Lil’ scrub up after a road trip

[M6TT F]

First wash after picking up. More surface scratches than I would like to see on a new vehicle, but it’s had the dealer ceramic, so it is what it is. Looks great in the sun

 

[SRGTD]

From your picture it looks good in spite of any dealer-inflicted scratches.

VW dealer has tried to sell me paint protection with the last four cars I’ve bought but I’ve always politely declined; I’ve seen the standard of new vehicle prep by some dealers (admittedly, some dealers will be better than others though) and that, along with the price quoted by the dealer, was more than enough to put me off allowing a dealer to apply paint protection to my car.

I’m a bit of a detailing hobbyist; I’ve got a DA polishing machine and lots of different polishing / detailing products so I tend to do mine myself, although I’m finding it’s becoming more difficult to do with advancing years and a long standing dodgy back ; after 5-6 hours of machine polishing, I usually have aches and pains in places I didn’t know could ache! Needless to say, my car doesn’t get machine polished very often……

 

[M6TT F]

From your picture it looks good in spite of any dealer-inflicted scratches.

VW dealer has tried to sell me paint protection with the last four cars I’ve bought but I’ve always politely declined; I’ve seen the standard of new vehicle prep by some dealers (admittedly, some dealers will be better than others though) and that, along with the price quoted by the dealer, was more than enough to put me off allowing a dealer to apply paint protection to my car.

I’m a bit of a detailing hobbyist; I’ve got a DA polishing machine and lots of different polishing / detailing products so I tend to do mine myself, although I’m finding it’s becoming more difficult to do with advancing years and a long standing dodgy back ; after 5-6 hours of machine polishing, I usually have aches and pains in places I didn’t know could ache! Needless to say, my car doesn’t get machine polished very often……

In total agreement with you. Not something I normally take up from the dealership. There’s no way they have the time to do a proper polish and ceramic coat, to the standard of a professional or enthusiast. But it was included in the discounted weekend offers, so it seemed pointless to decline it. It’s by no means terrible, and it will get washed sympathetically and appropriately from this point on

 

[SRGTD]

There’s no way they have the time to do a proper polish and ceramic coat, to the standard of a professional or enthusiast. But it was included in the discounted weekend offers, so it seemed pointless to decline it. It’s by no means terrible, and it will get washed sympathetically and appropriately from this point on

Agree; a professional or an enthusiast owner would do much more and take much longer; with a professional, most of what you’d pay to have a car ceramic coated or detailed relates to the labour cost and the professional’s time to do the work. A professional or an enthusiast would work through the following stages;

• a full paintwork decontamination (important stage; maximises the bonding properties of the coating to the paintwork). Even though it’s a brand new car there will be fallout and embedded contaminants to remove.
• a prewash followed by a ‘safe‘ 2BM or 3BM wash
• dry the car; warm air dryer and / or micro fibre drying towels to minimise paintwork damage
• paintwork inspection and machine polish to remove imperfections
• panel wipe to remove any oil / polish residues from the polishing process.

Paintwork should then be ready to applying the coating. Once applied, the coating would be left to cure - curing time will depend on the specific coating that’s applied; left to cure overnight is often the norm, although many coatings can take up to 48hrs to fully cure. The wheels will also be given a similar treatment. Finally, the windows, trims and tyres will be cleaned and dressed.

All of the above could take around 1.5 - 2 days.

As you’ve said, a car dealership won’t have the luxury of up to 2 days to prep and ceramic coat a new car; time‘s money to them, and a specific time will be allocated to prepping a new car and the workshop space required to do the work. It’s unlikely a dealership will carry out a decontamination stage (some probably won’t have even heard of it! ). Before the coating’s applied, the car will be washed - probably using the old single bucket, sponge and wash leather method - hence why you found some surface scratching on your car. Once washed, the coating is applied. Time taken?……………probably 2 hours in total.

I think I would have been a bit cheeky and would have been tempted to decline the dealer application of the ceramic coating. Instead, I’d have asked what discount there was off the price of the car for not having them spend their time applying the ceramic coating, I’d have also asked for the products so I could’ve done it myself…….. They’d probably have said ‘no’ though, on the basis they were doing it for free .