Wipe On Clear Products and Sprayable PPF. Polishing, Interior and Much More Episode #939
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Wipe On Clear Products and Sprayable PPF. Polishing, Interior and Much More Episode #939
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Term
PPF
PPF is a protective film that you can put on your car's paint to keep it safe from scratches and chips. It helps your car look good for a longer time.
Concept
SEMA
SEMA is a big car show in Las Vegas where companies show off new products for cars. It's a place for people in the car industry to meet and share ideas.
Term
ceramic coating
A ceramic coating is a special liquid that you put on a car's paint to protect it. It helps keep the car shiny and makes it easier to wash because water and dirt slide off more easily.
Brand
Facebook is a website where people can talk to each other, share pictures, and join groups about things they like, such as cars.
Term
wipe on clear coat
Wipe on clear coat is a product you can use to protect your car's paint. It's easy to apply and helps make the car shiny while keeping it safe from small scratches.
Company
3M
3M is a large company that makes many products, including films that protect car paint from scratches and damage. They are well-known in the automotive industry for these types of products.
Car
Tahoe
The Chevrolet Tahoe is a large SUV that can carry a lot of people and things. It's often used by families and is known for being strong and reliable.
Car
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous brand that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They are known for their stylish designs and high performance.
Term
detailing market
The detailing market is all about making cars look really clean and shiny, often through special cleaning and polishing services.
Car
Fiat Uno
The Fiat Uno is a small car made by the Italian company Fiat, first introduced in the early 1980s. It's popular because it's easy to drive, affordable, and great for city driving. Many people like it for its simple design and good fuel efficiency.
Company
Tre
Tre is a brand that creates products to help keep cars looking nice and protected from damage.
Company
Stack
Stack is a brand that makes products to help keep cars looking good and protected. They are known for their ceramic coatings.
Car
BMW Series Bmw
The BMW 7 Series is a luxury car made by BMW. It's known for being very comfortable and having lots of high-tech features.
Term
supercars
Supercars are very fast and expensive cars that are built for performance. They are often seen as the best cars in the world.
Part
carbon hood
A carbon hood is a car part made from a special lightweight material called carbon fiber. It's used to make cars lighter and can look really cool too.
Term
heavy cutting
Heavy cutting is a method used to polish a car's surface by removing a lot of the outer layer. It's done to fix deep scratches or marks on the paint.
Concept
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber is a strong and light material made from tiny strands of carbon. It's often used in cars to make parts that are both lightweight and very strong.
Car
Toyota RAV4
The Toyota RAV4 is a popular SUV that is great for families and everyday use. The 2025 version has new features that make it even better for driving around town or on trips.
Part
trim cleaner
Trim cleaner is a special cleaner made for the plastic parts of cars. It helps to get rid of dirt and stains without harming the plastic.
Car
BMW X5
The BMW X5 is a high-end SUV that combines luxury and performance. It's designed for comfort and has many modern features that make driving enjoyable.
Term
Alcantara
Alcantara is a soft, suede-like material often used in car interiors. It's nice to touch but can be tricky to clean without ruining it.
LIVE
Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast
in auto detailing. Welcome to the community. They hope everybody is safe from snowpocalypse
2026. Well, and or safe from here and everybody talk about it. Boy, the noise going out on
social media has got to be what is so crazy. Snow and 26 can't believe it, Nick. Yeah,
I think one of the things you and I talked about, we were talking about some things at HQ
and we were talking about how the weather is there. You and I have been alive a long time. So
we've seen a few snowstorms. I lived I grew up in a place that got snow Tulsa gets snow. I'd say
what 80% of the US can get snow, something like that. Looking back 20 years, nobody ran to the
store because of a snowstorm. Nobody freaked out because of a snowstorm. Nobody said, Hey,
we got to go grab toilet paper, milk, bread, all this kind of stuff. So any of you in the snow
world, you know, the guy hit this weekend, I've got to explain to me what has changed in 20 years
with the freaking out. I mean, that's the most surprising thing to me. And before anybody talks,
I was there. You were there. And I think we both agree. We've never seen any reaction to two,
three, four inches of snow, like we do now in the last 10 years.
