How do you remove a ceramic coating?

Abrasion through aggressive polishing or wet-sanding is the only way to remove a ceramic car coating. There is no safe way to remove it chemically.

Our website has very many visitors, and Google is kind enough to tell me just what search words those visitors are searching for.

A surprising number of people arrive here having searched for things like, "How do you remove a ceramic coating?" or "Does acetone remove ceramic coatings?"

We do like to answer as many questions as we can, but the thought came to mind, "Why would you want to remove a ceramic coating... unless you messed it up..."

This indicates that there may be a considerable number of people out there who are messing it up. We have good reason to believe it isn't authorized professionals making the mess because we can reasonably assume that if they have problems, they would quickly be on the phone to the supplier who trained and authorized them.

The only time we, at New Again, have had to remove a ceramic coating, is on those couple of occasions we have messed up a panel. Our solution to this problem was to machine polish it off, which takes a considerable amount of time and care. As far as we know, there is no chemical method of removing ceramic coatings as they are very chemically resistant, more so than the paint underneath, so flooding it with acetone or hot solvents would not be advised.

If you have found your way here because you thought you could get a ceramic coating on the cheap by ordering a bottle from a Chinese website and applying it yourself, we would ask you to swallow your embarrassment and send us a few photos so that it can serve as a cautionary tale and prevent others from making the same mistake.

Written by . Last updated 05/07/2023 18:00