration SOLE, a one year coating in a 100 ml bottle. P&S calls this size the Super Size and describes it as the new sweet spot in the coating industry for its mix of install ease and flexible use. There is no mystery about why this bottle and not a smaller one: our 30 ml coatings are out of stock, so SOLE is the one year coating we can actually ship. P&S says the kit holds one 100 ml bottle, one applicator and four door jamb labels, so nothing else has to be found on the day. P&S also states that it still recommends professional installation and does not recommend application by untrained individuals, which is a fair warning about preparation rather than a locked door.
The towel is not an afterthought here, it is the leveling tool. The gray HYDRO-FIL is twenty by twenty four inches, 1200 GSM, blended eighty percent polyester to twenty percent polyamide, and 3D rates it at about two gallons of absorbency. Surface and coating compatibility is not stated by the maker for it. What matters is the habit: fold it into quarters, use one face per panel, and change towels long before you think you need to, because a loaded towel smears a coating that is already flashing.
Everything in this kit ships from one place. Pal Automotive items are sold and shipped by Pal Automotive through Shopify Collective, not made or shipped by Sniff and Shift. Plan the weekend around the delivery rather than the other way round, since a coating day you have to pause halfway through is a coating day you repeat.
What this kit does not include
No polisher, no compound, no pads. A great many ceramic coating kits sold as complete include a cheap orbital and a bottle of all in one polish, which flatters the before and after photo and leaves you correcting paint with a tool you would not have chosen. Correction is its own kit with its own decisions about pads and cut.
There is also no clay in here, which is a genuine gap for a neglected car. Iron Buster handles the chemical half of decontamination and nothing in this kit handles the mechanical half, so run a bag test after the decon rinse and add clay lubricant if the paint still feels rough.
The order on the day
Wash the car properly and rinse it. Iron Buster next, panel by panel, in the shade, rinsed off before it dries anywhere. Dry the car completely, including every shut line and mirror housing, because water hiding in a gap will run out across a panel you have already coated. Then the prep wipe, one panel at a time, with a clean towel following the wet one. From there the coating goes on in small sections with the applicator, left to flash for the time the instructions state, and leveled with a fresh towel face.
Keep it off the car for the rest of the day and out of rain overnight. Shut the garage door and leave it shut, because a panel that is still flashing takes a print from anything that touches it.
What it replaces
A shop invoice, mostly, and the twice yearly waxing that a coating makes unnecessary. A professional coating install is priced around labour, and the labour is the prep on this page rather than the coating step. Doing it yourself trades money for a full day and a careful hand. What you should not expect it to replace is washing: a coated car still gets washed, just with different soap, and that is its own kit.
Questions
Can I coat over a car that has wax on it?
No, and this is the single most common reason a home coating beads for three weeks and then stops. The prep wipe exists to strip wax, silicone and polishing oil off the surface. Use it on every panel you intend to coat, with no exceptions for the roof.
How long before the car can get wet?
Follow the bottle, not a forum. Coatings differ and the instructions in the box are the only source that applies to the one in your hand. As a planning rule, do not start a coating the day before rain is forecast.
Do I need to polish first?
Only if the defects would bother you once they are sealed under a coating for a year. Look at the paint in direct sun before you decide, because garage lighting hides almost everything a coating is about to make permanent.
Related guides
The protection cluster lays out the other ways to finish a car.
Our freeze-dried range has its own filtered index on Explore, by protein and by life stage.