Well, and I feel for also the people that don't know how to drive in two to three inches of snow.
Very true. Like, we had we had some people that weren't able to come into work today. Right. And
they sent me a picture completely stuck. Yep. By the way, they'll be people out of the drive. They'll
be people with four wheel drive vehicles that don't know how to drive, which is the which is the
most fun of it all. It's like you got that big truck, you got that big Jeep, you got that big
whatever. There's four wheel drive and you still can't drive when it's powdery three inches of
snow. And by the way, most of the main areas are plowed.
So I you know, I'm the guy that just like Christmas, I didn't don't expect it on the humbug. I
didn't expect it to actually hit the way the forecasters were all predicting and you know,
riling everybody up was grabbing some okra over at the place I like to get it's fried okra. It's
this barbecue place is wonderful. It's amazing. You go in, just grab you a little, a little basket
full to go. It's like six bucks. Can't beat it. Wonderful. This lady was asking me what I thought
of the snow coming. This was last week. I got listen, man, we've been here, you and I've been
in Oklahoma long enough. We know that these these guys, they can get they can get it wrong 90 plus
percent of the time and still get paid. Still get paid. Like it's amazing. Best job ever. What a job.
What a job being a meteorologist is. I mean, you just basically say whatever going to be sunny at
rains. What's the repercussion? There's no repercussion. You know, the advancements in Doppler,
you know, you would think they could get one thing, right? So I want everybody to think about
that word right there. Advancements. That's where we're going to. We're going to go ahead and get
into our first little talk on advancement on everybody think and just think for themselves.
You say advancement in the industry. What do you think that means? What do you think advances
the detailing industry? Or do you think it's technology? Like I just mentioned,
like you thought Doppler could advance the way forecasters think about stuff.
You think it's tools, right? Maybe it's, you know, I love our testers that are testing stuff for us.
I got a message back this weekend from a tester and he had, he had, you know,
lines drawn out on his hood. I love this stuff, right? Was talking about pads and how many drops
and well, should I use this throw of machine versus this throw? That's some pretty complicated
stuff right there. And you go, well, that's a big advancement over me and my cycle back in the day.
Right. Me and me and the Porter cable, that's a massive advancement. Could it be the chemicals?
There's there's so many new chemicals coming out where people are saying they can do whatever.
Right. So just the same as there's advancements, we'll get into some of those that we want to know.
Also could be advancements in snake oil. But before we get there, what do you think it is?
What do you think advances the industry? Yeah, I mean, you and I have kind of largely gotten away
from, I'd say the industry talk, but one of the things we've seen in advance, there's no doubt
we've seen an advancement in a lot of areas, right? Like compounds and polishes, the way
they were 20 years ago compared to now is like, I mean, we wouldn't be able to one step a car.
As an example, you could glaze a car back in the day, but as soon as you washed it,
it was going to look a certain way. But I mean, just, you know, DA polishers, force rotation,
along with, you know, rotaries or lighter combination, right? You're saying tools,
products, yeah, it's all it's all advanced. I think it's all advanced a lot slower than people
think. And and when you're talking about general advancement, it's easy, you know, easier to do
general advancements. Like if you look at TRX versus a traditional degree, sir,
you know, that's an easier thing to kind of transition into, right? And it has a direct
effect immediately. I think some of the things I'm seeing now, first of all, I don't think people
realize how old some of the technology that's being sold as new technology is. So it's not
really advancement. And then we got to ask a question, you know, on the professional side,
or even as a consumer, if something doesn't save you massive amounts of time or massive
amounts of money, then is it really an advancement at all? And I think that's kind of where the
conversation starts. Yeah, it is advancement or this proposed advancement that somebody might
pitch to us, salesman has come up with something or somebody that right dot dot dot filled in,
is advancement necessarily going to advance me? Right? There's a good question to ask is
you're right. I mean, sure, advancement should mean that we suddenly shave time off of how long
we spend. It should be that I could begin to spray something on and see better results,
which we definitely have seen advancements in chemicals. You can definitely say there,
as you said, you can see advancements all around. But we just got to we just got to think for a
second. Because if we know that there's advancements, and there's technology growing, that
there's all these good things. And we are saying they're good things. Our industry is also known
for what I said earlier. He's also known for snake oil. It's also known for a lot of smoking mirrors.
