Chevy Trail Boss Ceramic Coating Installation
Our good friend had been eyeballing a Trail Boss for a few years. Any chance we got, we would send pictures of one we saw online or in public. If you knew the owner, you would see why we did this. The Trail Boss was made for this guy. He is also one of the nicest human beings on the planet and would give his shirt off his back to anyone. In my younger and dumber days, he helped me a lot. That all being said, he reached out to us about ceramic coating his Trail Boss, and in this article, we will cover the Chevy Trail Boss Ceramic Coating Installation Process.
Not only will we be covering the coating installation process, but we will also be sharing all our tips and tricks with you for free! That’s right! We are passionate about car detailing and want everyone to become expert detailers, even if you are our competitors! Bad car detailers give the entire industry a bad rap; we want to change that one person at a time.
Preparing the Trail Boss for Polishing
No matter the age or condition of the paint on vehicles brought to us, we do some form of paint correction before the ceramic coating installation. Sometimes a quick light polish is enough, and others may require a full cut and polish. It all really depends as every make and model has different hardness paint.
Pro-Tip: If a detailer offers you a ceramic coating for under $1000 or is not offering any paint correction as part of the package, run. There is a good chance you are about to either intentionally get ripped off or are dealing with someone who needs to be adequately trained in paint correction or ceramic coating installations. This goes for so-called “dealership” coatings, also. We have yet to come across one of these that is not complete garbage.
Inspection
First, we are going to inspect the entire vehicle for scratches. Anything that our fingernail catches on will not polish out. We also take pictures of all defects and perform a walk-around video. This step is for a report we give the customer to show what was corrected. It also covers us if there was a defect the customer never noticed and is now a cannot miss due to everything being cleaned. This step has protected us from repairing something we did not damage on several occasions.
After the inspection, we will proceed to the wash portion of the process. You can click here to learn about the only wash method we use on our vehicles and customer vehicles.
To keep it brief for this post, we rinse, iron decon, rinse, organic decon, rinse, foam, rinse, foam, wash, rinse, clay-bar, rinse, and dry. I threw a lot out there above, but we have plenty of articles covering this process.
Once the Trail Boss is dry, we spray the entire painted surface with Gyeon Prep. Prep removes any waxes or sealants that may be on the paint’s surface yet. Ensuring all this is removed will make our polishing process go that much better. We typically spray 1-2 panels at a time with prep. We let the prep dwell for 1 minute and wipe it off with our favorite exterior towel. Make sure you wipe in straight line motions and if by chance you drop a towel on the ground, throw it away or add it to the shop rag pile.
Polishing the Trail Boss
Even though this is a 3-year-old truck, the previous owner must have mostly avoided automatic car washes and improper washing techniques. Don’t get us wrong; there are still scratches, as you can see in the picture below, but nothing that cannot be polished out without doing a cut. We will be able to perform what we refer to as our high-gloss polish on this unit. It will take the gloss of this paint to the next level, along with removing the swirls that are present. Then, the ceramic coating will take the gloss to an even higher level!
We will be using our Rupes LHR15 Mark III DA Polisher, Rupes White foam pads, and Rupes High-Gloss finishing polish. This combination will remove the defects and bring the gloss out. Please note this combo worked for the condition of this paint. This is a light-cutting combo, and if the swirling or scratches were any worse, this combination would not yield results that would make any customer happy.
Side note, we did find a few heavier scratches, such as what is in the picture below. We used our Sonax Perfect Finish and a Rupes Yellow Foam pad to remove these.
We work in 2x2ft sections, doing two passes vertically and two passes horizontally. Make sure your pad overlaps the previous run by 50%. For the first couple of sections, we will wipe and inspect to ensure all scratches are gone. Once we are confident the pressure and speed we are using are adequate, we will polish the entire truck before wiping it off again. This saves a ton of time and lessens the number of steps taken. We do not rush anything we do; however, that does not mean we try to get each process as refined as possible.
