We have seen multiple customers with new vehicles pay anywhere from $400 all the way up to $1700 for the dealerships "paint protection plan". Many people often wonder what products are used, how the product works, and how it can actually protect your vehicle's paint for its entire life. In this article I will do my best to explain this service, and why it is 100% exploiting customers buying vehicles.
The environment does nothing to help your vehicle's paint. Bird droppings, tar, acids, salts, and much more are some examples of ways that the environment can compromise the paint on your vehicle. In the "good ol days" a pure carnauba paste wax was the most popular way to protect the paint from environmental fallout. As the rest of the world has evolved since then, so has car wax. Car care chemists and scientists have discovered different ways to maximize paint protection, one being a polymer sealant. A true polymer sealant has been proven to seal and protect paint for up to twelve times longer than a traditional carnauba wax. This being said, there is NO product that can guarantee to protect your paint from the environment throughout its entire life.
When buying a new or used vehicle, paint is important. The color, style, durability, and condition of the paint are usually factors in the purchase of that auto. Because of this, dealerships like to convince customers that the paint on the car needs their paint protection. Usually the dealership will claim that with this application of sealant, your paint is warrantied against environmental fallout for its entire life. Again, there is NO product that can truly back this claim. What they do NOT tell you is that you have to return every 6 months to 1 year to re-apply this protectant. Some dealers actually charge ANOTHER premium to re-apply it as well.
There are car care chemical manufactures all over the globe. A lot of these manufactures provide dealerships with their best polymer sealants for this application. They are all in competition, and trying to provide the BEST PRICE and product. The dealership will ultimately decide which is best for them, and purchase it. After much convincing, the customer will then order the paint protection service. The purchased car will go back to the porter or detail bay to receive this sealant application. This service is usually done by a porter with no true detail training or experience.
In my opinion, the rate at which dealerships charge for this service is disgusting. Applying a wax or sealant to a vehicle takes no more than an hour even for somebody that has never done it before. The products in which they use cannot cost more than $45/gallon. It takes about 2oz. out of that 128oz. bottle to apply it to a vehicle. That means they can do about 64 cars with that gallon. A dealership porter usually makes around 8-10 dollars per hour. This service can cost up to $1700. So, $1700 a car multiplied by 64 cars is what they will make off a gallon of paint sealant. I am all for building our economy, and supporting small and local business, but I cannot sit by and watch my customers get "ripped off" by these car dealerships!