And so some of these advancements, I just we got to go over them. And we're not going to say
whether or not we believe it's snake oil, right? We're not going to throw our talk about it. Yeah,
we're not. But we just got to ask the question because there's some new stuff coming out. We go
seems seems advanced, right? Seems advanced. There's a let's just go over some stuff real quick,
easy and we can walk ourselves through it. Can you spray something on a car that then changes
color and pulls iron and decontaminants out of a paint? Yes. Yeah, like, but that's an advancement.
Yeah, it is. You 10 years ago, somebody told you that you're, you're talking crazy. Yeah,
you got to use a clay bar. Yeah, no, you there's no doubt. I mean, we see advancement. I mean,
there's no question. I mean, and I think the reason we're talking about this is there's always so
many posts or videos or Facebook posts that get sent to us. We don't talk about this stuff out of
blue guys. I mean, people just, you know, our circle or everything circulates around everybody,
right? So everybody kind of sees everything. And, you know, you have this thing that's happened where
you know, something you saw on the dealer lots, I mean, you saw wipe on clear 15 years ago.
Okay, yeah. So let's get into one of them. I was just getting out an example of like
what we could have thought of, right? Because for us, it's Fuego. But Fuego is a massive
advancement when we think about the industry. So today in today's world, you know, this isn't
10 years ago sent to today's world. There's what people are calling like spray on PPF. Here's a
here's, here's a quote, here's something I captured out of a group, not our group, but another Facebook
group. And it says the end, I know, I don't mean to use the word, but yeah, I hear you. The industry
is always advancing. There's spray on PPF now that seems to actually be pretty good. And that's
where I hung my hat. I went, yeah, by the way, this was pretty good 10 plus years ago. So why use
that work pretty actually and pretty good. So I was at SEMA this year. There were multiple companies,
not just one, there seems to be one that people talk about there was I want to say I saw at least
three or four talk to the CEOs of all three or four of them, because they were at the booth,
got everybody's card, they wanted to be in on the LX project, because that's what we're at SEMA
talking about with companies we didn't know, right? Like, hey, we're doing this project, whatever.
You know, I didn't have one person tell me that it wasn't for anything other than body shop.
From their mouth to my ears with witnesses right beside me.
It's amazing how that is getting left out of the conversation of why sprayable PPF is being
talked about at shows like SEMA. So this is direct to me from these companies.
Body shops are tired of spraying a car and watching the PPF go to somebody else's shop,
but they don't want to learn how to do PPF because it's not in their wheelhouse.
So what is a great way to get a body shop who already knows how to paint cars
to lay PPF, a sprayable PPF would be the logical explanation. So they're actually
solving a problem for body shops, they're not solving a problem for the detailer,
or the PPF shop, or whatever, because to the best of my knowledge, and again what these companies
said directly to me, and by the way, there was a company that told me 10 years ago who brought
this to market, the same exact thing, is that you need a paint booth to do it properly.
So I'm not sure how this is a advancement for detailing when I don't know that many
detailing shops to have $150,000, $200,000 paint booth in them, but I guess it can be a
topic of conversation. I mean, I just don't think people understand because they don't actually
talk to the people that run these companies. They're talking to somebody way down the line
who's a rep, or maybe somebody who's just connected to the company not even getting paid,
they're talking about all this stuff they're going to do, and then when you talk to the people
running it, they're like, yeah, I mean, we'll market to detailers if they want to make the
investment, we'll take their money, but this is really a body shop type of product.
