Have you ever messed up a ceramic coating?
Quick answer: Very rarely -- but yes, like any skilled job, mistakes can happen. We inspect every panel under lights on the day and again the next morning, and if anything isn't right we correct it at our cost by polishing and reapplying the affected area.
Yes, we have. We've never messed up a whole car, but we have had issues with single panels on two occasions.
Both times it was because the ceramic coating was disturbed before it had cured, and both were down to our inexperience when we were new to ceramic products.
In one case, the panel was rectified with a lot of polishing and a fresh re-application.
On the first car we messed up, we tried to correct the problem with another application and made it worse. The Porsche 911 was being restored and had just come back from the bodyshop where that panel had been repainted. The mistake was unrelated to the paintwork, but it did mean the easiest fix was to send the panel back and have it repainted at our expense. That took time, but the car was a long-term project that was off the road anyway (Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)).
It's worth saying this was a long time ago, when ceramic products were in their infancy and the coating we were using was particularly difficult to apply compared with modern versions.
A more recent close call was a black BMW we coated with Fireball Butterfly. We followed the flash-off times the product calls for, but something made the coating start to go off before we could level it. We never pinned down exactly what tipped it... possibly the humidity was higher than ideal, possibly some other variable on the day was just slightly off. We spotted a high spot forming under the inspection lights, caught it just in time, and polished the panel back before the coating cured too hard. The car left looking exactly as it should -- but the margin was thinner than we'd have liked. Even with a product and a technique we know inside-out, the unknowns on a given day can push you closer to the edge than you'd like; controlled lighting, constant inspection, and a willingness to stop and reset are what catch problems before they become problems.
We've also been called in to correct other people's mistakes -- choosing a workshop with a real inspection process is the best protection against that.
Things do go wrong, and the more times you do something the more likely something is to go wrong eventually. We've learned from every issue and hope not to repeat them, but it's bound to happen again at some point. The important thing is that we can spot problems and put them right.
You've paid good money to have a professional ceramic coating applied properly, and that's what you'll get -- even if we don't nail it first time.