Free guide for new car owners

Read This Before You Say Yes to the Dealer's Paint Protection

You get about ninety seconds to decide, at the desk where the paperwork gets signed, on something you have no way of checking. This is what is actually in those packages.

• Why a brand new car is not a clean car, plus what is usually sitting on top of the paint when you collect it.
• The five questions that tell you in about a minute whether a package is worth paying for. You do not need to know anything about detailing to ask them.
• What "lifetime warranty" usually means once you read the conditions underneath it.
• What adding $3,000 to your finance really costs across a five year loan. Almost nobody asks this one.
• The four surfaces most packages ignore, which happen to be the ones that make a car look old.

Written by a detailer, not a dealer. We coat cars for a living, so we are not going to tell you paint protection is a waste of money. It is not. But there is a difference between a product applied properly and a product applied over the top of whatever is already on your paint. That difference is worth knowing before you sign.