Well, you can see how some detailers would go, hey, I can take a jump in my business and I can
skip over PPF and go straight into sprayable. This is the new way, right? Like, I don't have to do
it the way you guys did it before. I'm now evolved, and I can spray on PPF. And it's,
what do you say? Pretty good? Yeah, I have some pretty good. I don't know what does that mean?
Like, there's less lines. There's I don't what does make pretty good not not good. What? Yeah,
I don't I actually don't know because I saw it. And I would tell you there's a lot of people with a
lot of questions of its protection ability. Like, when you touch it after it's been peeled off a car,
and you've actually felt PPF, you're going to have some questions. I mean, you're going to have
some legitimate questions like how's this going to hold now again, I'm all for the advancement.
If this is if this is a great product and whatever, but I've seen it for well over a decade, I remember
when it was back in those white tents at SEMA, when when the convention center wasn't big enough,
and they had to set those big white tents up. I remember companies being back there selling
this stuff. I'm not saying it hasn't advanced since then, but it's the same general idea. And
where does it fit in for everybody? I mean, there's there's PPF shops doing, you know,
$500,000 a month that aren't willing to spend $150,000, $250,000 on a paint system,
on a paint booth and things like that. So where does it all fit in? And when you talk about
advancement, advancement is not only the technology, but it's the application of the
technology onto a customer's car. And that's where we get really confused. Guys, the average customer
really isn't always sure what a ceramic coating is. Like we've talked about before,
car washes use it as a term, it's being used at Walmart, it's being used at Sam's Club,
it's being used at Costco. Like we, we still have a problem talking to people about what
a ceramic coating is, and then getting people to actually use a real robust ceramic coating.
So I think advancement, you can make advancement in technology, but if nobody uses it, and nobody
can get it on a car in an economical fashion, when prices of PPF are already full fronts,
$999 to $1,500 in most cities, what problem are you solving?
Well, all right, let's look at this other one that seems to be popping up. And this is a quote,
I got this out of, out of a Facebook group. And he says, first of all, isn't what this
post to be about bashing, he wasn't going to be going after anybody, he's looking to see if anyone
has some input and shed lights on what's coming. And he says to this industry recently, then he
lists a couple of brands. And he says they've been advertising a wipe on eight mil plus coating
that looks more like a wipe on clear cooked. And he goes in to talk about a couple of things and
just we can we can go ahead and stop right there. But wipe on clear curse eight mil plus
wipe on clear coat. Is it possible? I not not for us to judge, right? Sure. I didn't think that's
for us to go out there and say that somebody did or did not come up with something. Yeah, it's
not it's not worth our conversation. I mean, and again, I don't want this. I'm not judging any of
it. Right. I mean, that's what we need to make clear. The there's a local guy here on no problem.
I'm not once again, like this guy not bashing, called poppy's patina. Yeah, popular around the
country. Yeah, huge three years wipe on clear coat seems viable. It does like it right and
they show it and everything seems to work right. As an quote unquote detailing industry is that
is that what we're wanting now? Are we we now trying to bounce over to your point ceramic
coatings to now wipe on a clear coat is which by the way, if you've ever seen some of those installs,
not always the greatest quality and that's not towards them. That's wipe on clear coat type
of products for the better part of the last 10 1520 years. Right. This is not new technology.
It is an advancement of an old technology. It's a building upon what was there, but there's always
been a fundamental problem with wipe on clears. You've seen it at every, you know, buy here pay
here or car lot that's used them. Why don't you look at that thing in a year, six months,
eight months, sometimes right after install, right? There's a bunch of products that have been on a
market for a long time that can restore clear coat, right? Their whole systems that you and I have
seen work. The part that they leave out about those is the amount of work that goes into it to get
the thing right is damn near a repaint at that point, right? So could that stuff advance? Yes.
