Luke 96 T/A

I'm buying a new car... and the dealer is really pushing a few of their products....
including:
3M scotchguard on the leather on fabric...
3M protective film on the hood and bumper...
Paint Sealant
Undercoating
some battery product that sends a negative charge through your car, prohibiting rust...

if I get all the paint products, they gaurantee the car for life against rust...

Have you heard about any of these, and are they worthwhile?? I still plan to zaino it.. even though they say with paint sealant, you will never need to wax your car again...

I plan on getting the undercoating, the 3m protective film, and the paint sealant... I don't think the scotch guard or the battery product are worthwhile.. (I don't think the negative charge would be strong enough to travel through any metallic parts of the body....)

Let me know if you think any of these are junk!! $1000 for all!

jimmyS

Had to go register to reply, been lurking here for a couple of years .

The dealer is pushing this stuff because he makes a fortune on them. For example:
a) The scotchguard can be done on the carpets/mats by buying a $10.00 can of it at the local auto parts store & spraying it on yourself. The only difference between it and the stuff the dealer applies is the dealer buys bulk & gets it even cheaper.

b) The paint sealant is nothing more than a cheap synthetic cleaner/polish that is bought in bulk and costs about $2.00 per car in materials (they wash & wax anyways so labour is free).

Had a friend fall for this, one year and one winter later his finish looks dull & cloudy. He called up the dealership & they said they'd fix it. They'll throw on another coat which costs them $20.00 (including labour) and hope next year he doesn't bother.

Above info/prices come from a kid I work with who did PDI for a dealership while in College.

c) The battery is a new one on me, I'd ask how it's suppose to prevent rust.

d) Ask to see the rust through warrantee. Most only cover up to the cost of the rustproofing (if your car rusts through, they give you your money back). Also, damage due to stone chips isn't covered so unless they see totally intact paint over the rust it isn't covered (this is the same as the manufacturers warantee).

Remember, your car is already covered for 5yrs (I believe) under the manufacturers warantee.

My 94 Camaro went through 6 canadian winters and 120,000 miles with no rust through. Only problem was the undercarrage had a lot of surface rust after the first winter so I went with the undercoat on my 2000 Z28.

I see my 94 crusing around town, still looks great .

There's a web site on dealer scams which lists what all these extra's cost. You might want to do a search & read before you part with your money.

Fry

I'm also from Canada (Edmonton) and what I've always done to prevent rusting is bolted and wired some kind of electron donating metal to the car somewhere underneath (like a block of aluminum), they cost about 20 bucks at any metal producer and the block will slowly wear away instead of rust developping on your car!

moparman

J. C. Whitney sells the device that stops rust by electrically charging the metal parts of a car.

lbls1

Just get the undercoat. Even there, price out some local guys that will do it, because more than likely it will be cheaper. Been there, done that.

KevinSS

Good Gosh, I would go to another dealer myself.

My Observations:

You did not tell us what kind of car, but GM has standard 10 year and 100,000 mile rust thru warranty on their cars so the dealers claim is bogus (does not say much for the dealer's integrity)

"3M scotchguard on the leather on fabric..."

Never heard of anyone putting scotchguard on leather, leather needs cleaning and treating every so often with a leather conditioner to replace the oils lost over time, last thing you would want to do would be to put a substance on the leather that could flake off.

Again, GM has been applying a scotchguard treatment to the cloth and carpet at the factory for years, many brochures on a give car mention this.

"3M protective film on the hood and bumper..."

Actually not a bad idea IF done correctly where it is almost invisible, tons of guys with the new 350Z on www.my350z.com have done it.

"Paint Sealant"

Scam, rip off, there is no such thing as an honest "never wax your car product again" Cost the dealer about 30 bucks in parts and labor and they charge average Joe 300 to 400, tell them to cram that one.....

"Undercoating"

Good and Bad, most cars already have a factory undercoating on the frame, but not so on the axels and sway bars by GM for example, I have seen some good jobs and some hack jobs of undercoating where they guy spraying the stuff ruined electric connections with the crap, got some on the block that smoked and smell awful, etc... You can do it yourself with a cheap can of rubber coating or better yet coat the rusty areas yourself with www.por15.com

"some battery product that sends a negative charge through your car, prohibiting rust..."

There is a product made for show cars that is supposed to do this while in storage, the unit I refer to is electric, in other words AC powered and not DC powered and has to be hooked up to the house or garage outlets. Been talked about on Speed TV. This is mainly used on older cars made when rust proofing was never done at the factory. I would consider it a waist of time and effort on a modern car.

SSMOKEDU

It sounds to me as if the dealer is trying to get more $ out of you.

For the leather, I'd recommend Zaino's products. They're the best I've found. And for anything you want to Scotch Guard, don't have the dealer charge you for it. Go to a store like WalMart and buy their brand...the ingredients are the same as the Scotch Guard brand, but it costs less.

