Koch-Chemie Ceramic Effect Polish "Cep" Foam Polish 20000ml

Foam polish Cep for hydrophobic gloss straight out of the car wash

The foam polish Ceramic Effect Polish "Cep" is a brush-activated premium concentrate for automatic car washes and gantry systems. Just 5 to 10 millilitres per car lay down a protective film that breaks the water apart and sheets it straight off. Not for hand or touchless washing, not for interior materials like leather or upholstery.

Koch-Chemie Ceramic Effect Polish "Cep" is a brush-activated foam polish from the professional machine-line range, made for the final stage of a car wash. The active ingredient is an amino-functional siloxane polymer — in plain terms, a flexible silicone with grabbing nitrogen anchors that lock onto the clear coat the moment brushes or Swingtex strips work it into the paint. What that means for you: the car leaves the line with real beading that holds until the next wash.

• Micro-dosing, 5 to 10 ml per car. One 20-litre canister covers up to 4,000 washes. Standard machine polishes need 10 to 70 ml or grams per car — Cep uses 2 to 10 times less product and frees up space in the chemical store.
• Paint, glass and the machine are protected at once. The siloxane layer doesn't just seal clear coat, glass and plastic trim — it also impregnates the brushes and Swingtex strips of the machine itself. What we see day-to-day: roughly 20 percent longer service life on the wash materials.
• Five minutes dwell time max, paint surface up to 30 °C. Inside that window Cep won't attack paint, chrome or plastic. In day-to-day running that means: if the conveyor stops for more than three minutes, hit the cars with the pressure washer, or you get polymer spots.

Detailing1's tip from the shop: What we see on every other site that switches to Cep is the same picture: the old diaphragm dosing pump is still set to 30 to 50 ml per wash, because that is what the previous polish needed. The result: smeary streaks on the windscreen, juddering wipers, the hydrophobic effect gone. The pro rule: before the first Cep run, recalibrate the pump to 5 to 10 ml, no exceptions, and check the dosing valve after 200 washes. If the conveyor stops for more than three minutes, hit the cars with the pressure washer too — polymer burn-in above 30 °C paint temperature is the most expensive warranty question a site operator can face.

Cep only works when the brushes massage the paint

The foam arch has to sit before the final brush or Swingtex station, or the water film won't break. Touchless machines give Cep too little mechanical friction, so the hydrophobic effect drops out completely.

The amino-siloxanes aren't passive layer-builders — they only react under pressure. The polymer's nitrogen anchors reach for the clear-coat surface like little magnets, and only once Swingtex or PE brushes press the foam into the paint do the siloxane chains line up and build the hydrophobic layer. What that means for you: without the paint massage the car comes out of the drying arch wet, the blower runs longer, and the meter ticks up with it.

The dosing pump puts out between 5 and 10 millilitres per car — no more. On older machines that ran 30 to 50 ml for other polishes, the balance between foam look and residue on the glass falls apart. A second lever: the paint surface has to stay cool, ideally under 30 °C. In direct summer sun at the exit, foamed-up Cep can dry on before the brushes reach it — and that leaves polymer spots you can only get off with the Fine Cut F6.01 cutting polish.

Setting up a service station from scratch? The Koch-Chemie range covers the full car-wash workflow: alkaline pre-wash, neutral main shampoo, Cep in the foam arch, high-pressure rinse, high-output blower. That sequence is also what keeps the machine within the industry specs for paint, plastic and chrome compatibility.

The surfactant system carries a non-ionic helper — in plain terms, a go-between for the water-hating silicone and the water. The surfactant keeps the amino-siloxanes in a foamable solution so the foam pattern stays stable. Day-to-day you notice it in the visual foam arch that operators and end customers both expect. If the foam goes too loose or collapses too fast, the surfactant helper is usually over-dosed — and Cep then gets diluted on the paint too quickly, the hydrophobic effect goes flat and the beading after the dryer disappoints.

Cep protects, but it won't correct micro-scratches

The Cep layer is a sacrificial layer until the next wash, not a 9H coating. If you want lasting paint protection, run Cep over a real Ceramic Allround C0.02 ceramic coating as the base underneath.

Clear-coat surfaces, painted alloy wheels, glass, plastic trim and rubber seals all take Cep without a problem. Interior materials are a hard no: leather, Alcantara, upholstery and open-pore plastics soak up the amino-siloxanes for good. On upholstery that turns into stains, on leather a slippery surface — neither comes back. Bare, non-clear-coated aluminium is out too, because Cep has no acidic cleaning action and won't shift brake dust.

Micro-dosing is where it pulls ahead. Standard machine polishes sit at 10 to 20 millilitres per car, some foam preservatives even at 50 to 70 grams per car. In practice that means: at 1,000 washes a month a Cep machine gets through five to ten litres of concentrate, against 50 to 70 kilos with a 50-to-70-gram product. That is containers, logistics, storage, drum changes across shifts — the micro-dosing isn't just product cost, it is storage and labour efficiency.