The question is how many people can charge for this stuff that takes an expert level of installation,
an expert level of preparation in most cases? And where does that fit into number one, if you're
a consumer and number two, if you're a professional? Because again, the issue isn't always just the
advancement of technology is who's going to pay for the service that takes 15, 16, 20 hours.
In some cases, more than that, because we're finding it hard for people to charge people just
to clean up their car in a normal detail. So with advancements, we can all cheer that on,
but we have to ask ourselves, number one, why is this stuff always behind some massive wall
of getting authorized to use? Because if it was great, you'd say, I want every shop to use it.
It'd be like you and I saying, we don't want to every great shop using Sparta. That just wouldn't
make business sense. You'd go, every great shop uses Sparta. We're in a better spot. They're putting
down a great coding. Everything's great. One of the things to look at in this advancement is
everything seems to be behind this really big wall to get people into it. And then you go,
well, why would you want it behind a wall if this is such a huge advantage? I'd be like saying you
don't want everybody to have a flat screen TV at this point. Like, they're ubiquitous. They're
everywhere. There was a time where only priests knew how to read the Bible. It seems strange, you
know, seems strange. They wanted to keep it from all of us common folk, you know, but maybe it's
to protect us because protect us from people like this guy that replied inside of that post.
He replied that he dropped 50K on this brand that he then had to drop another 100K on tools and
installer and supplies and said he wasted all that money. And one of these proponents that was a
detailer before had to close the shop but now as a rep for a brand, his response, sorry for that
expensive lump you took, dude. Wow. Sorry. Sorry, you lost 150K. Sorry, you lost 150K. What the hell?
Like, oh, shucks, man. Sorry to hear that. No, we've had, you know, I'm in Vegas for everybody.
It's, you know, you haven't listened for a long time. I know a couple guys that's gotten burned
pretty bad by some of these products opened up entire facilities around some of these products
and it went bust very quickly. And when you talk to them, it didn't go bust because the products
didn't work because the products actually work. And to that poster who wasted $150,000, I bet you
what he found out was it's really hard to sell at the price you need to sell for the prep you need
to do for the product for everything. And so again, is it an advancement in the in the fact
that it works? Yes, it works. It's not an advancement if you can't get hundreds of cars a month to get
it to put the product on. So there's all of this great technology. I mean, this is kind of what
we've said about things like graphing. Okay. If graphing for graphing to work, you need the
highest quality graphing. If you put the highest quality graphing in a 50 mil bottle, none of you
would buy it because it's so expensive. I mean, just would not be affordable. It'd be in the
thousands upon thousands of dollars for a 50 mil bottle, right? Doesn't mean it's not an advancement
though. It's an advancement. It just has no practical application at the price point it would
have to be sold. So this is the same thing with these products that you always have to ask yourself
if you're in this business professionally, it's not to run away from them or bash them or say
something works or it doesn't work. That to me is the wrong question. Some of this stuff does work.
The problem is you can't get anybody to pay for it. So then the technology becomes completely
irrelevant. Right. And this happens in every industry. Like there's plenty of ways to put nicer
toilets in a new build. Nobody's going to put the bill for it so they don't get them. They get the
cheap old ones that everybody's always been using. Right. So there's advancement in that world. It's
just nobody there to pay for it on a national scale. It's the same thing with a lot of this stuff.
But the thing that really I look at as somebody that's owned a business for a long time in this
space is when something is severely behind a wall kind of being hidden from people.
That's when my red flag goes up because I go. Sparta simple man you go to our website you
put in an application. We give you a call. There's not some massive wall and only these people can
use it. And that's where you get into is this an advancement or is this something else.
You know we basically kind of start to think about do we see also enough people making what they
talk about their making. Right. Is there enough out there really doing what they're doing.
That was to me when it came with surrounds for ceramic coatings. Like I didn't jump on the
horse as fast as some I jump faster than others but not as fast as some because I go I want to see
can we actually do this. Like is it legitimate that that we can sell it that we have the market
for. They're having and we could we can all let's all take a moment to go OK after ceramic coatings
how many things have tried to come out to be the next thing. Oh boy.
