Well, I just bought one, so I guess I’m the sucker.
It’s not all cosmetic, though it does make your car look clean and shiny, if you get lots of dirt or bird droppings or whatever it makes it easier to clean. Like the anti water coatings on glasses and phone screens. At least until it wears out in a couple years.
It tends to be the kind thing you get seriously up charged on though.
Thanks for the confirmation—my impression was that it was more effective than traditional wax at making dirt easier to wash off. Here in the PNW (and especially where I live) there is a lot of tree sap that is very hard to get off. The ceramic is supposed to be better for this. Or at least that’s the sales pitch. Given the cost of the car, the cost of the ceramic is pretty minor. I’m sure they do run a big margin on it, though. Like all add-ons, I guess. I’ll get it and report back.
I hadn’t heard about this, but we have a big oak that is a huge sap dispenser. Fortunately my neighbors car gets the worst of it, not mine!
Also if you go to the high desert, dust and ash like crazy.
I work next to a lumber yard and every few weeks, the wind brings over the sawdust…all over our cars…the owner tells me to bitch them out but I just pretend to walk over to their office and do the deed…and invariably the wind shifts and it’s ok…for another 2 weeks.
What kind of car? Ceramic coating is very popular with the enthusiast community, though I’ve always been way too cheap to go for it.
Mercedes SL550 roadster.
In that case, um, yeah. Get it coated. That is certainly one where it will be worth it.
I have ceramic coated 3 of our families cars. The coating itself is basically very hard, and extremely hydrophobic. So when clean it create a gloss that is mirror like, and lasts years with minimal care. And as noted, it makes car cleanup much easier.
The cost for the ceramic coat material is not all that high, maybe $50/car for what I bought. However to make it look good and last you need to do multiple prep steps to remove all contaminates from the paint and then buff-polish to a high shine with a polisher. So there are material costs there too. It took me 8-12hrs per car of labor on cars that were already in pretty good shape, but I’m not a pro detailer so maybe they can do it faster.
👍🏻
I’m certainly not going to do it myself, but thanks for the info that it is something that can be and is done. The dealer will charge me $1250, which given the cost of the car is certainly a miniscule amount, but sure they’re probably making a 75% profit. The one thing they do say is that they need the car for 48 hours to do it, but whatever.
Check with the dealer if they warrantee in writing the ceramic coating. The 3rd party detailers often warrantee the coatings they apply. If the dealer gets shifty, get the coating done by a quality local detailer.
Why did I do it myself? Well my son bought the coating for me as a Christmas gift, and we did the cars together. I find it pretty relaxing work, almost meditative.
They will warranty it for three years, so I’m going to go ahead and get it done. Thanks for the advice.
Oh, I didn’t mean to call your decision to do it yourself into question. I think it’s great. It’s just not something I’m gonna do. Nice to hear that in the end it’s less about materials costs and more about good old skill, time, and elbow grease.
No worries, I did not take it like that. I only wanted to point out that at least for me car detailing is hard, but relaxing work.
Good luck, I think you will enjoy the shine.
High end detailing shops around here will do it so you can certainly shop the cost around if you think the car dealer is making a lot off of it. And on a car like that, I agree, take care of it.
I should add, I’m in North Carolina but the ceramic coats here have a base price around $500-599 which scales up based on the car size, etc. They also recommend 2/yr refreshes so anyone guaranteeing a longer timeline would be worth a higher cost (at their expense if you need reapplication.)
EDIT: I forgot to mention that’s based on the lower hardness ceramic. They have different levels (and costs) and you get up into more than 2 years with a harder ceramic coating. Again, ask what you’re getting and cost shop if needed.
The chart is wrong because I do not see Subaru in either Oregon or Washington.
EDIT: to be clear, I am half joking and half not. The top 3 manufacturers in Oregon are Toyota, Ford, and Subaru, order may vary year to year some. Dodge doesn’t crack the top 5 (barely the top 10). So I am literally saying I do not believe the Ram, unless this is literally the only Dodge vehicle that measurably sold in Oregon (actually plausible, their lines otherwise suck), and chip shortage weirdness led to anomalous sales totals (also plausible)
That chart seem strange to me as well, especially this part:
Does that mean they are the only makers represented at all or that they are only pulling the top sold from those makers or what? Suspiciously absent are more Japanese, Korean, European and even US manufacturers.
It’s almost as though that graph was purposefully trying to show that trucks are the highest sales. Not saying the data is wrong, just … strange?
Here’s a full list of amount sold in 2019. It expands upon that chart and looks more realistic after going past the, “top 3 by state.”
Hmm shortages into 2023 doesn’t sound good.
We had to bite the bullet after being a one car family for 15 years, driving the same RAV4 the entire time with zero major issues. It was, and still is, a damn fine car.
We went with a Volvo CX90 plug in hybrid as we need a third row for towing kids around but wanted something that offers (limited) all electric capability. We originally had an order for a three tow Tesla Model Y but the delivery date kept moving back, plus the more I look at it the more I can’t figure out how three rows actually works.
Having not had a new car since before modern cell phones were invented, the Volvo is like stepping out of a time machine into the future.
On the car supply side, the Volvo dealer said things were a bit better since 2022s were coming in slowly, but I got one of three available plug in CX90s in the metro area (Chicago, so a ton of Volvo dealers with not much inventory). So definitely a sellers market at the moment, but we couldn’t wait a few years to let the market sort itself out.
It’s a two row Tesla that has an option to pop up a third row of seats for kids in your trunk. Though, that means the third row eats into your trunk space when it’s up.