{"id":48722,"date":"2026-07-04T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/?p=48722"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:31:48","slug":"paint-protection-film-ppf-fallacy-of-the-free-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/paint-protection-film-ppf-fallacy-of-the-free-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Paint Protection Film (PPF) Fallacy Of The Free Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

“How long did it take you to get good (or) comfortable installing paint protection film?”<\/p>\n

Most common answer amongst distinguished and decorated detailing professionals who own businesses is one year minimum.\u00a0 I want you to let that sit in.\u00a0 Not hired help.\u00a0 People who are already recognized as incredibly OCD!\u00a0 People who have an enormous investment in customer satisfaction.\u00a0 We are referring to the people who already spent $1,000s on training and have invested significantly more to provide this service.<\/p>\n

Do you still want to price shop this service?<\/p>\n

\"damage<\/p>\n

Paint Protection Film, is the worst kind of race to the bottom in the detailing industry.\u00a0 This problem will continue and affect the consumer in the long run more than business owners.<\/p>\n

In general, this is an issue with the latest and greatest.\u00a0 People who are not really into car care and do not have real luxury discretionary income are being sold by various parties (or more importantly selling themselves) with the illusion of the next best thing.\u00a0 What do I mean by the next thing?\u00a0 A unicorn for non car people to neglect their car, while experiencing the same benefits of OCD detailing enthusiasts.\u00a0 In other words, consumers are in the process of spending more money to be significantly disappointed and blame small business owners for their unrealistic expectations.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for an established Paint Protection Film employee to make $80,000 or $90,000 as just an installer.\u00a0 There are cases of it being more.\u00a0 The cost of film, relative to ceramic, is exponentially higher.\u00a0\u00a0What are you really getting from the other guy\/girl or from that too good to be true discount?\u00a0 Immediate to earlier on dissatisfaction!\u00a0 I do not doubt there are businesses offering these services with the blessing of brand recognizable film suppliers, with a fast-food restaurant mentality.<\/p>\n

It is not just the short term, people do not realize the long term is where you will get the most disappointment.\u00a0 And as people get more educated by what I am communicating, there are going to be these questions; “who did your PPF?”\u00a0 Perhaps even “how long was it on their?”<\/p>\n

\"PPF<\/p>\n

Several cars I booked for a detail has had Paint Protection Film issues from the other business, in the ‘red flag’ category.\u00a0 That means, there were issues that non OCD people noticed easily.\u00a0 That also has me concerned about the amount of damage done that was concealed by the film temporarily.\u00a0 What ceramic coatings were (wild wild west) 10 years ago, PPF is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“How long did it take you to get good (or) comfortable installing paint protection film?” Most common answer amongst distinguished and decorated detailing professionals who own businesses is one year minimum.\u00a0 I want you to let that sit in.\u00a0 Not hired help.\u00a0 People who are already recognized as incredibly OCD!\u00a0 People who have an enormous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":49367,"comment_status":"closed","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":[38],"tags":[1146,1147],"class_list":["post-48722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-protection","tag-paint-protection-film","tag-ppf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Paint-Protection-Film-PPF-Fallacy-Of-The-Free-Market.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kPO7-cFQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48722","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=48722"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49368,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48722\/revisions\/49368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}