I mean what's that number. That's like got to be 50 100 different you know versions of something or
this. So there's there's something we always got to hang in our back pocket right Nick like
as we're evaluating could there be the right because there there always is going to be
there can be right like it's just natural. So judging if this next fill in the blank is it.
We basically got to see what you're saying is see how many people are making money if they're
actually making money with it. And if it's I mean that's that's the viability of it all.
Yeah. I mean there's no question. I I remember early 2000s in this business look at paint
protection film. It was around. There was there was quality PPF back then the adhesive yellowed
but on a black car. That's not that big of a deal. There was quality PPF that lasted.
You know it wasn't not all of it was trash. I mean 3M was a big player back then. It wasn't
trash film. It wasn't the easiest to put on or anything like that. But the problem is the cost
was out of whack. The cost in the customer base weren't ready for what it costs to do that to a
majority of cars from daily drivers to exotics to everything like that. So what it seems like to me
the conversation evolves into is we seem to want to still be talking to the same one to two percent
of clients that always buy these things. And then I can never figure out how does this pertain
to the eighty five thousand dollar Tahoe. Because one thing to say this guy has a 350
thousand dollar Ferrari and he's willing to spend which by the way is a finite amount of people.
It's a small amount of people. But just to keep regurgitating those people there's not enough
business for everybody. Just flat out in every city that that's a very small number.
You've got to be able to say cars are now more expensive than ever. People are spending more
money than ever. If your technology is not viable at these elevated prices of cars when is it going
to be viable. Right. And I think that's what we run into and to the commenter that said I spent
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I mean we've been kind of saying this on the podcast
especially since I came on here. It costs a lot to do a lot of this stuff in business.
And it's not just five grand here and ten grand there. It's what we talk about PPF all the time.
Guys you're going to be fifty sixty seventy thousand dollars into PPF to do it correctly.
How many people have that to spend. And then what are you going to have to charge to start
recouping that money. And can you develop the marketplace to make this all viable. Sure.
People have done it. Absolutely lots of people have done it. But is it going to be you.
And how are you going to do it. What's your marketing effort. What's your thing.
And so I love that technology is advancing. And you and I have watched products work.
You know poppies patina is a perfect example. It works. I've also seen the horror stories
for those that haven't seen it because it is not just as easy as wipe it on and it looks great.
But again even that market is fairly small. Right. It's not a big market.
And so I think for everybody doing this professionally one of the things you have
to ask yourself is hey man first of all don't bash this stuff that could be an advancement.
I think that's what we're trying to do here. I'm not trying to bash an advancement.
I'm trying to say first of all a lot of this shit's been around a long time.
Spray on PPF. Anybody acting like that's news just hasn't been around very long.
And then to say it pertains to all of us. It's a body shot product directly from
their mouth to my ears to other people's ears. I mean that's what they're saying.
So I don't see how it's an advancement in the professional detailing market
or PPF market for that matter. I thought this was a cool question you brought up earlier
when we were talking and just imagine like let's all just take a moment like just imagine.
Just think like it happened. It really did. I didn't make the breakthrough. I'm not going to put
myself in there. I'm not the guy but some other guy made this amazing advancement where you can
wash the car. It will decon the car and it will protect the car and will last for 10 years and
there will be nothing that ever gets on the car ever again. It will be perfectly flawless
for the rest of its life. Let's just let's just say it happened. Okay. No arguments. No laughing.
Maybe people laughing. None of that shit. This is real. Do we want it?
Yeah because if it if it costs 20 grand to do how many people are going to pay you 20,000
dollars to do it. So that's the premise of all this. I've just invented the most perfect product.
You put it on your car. The paint's indestructible. It never gets dirty. You never have to wash it
again. You never have to do anything and it's perfect forever but it costs 20 grand because
you got to imagine that's what it would cost to start recouping some of that research and
development money to develop something like this. How many people's cars is it going to go on?
