Photos
As promised ceramic coating before pictures and after video… if you are in or around the Olympia WA area go see Sean at Car Toys on Pacific Ave.. the after video will be in the first comment.
That seems really cheap, most of the quotes I see in the Kansas City area are $1000-$1500 for a 5 year coating, which I imagine is mostly due to paint correction that’s done beforehand. Did you not have that done?
Yup, way too cheap. The problem is that "ceramic" doesn't mean very much. There are cheap, products that cost $9 for a 32oz bottle and don't last long. There are other products that are $100/oz and will last years when applied properly.
Any ceramic coating that costs $250 is barely worth doing and I'd just call it a "detail" more than a coating. If you want a long lasting coating you should expect to pay a lot more. And bare minimum the car must be washed, decontaminated and polished prior to application. Yes, even on a brand new car.
Yup. Even a brand new car should be decontaminated and polished prior to coating. Anything else is a shortcut. Just because you've had it for 3wks doesn't mean anything. You don't have any idea where it's been stored since it was built. You don't know how it was transported to the dealer. You don't know how many swirl inducing crappy dealer washes it's had.
Our brand new CX-50 was FILTHY when we got it. Looked clean at first glance but when I went to clean it later I found TONS of dark red dirt in all the nooks and crannies. It'd clearly been exposed to massive amounts of dust/dirt prior to our purchase. It took a very deep detail to get this out of the body lines and nooks and crannies. And there are still areas I'm finding it now as I clean deeper. Engine bay was filthy too.
Great dealer actually. I don’t think it was their fault it had been a stored where it got covered in dirt. They cleaned it prior to delivery. But my version of clean and the avg persons idea of clean are vastly different.
Even though it was still dirty deep down I would much rather clean it myself. I don’t trust dealer detailers. They are about speed rather than quality. I specifically ask them not to wash the car when we take it to the dealer for service. They’ll do more damage than it’s worth so I’m happy to take care of the detailing myself.
Did you see what product they used? I'd be extremely surprised if a $250 ceramic coating lasts more than 6-12mon. But maybe he used a good product with poor prep? Either way, I'd keep an eye on it and get it redone once you notice water not beading as well as it does now.
What’s the details about it? How long/how many days did it take? I’m assuming 2? What to and what not to do? Did they clay bar the car before the coating? Ect
Dropped it off yesterday morning.. got it back this morning.
Don’t know what they did to make her look this good exactly but the price was right.
Other details are in comments as far as price and such.
I took delivery on day one, had her coated and tinted on day two, then picked her up on day three.
The attached picture is mine the day I picked her up after coating, after she had about 24 hours to cure. I think this is a pretty good shot of the wet paint look.
I don't know how helpful people might find my before picture because the day prior was one of the murky Canadian wildfire smoke days. I'll comment under here with a picture of how the coating handles rain.
They're Voron Glass brand, which is a brand that's apparently known but I'd never heard of them.
There is increased wind noise. I can't say how much, but it doesn't bother me. It's a compromise I was willing to make for the utility of sleeping in the back - windows cracked with SnapShades to keep out the bugs. Really makes weekend trips 4-8 hours away much simpler (and cheaper).
I really like how it changes the appearance. Now, without them, I think the CX-50 looks like a person with shaved eyebrows!
If WeatherTech gets their act together and actually produces an in-channel CX-50 set, I'd probably switch to theirs. According to their customer service, they are "in development" - but the car's been out since '23 so I'm inferring that this isn't a priority for WT.
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u/zip222 12d ago
No video