The paper presents the results of a research on the effect of Ti preimplantation in high-speed steel on the properties of TiN hard coatings. Highly polished plates of HS 6-5-2 steel were implanted with various fluencies of Ti ions and next PVD coated with TiN. The studied effects included the layer hardness, adhesion strength, wear resistance and turning tests. The adhesion strength was estimated from scratch tests. The results of investigations indicate that an increase of Ti implantation fluence reduces the strength of coating–substrate adhesion. However the turning tests show an evident improvement of the wear properties.