Say there's a knock off value brand and they came up with this only 10,000 dollars. Yeah.
How many people are going to pay for it? Is the the family that owns the Tahoe that they're
going to trade in in five years or four years or three years? Are they going to buy it? They're
probably out. So that takes damn near the majority of the market out. What about the guy that buys
the super car? Well you put this kind of stuff on a super car. The resale value doesn't necessarily
go up because it's a foreign product that's now a non-original car. Oh what? I mean we see this
with PPF at times. We see this. We talked to you guys about putting you know coding installations
on really expensive cars on the car facts and it's actually hurt values of some of those resales.
So for those that don't know that that's going on or listening for the first time,
that's a fact. So before you go and sell car facts as this benefit, it's actually hurt
resell prices of certain cars. Not helped. Again guys we just invented the most perfect product
that you could ever invent in our space and it's 10,000 dollars. Like you said a knock off brand
got it down to 10 grand. How many people are you selling it to? Most people struggle to charge
somebody five hundred a thousand bucks to do a service. So advancement is great but advancement
only really gets to mainstream scale if it can be paid for by multiple different types of car
owners. Which is kind of we weren't there with ceramic coating 15 years ago. Only a certain
amount of people were going to pay that bill. Now with products like Stack and Uno and Tre and all
these different options, you're able to bring in a daily driver. You're able to build but you
couldn't do that 15 years ago just in ceramic coating world. So I think it is a good topic
of conversation that nobody ever really wants to analyze. Like I don't even care if it works or it
doesn't work. Let's just say it all works. Why is it not massively adopted if it's this game changing
industry changing thing and it always comes down to cost or skill set or it's hard to do or you got
to buy a bunch of stuff and it just becomes cost prohibitive all the way around. So there's one
part that we think that we wonder I guess as you and I have talked about when we think of industry,
we think of changing, we think of all that. We wonder if the super car market is going to kind
go off into the distance. I spent a vast majority of this weekend flipping through trying to watch
stuff like most people did. I landed on YouTube and watching this VW channel. What was it? Oh gosh.
VW home. Cool music. Love the music to it. Then they set up car shows in there. They're one of the
cars drive, right? So all the car porn, right? Set to great music. Wonderful, right? Watched it for
hours. Not a single super car there. No, there's a big, especially social media content. We talk
about this on clutch culture a lot. People are bored. So now it's like, hey, did somebody bring
back XYZ car to life? That's just some random VW rabbit or it's an old seven series BMW. We
start to see those popping up now. Old Mercedes that aren't really high value super cars. Again,
super cars are still a great thing that I think we all enjoy and go, man, that thing looks awesome.
But there's no doubt. There's been a slowdown in all of that as far as from a social media interest
people still watch it. But the interest level is waning. They're still going to sell them. They're
still going to be a bunch of them around because people that have money are going to want to own
them. But there's no question that that market is is a little bit in a little bit of a lull
when it comes to social media. Well, I definitely see a lull in like the the detailer, you know,
super car market, right? Remember, I think it was that was 2017 to 2020. That's all you saw.
All you ever saw. Every time somebody washed one, they had to put it on on the internet.
Definitely has calmed down. And I mean, I think because PP PPF shops have gotten so much bigger.
And everybody has now worked on some semblance of this car. You don't really feel it. I've said
this on Spock has a lot. Look, man, if somebody pays the bill, I don't really care what car comes
through my shop now. I couldn't have said that 15 years ago. I was excited to work on any expensive
car. You do this for a while, you go man, as long as somebody's paying what I'm,
what I'm charging, I'm good with whatever car comes through.
All right, I got a couple questions out of some different groups that I wanted to bring up. I
thought it'd be fun to discuss because these are going to get into some different polishing,
different questions around trim. And we got some hardwater spot questions, a couple different
things that I found out of some groups. Alright, so the first one this guy says back in October of
25, did a one step correction and coating because he thought his clear coat was getting dull on his
carbon hood. Right. So one step correction and ceramic coating on his carbon hood.