I'd pass on the paint sealer as well, and use the Zaino like you're planning.

baddogz28

I am a car saleman, cost on the protection package is probably right around $200, offer him $299 and you get a good deal. The products are worthwhile, not just BS as you guys think. If my car saw snow, I'd do it to mine too (and I did it to my mom's car), but my car is garaged and only driven in spring/summer and I wax my car once a week. The paint shield is applied after the paint is cleaned w/ paint cleaning clay, and you don't have to wax the car for 5 years, but anybody that takes good care of their car will wax it anyway. The rustproof is also not BS, the cars have no protection from the factory anyway, contrary to pop. belief. (The raw steel is galvinized b/c it sits outside before production and the Car Co's don't want it to rust, and it gets burned off the material at the spot welds (3000 degrees. The galvinized coating melts off @ 2000 degrees.)

The question is, Luke, can you get a good price on it? I'm sure I could, and you can too. If he is charging $1000, you can get it cheaper. IMO, don't do the 3m paint guard, it looks ugly and is near impossible to take off.

By the way, Mod... I know that I'm a newbie here but i'm active on on one of the "other" boards. Please understand that every dealer is different, and mine doesn't sell garbage products, so please don't flame dealers or salesmen. Thanks.

JIMMYS: How can you talk about a dealer's cost? What makes you educated enough to comment on the dealer's processes and practices? Do you sell at a dealer? I didn't think so. Oh, and by the way, we send all protector packages out to another company that does them. And I wish cost on the packages was $2.00 or whatever you said it "was," then I'd make more than a whopping $25 to sell it for $300. The dealer is entitled to sell products for whatever they want because we sure as hell don't make much on the cars.

And PDI guys don't have anything to do with anything but checking a cars fluids, installing hubcaps/antennas and making sure the cars aren't damaged when they come off the truck. Hardly an authority.

KevinSS

If you are going to use Zaino you will waist big money on the sealant as per Zaino instructions, it is ONLY applied directly to bare paint, it can and will not adhere to other waxes, polishes, or sealants......

KevinSS

"I am a car saleman, cost on the protection package is probably right around $200"

If done in house I do not see how it could be that high, the dealers I worked with (I financed floor plans for local dealers thru our bank) did them in house, cost of materials might have been 5 or 10 bucks and the labor they paid the guys in the clean up shop was very cheap. Sales guys at the dealership I worked with got big commissions when they sold a paint package.....

"The rustproof is also not BS, the cars have no protection from the factory anyway"

Not true in all cases that I know of, for example, most all cars now have electroplated primer applied at the factory using a huge dip bath, essentially sealing the body panels inside and out. Any many cars (example below) have rust proof coating applied on the frames (just look under any GM car and scrap the frame for those cars have actual frames with a coin and this gobby black gooey stuff will come off) That gooey stuff is applied at the factory and I have a 96 Impala SS and the production code for such coating is: Chevy RPO code 1Z2 VEHICLE PREPARATION - ANTI CORROSION HOT MELT

My 99 Silverado has the same hot melt on the frame also, but not on the axels or sway bars. The A arms and springs are powder coated. The only places on my vehicles that have surface rust are those two places and I www.por15.com them so that is fixed.

"don't do the 3m paint guard, it looks ugly and is near impossible to take off"

I have not seen 3M applied in a while, most guys on www.my350z.com are running InvisiShield and you have to get really close to see the edge of he film, again it depends on what kind of car you are buying, some car designs lend themselves to lots of chips like the new 350 Z and some do not.. http://www.sysmatrix.net/~bum/products.htm

My personal preference is to add nothing to the cost of a new car.

baddogz28

We don't do it in house- we send it out to another company, and the process takes 1/2 day or so.
BTW I said cost for MY dealer is $200, I was just speculating on the dealer Luke is at, but most dealers do similar things because of the same vendors selling the products. The black gummy stuff is the same thing that is part of the package, and it is applied to the undercarriage as a sound deadener. What protection do your floorplans have? The warranties for corrosion is 12 mos/12000 miles for most domestics. Wouldn't the warranty be longer if they didn't know that the cars might rust? I rest my case-this is my last reply.

KevinSS

"What protection do your floorplans have?"

All of my vehicles floor pans are painted at the factory.


"The warranties for corrosion is 12 mos/12000 miles for most domestics"

Nope, reading from page 4, 1996 Genuine Chevrolet Warranty and Owner Assistance Information (booklet in the glove box with the car owners manual)

Corrosion: 3 years 36,000 miles

Sheet Metal Rust Through: 6 years and 100,000 miles.

Reading from page 5 of the 1999 Light Duty Truck Warranty and Owner Assistance Information booklet:

3 years 36,000 miles

Sheet Metal rust through: 6 years 100,000 miles...........