Wondering if different dealers charge different prices... so let's see:

 

If by paint protection, you mean a crappy coat of wax with free swirl marks included, my dealer wanted to charge me $249. I told him not to touch my car. I didn't even let them take the plastic off the outside.

 

Is it really that crappy? They wanted my car for 3 hours to do it.

 

Don't get the paint protection that the dealer sells.

1) Unless the dealership has an experienced detailer or detailing shop on the premises, most dealers don't put it on right and even damage your paint.

2) On most prestige cars, the Z included, many dealerships may have already paid a detailer to put the initial paint protection on without telling you. They are gambling that the uninformed buyer will take the paint protection warranty. The majority of buyers will usually get it and the dealership knows that the profit on just one sale more than makes up for the few that don't bite. Many times the dealership will say they need the car for a few hours to prep the initial application (notice I didn't say apply). It is on there already and they just give the car a quick wash and give you back the car later to make seem like they did something. (Remember, they only prepped it. i.e. washed or dusted.)

3) The $500-$1000 you pay for on dealer paint protection is mostly for the warranty that the workmanship of the paint will last if using their product. It does not warranty against physical damage or "non-normal" wear as listed in the warranty (just about everything but washing is non-normal). If you read the fine print on the warranty, your warranty will be voided if you don't do the follow-up schedule. This is just an opportunity to sell you a maintenance kit at a "special price". Most dealerships know that very few people will actually read the fine print and do the follow up schedule. If you do follow the schedule then they make money on you all over again. Extra money to the dealership. I heard that the actual product cost them $30-$50, if even that.

If you want real paint protection that looks good check out:
Zaino, CrystalGuard, Blackfire or FiveStar Shine

 

****, I'm suppose to do it for the extended warranty! Or rather, I get one free one every 6 months.

 

LOL

 

Ah! Another dealer scam! Extended warranties can be useful if you need it. The dealerships give many the impression that you should get an extended warranty when the car is new for peace of mind. It's even a dealer option you can select when you finance your car. You don't need an extended warranty until your factory warranty is ready to expire.

Why pay for a warranty now that you can't use until after your factory warranty expires? You only need the extended warranty if you think your car is going to have nagging workmanship problems. You might not even need it if you end up getting rid of or totalling your car before the warranty expires. Most workmanship problems occur during the warranty period. Major documented problems after the warranty are usually recalls and you would be covered warranty or not. If the dealership offered GAP insurance at a reasonable price, then that might be worth considering and it would be money better spent instead of an extended warranty. Some dealerships might also offer service maintenance packages that give you discounted services at regular intervals, even if your car is out of warranty.

This makes me mad.

 

Dealership "paint protection" wow, where do I begin

Well Aggro pretty much nailed it, other than to add that outside "physical damge" (ie, the damage from road debris that you really are lead to belive this "paint protection" your paying for is going to stop), and "non-normal" wear, (whatever that is) it becomes impossible acctually qualify what it is exactly this warranty is supposed to cover

As for what you really get for your bread. The BMW dealership I work with charges $1,400 for their full interior/exterior package, no sh*t Their detailer does the work in the detail bay, it takes him about 2 hours and I see him pour the wax from a big gallon jug that Perma Plate sells them for $50. So figuring the hourly rate of the detailer and the amount of wax thats used I cant imagine the dealership is in for more than $50 a job on that stuff. wow.

 

Well, at least you did one thing right for sure: came to this forum.
Basically you should get your car as-is from the delivery truck. Tell the dealer to shove it for ANYTHING they want to add. Warranty, any protection, gizmos, alarms, even Blo-jack.

Add all that stuff later, for 50:1 savings, if you can't live without the mental satisfaction of "teflon" protection.

-Xray

 

it sounds better that the paint protection that just cost you $250 takes the detailer three hrs to do it instead of one hr and sitting in parking lot for 2 hrs.

 

i saw my car a month before i was going to buy it. when i went back to the dealer...they still had it (to my surprise) but next to the sticker price there was this little hand written sticker saying paint protection: $475. i said, listen buddy, i'm not paying you 475 bucks just because someone got bored here and decided to wax this car (the dealership is small and was kinda slow at the time). he raised an eyebrow and said, yeah, i guess you're right and took it off the price. the first one to two months, not even a piece of dust settled on my car...but today?? it's been about four months and you couldn't even tell they ever put anything on it. imagine how much crystal guard, zaino, meguiars, etc...you can buy for 475 which would do much more for you car to protect it

 

I'm the main detailer at the Nissan dealership I work at. And for the wemen that come in and buy a Z, its not that bad of a thing, seeing as they will probably NEVER get it waxed. Actually, now that Z's are starting to come back for oil changes, and services, it looks like a lot of people rarely wash their cars, and only have it done with their oil change. BTW: dont have your car washed by the dealership after your car gets serviced, that's just asking for scratches. Anyways, but the paint sealant is really a joke. IMO, the stuff we use isnt even close to as good as mequires, or other top brands that customers can purchase. But I would defenitly recommend putting some sort of wax/sealant on your car right after you buy it, it does help. BTW: paint sealant doesnt take anywhere near 3 hours.

 

Mattcord03

It sad to see that many sales people don't go the extra step to educate their buyers on basic maintenance of their car. It doesn't matter if they are women or men. Just that one step can turn them into repeat "clients" and advocates for referrals.

I don't think that those that don't take care of their cars should be taken advantaged of by selling them overpriced paint protection. If they don't wash and wax their cars regularly, why would I think that they will come in regularly to maintain their paint warranties? They need to be educated not punished with excess fees!

Just my opinion.

 

Got you all beat, the Maxwell dealerships in Austin want $2,000 for paint protection so I opted to buy my car out of state and saved a bundle. I did the job myself using Zaino show car polish. It has a mirror like finish and it looks great.

Bill

 

My dealer wanted $499 (regular price $1199 which they had crossed through, but in such a fashion that you could see they had done it intentionally) for their "paint sealant", "fabric protectant" & something which I can't remember but along the same lines. I think I upset him when I asked how he could charge me $499 for a coat of wax, scotch guard, and whatever the other thing was. He proceded to tell me how it wasn't wax, it was a teflon polymer that bonded to the paint, lasted forever and I'd never need to wax again. I again annoyed him when I explained in great detail how the flouropolymer itself wouldn't bond to the paint (flouropolymers have to be sintered to adhere permanentaly, gotta love the internship at Dupont and a father in charge of Dupont's Teflon fine powder dispersion line) and the bonding agents would wear off within a matter of months. After that, he more or less slinked away never to be seen by us again. Just for kicks though I took the literature which if you read the fine print, states you must purchase and use their "maintenance kit" twice a year. That timing sounds faimiliar, kind of like, hmmm, regular wax perhaps.......

 

$6 worth of materials. Yup... $6. If you need it that bad, just ask the detailer to do it for you at the Nissan Dealership, and they'll bust it out on a weekend. The guys at Mazda were going to do it for me for $100 and they didn't lie and said that it averages out to $6 for an entire sedan, so probalby less for the Z!