The most common mistake in practice: the conveyor stopping with the foam arch running. When the line stalls, Cep sits on the paint for more than five minutes. The industrial compatibility certificate from the German Automotive Industry Association holds exactly to 300 seconds — think of it as a TÜV-style industry seal that won't attack paint, chrome or plastic inside the defined window. Past that you risk polymer burn-in, especially in summer. The fix: a conveyor-stop SOP for the staff and an emergency pressure rinse in the drying zone.

For where it fits, the rule is simple. Machine line with a paint massage → Cep. Hand wash or detail work → the lighter-concentrated Ceramic Effect Shampoo "Ces" from the same polymer family. Paint correction needed → a cutting or anti-hologram polish with a machine. Cep doesn't replace machine polishing — it is the final seal, not a cut and not a cleaner.

Cep is built as a pure B2B concentrate. In the machine room, gloves and safety glasses are mandatory kit and an eye wash has to be within reach. In the recycled-water loop Cep is unproblematic: micro-dosing of 5 to 10 ml keeps the active-ingredient concentration in the recycled water below the threshold for the treatment micro-organisms. That is also why Koch-Chemie explicitly clears Cep for biological process-water treatment systems — over-dose it and that clearance is void.

20-litre canister for pro machines, not for the home wash

Cep is aimed at car-wash operators, gantry systems, dealerships with their own machine and specialised B2B detailers. For a hobby detailer without a dosing pump, the canister simply isn't practical.

The 20-litre pack size is built for machines with diaphragm dosing pumps. Run a gantry at a dealership and one canister covers three to six months depending on volume. A self-service bay only benefits if the dosing gear is fine enough to calibrate — most self-service foam arches sit around 30 ml, outside the Cep spec.

An established best practice from the pro side: Cep as a booster on cars already sealed with a real ceramic base like Ceramic Allround C0.02 or Ceramic Body Cb0.01. The gentle amino-siloxane top-up reactivates the beading on an older coating that has gone flat from traffic film. A fleet on a Cb coating plus a regular Cep pass typically holds its showroom gloss six to nine months longer than a fleet without that combo.

Recalibrating an old machine? Best to plan the first 50 washes as a test batch: start the pump at 7 millilitres, then check the beading after the drying arch on 10 random cars. If the water sheets off flat instead of in clean beads, you are either short on foam-arch pressure or the brush contact time is too short. Only then touch the dosing. Put another way: the chemistry isn't the lever, the machine mechanics are. Cep's polymer concentration is already dialled in — everything you do as an operator tunes the activation mechanics.

The trick the manufacturer's brochure doesn't spell out: the polymer layer impregnates the machine's brushes so well that their service life climbs about 20 percent with consistent Cep use. On a typical car wash with two gantry-brush sets a year, that saves a four-figure sum in brush swaps and service work — the biggest hidden bit of economics in this concentrate, and the real reason pro sites rarely give Cep back once they have calibrated their pumps properly.

Application of Koch-Chemie Ceramic Effect Polish Cep

Calibrating the system and positioning Cep in the workflow

The diaphragm dosing pump of the car wash system must be set to 5 to 10 milliliters per vehicle. Older systems that ran with 30 to 50 ml for other polishes must be recalibrated before the first Cep run - otherwise streaks will appear on the windshield and paintwork.

Position the foam arch so that a brush or Swingtex station follows after application. The paint massage by brushes is a prerequisite for polymer activation - without mechanical friction from the brushes, the hydrophobic effect will not occur, and the car will leave the system wet.

Workflow in the system: alkaline pre-wash (e.g., Active Foam Af) → neutral main shampoo → Cep in foam arch 5 to 10 ml → brush or Swingtex massage → high-pressure rinse → high-performance blower. Ideally, paint surface should be below 30 °C, never apply in direct summer sun in the exit area - otherwise polymer spots are likely.

Maximum dwell time of 5 minutes in accordance with the industrial compatibility requirements of the German Association of the Automotive Industry. If the conveyor stops for more than three minutes, vehicles must be freed from Cep by emergency high-pressure spray, otherwise polymer burns can only be removed with the abrasive polish Fine Cut F6.01.

Notes: Cep is exclusively designed for automatic car wash systems with a dosing pump - not for hand or touchless washing, not for interior materials such as leather, Alcantara, or upholstery, not for raw aluminum without clear coat. In the system room, protective gloves, safety glasses, and an eyewash station within reach are mandatory equipment. Store frost-free between 5 and 30 °C. In a 20-liter canister as a pure B2B concentrate. Explicitly approved for biological process water treatment systems - this approval only applies to microdosing of 5 to 10 ml per vehicle; it will be voided if overdosed.