Boom. After about 8-hours on the polisher, this bad boy is ready for the next step. Please note the 8-hour reference. This is how long it takes to properly polish a vehicle of this size. This is also why we charge what we do for ceramic coatings and paint corrections. Here is another tip, if you get a quote from a detailer about correction or coatings and they tell you that your vehicle will be ready for pickup within 24 hours, something is off. Most cure times and prep and polishing times are 48 hours up to 72 hours. They may not use a professional-grade ceramic coating or just do a “spray coating.”
Prepping the Trail Boss for the Ceramic Coating Application
Alrighty! You have completed the polishing process. The first step in prepping the truck for the ceramic coating is removing the polish residue. First, we use our favorite exterior towel and wipe each panel in straight-line motions. Once all polish has been removed, move on to the next step.
Our favorite product for prepping paint before a polish and ceramic coating is Gyeon Prep. Side-Note, we use many Gyeon products and swear we are not getting paid to pump them. They produce good products, so we use them.
Spray each panel with Gyeon Prep and let it dwell for 1 minute. Use a good exterior towel wiping in straight-line motions to remove the prep. We will do this process on the entire vehicle three times. Yup, you read that correctly. Three times. We want to ensure the paint is completely bare before applying our ceramic coating.
Ceramic Coating Application on the Trail Boss
Part of why we are writing this article is to help explain our process. The other reason is with the coating we used on this truck; anyone can ceramic coat their vehicle at home. That’s right! This is the perfect ceramic coating for car detailing beginners! For this Trail Boss, we used Gyeon Mohs Evo.
Gyeon Mohs is a super easy-to-apply ceramic coating that is perfect for beginner car detailers and someone who has no experience with ceramic coatings. While it is a super easy-to-use product, we still recommend you watch plenty of videos on its application on top of reading this article prior to doing it yourself. One thing you need to remember is that if you screw up the application, you must polish it to remove the ceramic coating.
We always start at the top of the vehicle when ceramic coating and work our way down. This keeps you from leaning on a freshly coated portion. For the Trail Boss, we did the roof and bed cover. No matter what section we are coating, we do a 20”x20” section.
Instead of using the dropper spout that comes with the coating, we use a pipet. We do three passes the length of the coating applicator with the pipet per section. I’ll try to explain that better. For the amount of coating, we put on the applicator per section, we squeeze the pipet and squirt the coating on the pad, going the length of it three times. A 50ml bottle coated this truck and its bed cab.
In your 20”x20” section, do horizontal passes from the top down. Then, do vertical passes working from left to right. This double pass ensures all of that section is properly coated.
Here is the critical part of the ceramic coating application process, as soon as you have finished applying, you start the removal process. While all coatings are not created equal, neither are the installation processes. For Gyeon Mohs Evo, we suggest removing it as soon as you have applied it. Some coatings, even some made by Gyeon, require a 5-minute dwell time before removing.
For the Coating removal process, we use two towels. The first is the Edgless 300 Microfiber Detailing Towel from The Rag Company. Wipe in a small circular motion until you have wiped the entire application area. Then, do the same circular motions with a second towel which is the Eagle Edgeless 500 from The Rag Company.
Ceramic Coating Installation Tips
We always do ceramic coating installations indoors if possible. We keep the temperature in our shop between 65 and 70 degrees. Another important factor is humidity. We aim for a dewpoint of 10 or less. High humidity and/or temperature causes the flashing process of the ceramic coating to happen much faster. This is where high spots occur and the need for polishing to remove them.
Conclusion
Gyeon Mohs Evo is a great ceramic coating for the beginner car detailer and even the pros! Depending on the color of the vehicle and the life our customer is looking for, we even use it on customer vehicles. If you are considering doing your first ceramic coating at home, do your research, and feel free to reach out to us with any questions you have! We love helping everyone become car detailing pros!
