Most shops answer this question with “come in for a quote.” Here is the actual answer instead.
At our shop on Upton Road, our warrantied ceramic coating runs $1,000 for a sedan up to $1,200 for a crew cab, with a written 3-year warranty. The price is published below, alongside the honest condition attached to it. But the price on its own is the least useful part of the answer, because two coatings at the same price can be completely different jobs. The part worth understanding is what sits underneath, and what keeps the warranty valid.
What you are actually paying for
A ceramic coating is a liquid polymer that bonds to your clear coat and hardens into a sacrificial layer. It makes water bead and roll off, it takes the hit from salt and bird droppings instead of your paint, and it makes the car much easier to wash.
What it is not is a repair. A coating locks in the condition your paint is in on the day it goes on. Put a coating over swirl marks and you have sealed the swirl marks under a layer designed to last five years. This is the single most expensive mistake in the category, and it is why the polish underneath matters more than the coating itself.
The rule we work to: if the paint is not right, the coating goes on hold. We will not seal in a defect and hand you a warranty for it.
Why the polish is most of the job
Before any coating we do a full four-step correction: compound, filler, glaze, then hand wax. That is where the hours go. On a large vehicle it is most of a day, and it is the reason we can put a warranty in writing afterwards. We are not guaranteeing a bottle of liquid, we are guaranteeing the surface we prepared and the work we did on it.
The four-step polish is priced separately and honestly:
| Required prep | Sedan | SUV | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-Step Polish | $500 | $600 | $700 |
If a shop quotes you a ceramic coating for a few hundred dollars and does not mention paint correction, they are selling you the bottle and skipping the job.
The coating, published
| Coating | Sedan | SUV | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Year Guaranteed Ceramic | $1,000 | $1,100 | $1,200 |
The coating is applied after the four-step polish, never before. Size changes the price for the same reason it changes every price in this trade: a crew cab has close to twice the panel area of a coupe, and takes close to twice the time and product.
How to judge a warranty
A long warranty sounds better than a short one, right up until you read the fine print. Ask three questions before you believe it:
- Is it in writing, and what voids it? A warranty you cannot read is marketing.
- Was the paint corrected first? A long warranty over uncorrected paint is a promise to preserve the flaws.
- Will the shop still be there? A promise from a business with no fixed address is worth exactly as much as the address.
We put our name on a three-year guarantee because we can still be found at the same address we have worked from for years, and because the person who did the work answers the phone. There is one condition attached: the warranty only holds if the car is hand washed for the full three years. Machine car washes put acid in their soap, which strips a ceramic coating completely and can scratch the paint underneath it. One trip through a machine wash is enough to undo the protection you paid for, so hand washing (yours or ours) is the deal.
Ceramic Wax or the 3-Year Coating?
We keep this deliberately simple: two options, not a ladder of tiers to pick wrong from.
- Ceramic Wax is $100 for a sedan, $120 for an SUV and $140 for a large vehicle. It is hand-applied on top of any polish, so unlike the coating it does not need the full 4-step first. It lasts up to 6 months, no warranty attached. Right choice for a lease you are handing back, a quick shine before selling, or a budget that does not stretch to the full coating this year.
- 3-Year Ceramic Coating is the real protection: three Toronto winters of salt, sun and slush, backed by a written warranty (hand-wash only, see above). Right choice if you are keeping the car and want it looking new for years, not months.
About 6 months after the coating goes on, we offer an optional 3rd coat refresh for $500 – a top-up layer that keeps the protection at full strength through the second and third year. Not mandatory, but worth booking if you want the coating performing like day one.
A fair comparison
You will find three-year coatings around Toronto priced well above what we charge. Ours is $1,000 to $1,200 for the same three years, applied after a full correction, with the warranty in writing. We are not cheaper because we cut the prep. We are cheaper because we are a family shop with one location and no franchise fees stacked on top of your invoice.
Want to know what your car needs?
Bring it by 2 Upton Road and we will walk it with you and tell you honestly whether a coating is worth it. The price is confirmed before any work starts.
Book a ceramic consultation →