![\"Wolfgang](\"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/20230228_144433-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“You sound like this really isn’t worth it.”\u00a0 A conversation with a potential client (at the time) who reached out to me excited about ceramic coatings.<\/p>\n
To be honest I am not the best at selling ceramic coatings, at least not to people who are really not that interested in that kind of protection.\u00a0 I will not say that it is an insult or compliment, for obvious reasons.\u00a0 As a person who has a responsibility to put his or her best foot forward, I am constantly looking to improve in my sales process ETHICALLY.\u00a0 But my struggle is in part intentional due to my focus of managing expectations.\u00a0 Especially during these times I am very sensitive to overselling or letting someone oversell themself on coatings.\u00a0 I also have a list of clients who have booked multiple cars and been highly recommended in the past several years.\u00a0 They are happy to share that YEARS later the service still exceeds their expectations.<\/p>\n
Let us rewind the clock back 20 years.<\/p>\n
What if I told you this 6-month sealant would not (before social media) prevent scratches or may not last the full six months on the car that you are going to put 10,000 miles into.\u00a0 You were told it will last at least a year by someone eager to sell this to you.\u00a0 That is fine?\u00a0 Now, let us go back 5 to 10 years.\u00a0 People wanting to make a protection product look good (marketable) as possible for the coating supplier, emphasizing polishing the paint to perfection.\u00a0 After a few months you got that bad taste.\u00a0 \u00a0Numerous people have said, “forget this!\u00a0 I am going back to waxing!”\u00a0 Buyers remorse did not happen because everything idealized was not received, it happened because of the level of investment.<\/p>\n
The Snake Oil Question Is Really A Question Of Is Ceramic Coating DETAILING For You<\/p>\n
Did you falsely assume ease of cleaning as little to know washing, or even just rinsing the car off?\u00a0 Or did you appreciate, as someone who enjoyed already washing his or her car, that less dirt stuck and accumulated on the surface of your car?<\/p>\n
Did you falsely take scratch resistance as a crutch or an excuse to treat your car nearly the same way, to act surprised the swirls and scratches came back?\u00a0 Or did you appreciate that a less porous surface with dirt that does not stick, many a surface that is easier to wash safely?<\/p>\n
Before ceramic coatings were common, were you someone who got their car detailed once and looking for ceramic coatings to unrealistically solve all problems?\u00a0 Or were you someone who got their car (paid real money) detailed every six months, and actually washed the car in between?<\/p>\n
How someone answers those questions can easily determine if he or she falls under the category of ‘coatings are great’ or ‘coatings are a scam.’\u00a0 In general, but particularly in detailing, a source of consistent consumer dissatisfaction is a byproduct of not holding customers accountable.\u00a0 I had multiple clients tell me they were sold by my willingness to not tell them what they wanted to hear.<\/p>\n
From paint sealants that were popular 10 years ago to coatings today, it is often about perspective!\u00a0 In spite of that, through all generations the most underappreciated part of the detailing experience is the ACTUAL LACK OF APPRECIATION FOR THE DETAILING EXPERIENCE.\u00a0 The effort to and quality of a detailing process always makes what you use in the end better.<\/p>\n
What is real?\u00a0 Is it worth it?\u00a0 The truth is coatings and more importantly authentic (i.e high-end) detailing is often NOT for a majority of people.\u00a0 As a business owner in a niche industry, I would love to say otherwise.\u00a0 The issue is most people only care about detailing because they were told something exaggerated or even false about a coating that marginalized what detailing really is.\u00a0 People who are genuinely interested in detailing, often love coatings.<\/p>\n
Quite a few people are proud to say that the wax they put on their car once a year, that did not last a month, is evidence that ceramic coatings are a scam.\u00a0 What this person is really communicating is the cost differential may not be worth it for him or her.\u00a0 But to dig deeper, it is the detailing coupled with reasonable maintenance washing that this person was never interested in.\u00a0 He or she may have once been disappointed, looking for validation for a ‘magic pill’, while marginalizing the importance of the detailing process.\u00a0 I have seen many complaints and 1-Star reviews of other businesses over water-spots, which upon investigating I can tell the customers were properly instructed but willfully negligent.\u00a0 I am not the biggest fan of warranties and some of the claims made by companies.\u00a0 But from my experience in the industry, I have a good idea when many of the consumers who complain about water-spots, never read the multiple warnings about water-spots along with the tutorials on how to address them.\u00a0 It is easier to blame the bottle and detailing business for the consequences of parking by a sprinkler and expecting there would be no issue whatsoever.\u00a0 There is no product that will keep the surface from water spotting after baking in the sun and washing your car three to four times a year. There is also no product safe from a tunnel wash.\u00a0 Paint Protection Film provides real protection from swirls, but the film can be damaged in other ways.\u00a0 Rock chip protection is a lie.\u00a0 Even with Paint Protection Film, it is not bulletproof.\u00a0 I can limit the accumulation of swirls and water-spots with or without a ceramic coating.\u00a0 From experience with and without a coating on my car, I would take the coating.\u00a0 It gives me more time, less frequency of issues, and more options when bird droppings, bugs, and water deposits are on the car longer than they perhaps should be without totally detailing the car.\u00a0 This is not an issue with the product, but an issue with the end user’s lack of interest in detailing.\u00a0 THEY WERE PULLED INTO THIS WORLD FOR THE WRONG REASON, BECAUSE OF A PRODUCT NOT THE SERVICE.<\/p>\n
Don’t define whether an experience is worth it to you by people who are unwilling to budget for such services or do not care about their car like you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“You sound like this really isn’t worth it.”\u00a0 A conversation with a potential client (at the time) who reached out to me excited about ceramic coatings. To be honest I am not the best at selling ceramic coatings, at least not to people who are really not that interested in that kind of protection.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":49332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1151,38,1412,40,64,41],"tags":[4149,4152,4151,1848,4148,2872,4150],"class_list":["post-30642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coatings","category-protection","category-running-a-detailing-business","category-sealants","category-submitted-questions","category-waxes","tag-are-ceramic-coatings-worth-it","tag-auto-detaiiling","tag-ceramic-coating-myths","tag-ceramic-coatings","tag-ceramic-coatings-snake-oils","tag-finding-a-detailer","tag-mirror-reflections-auto-spa-explains-ceramic-coatings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Are-Ceramic-Coatings-Snake-Oil.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kPO7-7Ye","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30642"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49330,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30642\/revisions\/49330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}