Is car polishing necessary?
Quick answer: It depends. Polishing is essential when preparing paint for a semi-permanent protective coating. But if your car already has a quality coating (e.g., ceramic), you generally shouldn’t polish — it can be detrimental to the coating.
Polishing isn't just about the aesthetics of the car, although that's reason enough to do it. You probably paid a lot of money for your car, so it may as well look like the shiny car you bought. There are other benefits to removing scratches and blemishes, as they act as a key for dirt and grime to stick to. Keeping your car shiny keeps away the dirt, but also harmful road salts and metal contaminants that sink into the paintwork, and the polishing process will also do much to remove them.
So theres plenty of good reasons to polish a car....
Whether it is strictly necessary, depends on the context. If you want to put a semi-permanent protective coating on your car, it is essential to polish the paintwork in preparation for this.
If, however, you already have a quality coating such as a ceramic coating, you really shouldn't need to polish your car and polishing could actually be detrimental to the coating.
Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 09/09/2025 16:02