How long until I can drive my car after a ceramic coating?

Ceramic coatings take around 12-24 hours to dry, and professional coating can allegedly take up to a week to fully cure.  This is why we like you to pick up your car the next day, by which time it will be safe to drive. This also gives us a chance to ensure proper quality control as we can see the car under different natural light through the day.

Avoid washing your car for at least a week after the application - not that you should need to clean it, as it will be clean when you collect it. But chemicals in car shampoo or traffic film removers may disrupt the curing process, although there is a slim chance of this. If you get caught in the rain, don't worry too much, the car is already hydrophobic and will shrug it off.

Should something unfortunate happen in the week after you pick up your car, such as you drive past the entrance of a building site and lorries have dropped clay and mud all over the road, don't sweat it too much.  You could give it a rinse with a jet wash.

There is definitely truth to the idea of cure time. Often when we arrive at work in the morning and see a car that we coated the day before, it certainly seems to look shinier. But in our experience, after 12 hours, the coating is pretty much set. We have been caught by sudden summer showers while moving cars around, and have never seen any adverse effect to a ceramic coating.  So don't panic, we have coated hundreds of cars over the last decade and have yet to see any problems that could be related to a coating not curing before the car was driven. Stay away from harsh chemicals and it should be fine.

Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 17/10/2025 17:27