The Car Dealership “Ceramic Coating” Scam
If you have bought a new car recently, you might have noticed the dealership trying to sell you a “Ceramic Coating” on your new vehicle. While this sounds like a great way to protect your new vehicle, the dealership is likely tricking you into what the “Ceramic Coating” can do. The “Ceramic Coating” they are offering you is likely not a real ceramic coating, but instead a cheap ceramic spay wax. When I say ceramic spray wax, I am talking about a traditional wax that has some ceramic properties to it. A real ceramic coating is not a wax, it is a permanent sealant applied to your vehicles paint after decontaminating and polishing the clear coat. A real ceramic coating takes days of labor and is thus very expensive. Real ceramic coatings provide the maximum level of gloss, slickness, chemical protection, and makes water repel of the paint. These effects last years and the coating will not come off without polishing.
What the dealership is likely offering is a cheap ceramic spray wax that gives you a month or two of protection at most. These coatings are not true ceramic coatings and will wear off with a couple of simple washes. The waxes used by dealerships are typically subpar quality, applied poorly, and are worse than consumer grade waxes. How do I know this? Let me explain.
When a relative of mine was purchasing a new vehicle, the dealership tried to sell them a “Ceramic Coating” that they had already applied to the vehicle for $800. Luckily I was there and had noticed that a cheap spray coating had been applied poorly to the paint. There was streaking, a bad finish, and the paint felt like sandpaper. A true ceramic coating is smoother than glass and should never have any streaking. Additionally, I researched the product they used and found out on their own website that it is a spray wax, not a ceramic coating. When we got the vehicle home, the first thing I did was perform a strip wash and apply a real ceramic coating. The wax the dealer had used on the paint was so low quality that it wore off in one wash.
At Wheelhouse Detailing, we use a ceramic spray wax, but a high-quality one that is applied properly. We do not advertise it as a ceramic coating, because it is not. The coating we use on your vehicles requires chemical decontamination to remove, and will not come off with a strip wash (I’ve tried). This goes to show how low quality the waxes the dealerships use.
Dealerships are able to advertise these as “Ceramic Coatings” because they are coatings, and have ceramic in them. But they are not real ceramic coatings that the detailing industry recognizes. You should never pay $800 for a cheap spray wax that has been poorly applied in 5 minutes by an undertrained employee of the dealership.
The worst part of this trend is the blatant lies that the dealerships are willing to tell in order to trick you into buying this coating. First of all, when I was at the dealership, there was a advertisement showing the benefits of the coating. It listed all the qualities of a real ceramic coating, saying it would last 10 years. It also said that the raw materials cost of the coating was something in the range of $1200 dollars. This is bogus, high quality ceramic coatings should not cost more than $200 in raw materials, and $1200 would be just labor.
Dealerships don’t have the time or money to ceramic coat all the new vehicles they sell. It just would not be possible. A ceramic coating on a new vehicle would take thousands of dollars in labor per vehicle and they would not have enough time to do every vehicle. This is just another cash grab attempt by dealerships to trick customers who know little about the detailing industry into spending another $800 on a new vehicle.
Luckily I was able to prevent the dealership from charging my relative on the new vehicle because I had shown that I knew it was not a real coating. If you or someone you know is planning on buying a new vehicle, be aware of dealerships trying to charge for a “Ceramic Coating” because it is likely a scam.
