Ceramic coating, gone dull!

[leec]

I bought a header that has been ceramic coated. It's been used and has gone dull/bloomy in places, can it be polished or cleaned to restore it or is re-coating the only option?

Thanks,
Lee

[benlawrence]

your lucky, my a1 system is looking quite " ginger" these days, but i guess thats what happens when you live in a damp climate, i used to clean it up with autosol and it came up perfectly well.

I just gave up cleaning the thing in the end, it has lasted 6 years and has only just started rusting though in a lot of places on the header.

[Bernard Newbury]

As Ben said you canpolish them with Autosol, but there is a coaters in Cheshire. Very good have used them this year.  http://www.camcoat.u-net.com/

[dyno don]

Hi Bernard, Welcome to the" Hightemp Dull Club'...This is most frustrating for those of us (myself,you,and many others)who have paid a premium to ensure a nice finish only to see it go dull in a short while. I have now gone to the black ceramic coating as it lasts and looks good(old school). I have polished several exhausts when detailing only to see them dull again. My turbo ghia back in the 90's dulled within the first 1k miles which REALLY pissed me off !! Go figure,they advertise this for jet afterburners but cant even hold up to our pride and joy VW's. You know what they say "Once you go black,you never go back"..LOL   Good luck mate and keep up the good work..!  Your pal, Dyno Don

[dyno don]

oops, sorry meant for Lee...ah what the hell...we're all family here/LOL   cheers

[hotrodsurplus]

There's no reason to pay anyone to ceramic coat anything anymore. The new breed of air-cured ceramic coatings perform just as well and you can easily strip/reapply them if necessary. I've had black air-cured coating on my roadster's exhaust for six years now and it's holding up better than the oven-cured silver on my Thing's header.

www.cerakotehightemp.com/finishes/

And now that the hype and glory of ceramic is over do as Don recommended and go black. It makes a car look more grown up. I always thought the silver looks cheap like spray chrome.

You'll have to have the existing coating sandblasted off before applying a new finish. It's not exactly cheap but it's far less expensive than baked-finish coatings.