I am considering having Ceramic coating put on my 2006 F430, should it be clay barred first?
clay, polish, wiped down to remove polish residue (depends on the product but Opti Coat recommends iso alcohol solution for wipedown.)
Definitely should clay first -- the difference in smoothness before and after on any car (even brand new) is pretty astonishing. I've tried about 5 different brands of clay and found Mother's to be the most foolproof by far (some of the others left residue and/or were more difficult to use). Mother's is available at most auto parts. Clay Magic is supposed to be good as well, but I have no experience with it. What ceramic coating are you using? If you are having the coating done by somebody, maybe it would make sense to have them do the prep (clay, etc) for you. The prep is usually the part that requires the most skill and makes the biggest difference in how the job comes out.
I will likely claybar it myself but have the ceramic done by a shop. Not sure what product they would use. By the way. I was just at Algar and as usual they are fantastic. Their detail guy said by all means claybar prior to all waxing or ceramic coating. Mike and Ryan and the whole crew are the best.
This is a sensible approach and may save some on the claying portion. They will still need to do polish prep to make the surface perfect before applying the ceramic sealant because the coating is permanent. I used Opti-Coat ceramic sealer a couple of years ago on a daily driver that is parked outside. Applying the ceramic sealer is almost trivially easy -- you just need to wipe it on. It is the prep that takes 95% of the work. Two years later, I am happy with the performance of sealant. It seems to have prevented etching from bird droppings that are unavoidable in a car parked outside. The car I had before had some unfixable etching with no ceramic sealer applied. Although the sealer is permanent, I did end up applying NXT/Ultimate wax over it occasionally. I'm not if the wax actually sticks to the ceramic coating, but buffing with wax helps freshen the shine with a permanent sealant (there may be better ways to do this than wax, I didn't really research it).
Be careful with the ceramic sealers. They are super easy to apply and just as easy to miss wiping a streak of it off. I did that with 22PLE. it's annoying. it's like looking at wax that you can't take off by hand. With a little compound though, you can remove it.
FYI the Griots paint clay is way too hard for my taste. Mothers, Meguiars, etc. are good in my opinion.
I have used Nanoskin instead of clay bars. I think they work well, and if you drop them you can clean them. Amazon.com: nanoskin autoscrub
I used Nano Skin for the first time last month when I did a paint correction. Seemed to work well and easy to use.