He did it with this, this product that's a speed and he did it with heavy cutting.
Uh oh.
Right. Heavy cutting and which we've already talked about this product has a lot of oil to it.
So then he talks about the coating that he put down. He says that today, so we're talking,
you know, 23 hours ago, I snapped this in this past weekend. So mid January, three months,
three months, it looks even worse today than he did it before.
Yep. Carbon fiber is a weird thing, man. People number one, one of the biggest issues with carbon
fiber parts is they're coming from an area of the world, not really known for quality.
Secondly, carbon carbon fire fiber, excuse me, being cleared over.
I've seen that go horribly from manufacturers. Right. So carbon fiber has always been one of
these things. If you've watched it develop and age and become more common.
If you came from a certain time period, you were always kind of told, hey,
carbon fiber is a real touchy thing. Be real careful what you do.
So let's just say what he saw. He's probably got something that's not so high quality.
And secondly, he had something that didn't have very much clear coat on it. It was already
failing and now it's for sure failing. There is no coming back and it's going to have to be
re cleared, which can be a complete nightmare to find the right shop to do that. But this is
very common for all of you that have not dealt with a lot of carbon fiber. You need to be aware
that most of the carbon fiber now is being brought in very cheaply from very cheap parts of the
economy and the world. And carbon fiber was never that great to work in, even when it was
being done somewhere in the US. Carbon fiber is a very strange thing. Once you see failure,
it's probably failed. There's probably no bringing it back.
Rip it off.
You'd have to have it re cleared. I mean, at the very least, and that that's
good luck. I mean, it's it's one of those things like it's a 5050 shot to find in the right shop,
in my opinion. So what do you do?
The car, it's going to have to be replaced more than likely. There's no, there's no,
that's what I'm saying. There's no fixing it. It either needs to go to a body shop. Yeah,
just be done with it. Like you bought a crappy piece of carbon fiber, more than likely. I don't
know this guy. I'm just saying that's the thing people don't want to say out loud. High quality
carbon fiber is very, very expensive. Alright, so what are you guys using to clean and protect the
interior without the greasy feeling? I got this one, Nick. This one's me. You got carbon fiber.
I got interiors and not having a greasy interior. He says he's used blank and blank, but looking
for other options. So you know, what are you guys using to clean and protect the interior?
I want to go first off, how much protection are people actually looking to get out of a clean
and protect and the brand that he's using, he bought off the Walmart shelf. What real protection
do we think people are actually going to get with the clean and protect? Because we're going to say
UV protection. Yep. But, but ultimately, should we should we really put down a protection? Right?
Like, when we did impress, right, when everybody's going to ask what should I impress, love impress,
I, I talk about the the landland that I put into it, why it conditions on leather, but then you
got vinyl, right? So what's going to actually protect vinyl? We've got UV protection in there.
Absolutely. It's just, I'm just curious, because I wonder if people think like, like they do with
these other things that we talked about that you can actually have some products that will spray
and are what going to pretend dye transfer, like going to prevent rips and tears like they talk
about it. You're talking about a different product, right? So I think you and I probably
have experienced this a lot, many of you guys listening. Look, man, when you're when you're
trying to do a quick cleanup on your car, you're giving away a lot of things on the protection
side, right? You're all you're really trying to do is nourish things, give it a little UV protection,
get it clean, move on. You want to talk about like really protecting stuff, you're going to
have to install something by itself that's a protection, right? And there's nothing wrong
with like you said, we have people that use impress all day every day. Their customers love it,
they love it, keeps the interior the way the customer likes it, refreshes things, renews things.
It's UV protection. But guess what? That person doesn't come back for another 18 months. Let me
tell you what didn't stay there for eight. That's not what this is, right? And again, go back to the
beginning of this conversation. How hard is it to get people to understand how things work? Not
how they want them to work, but how they actually work and impress threads the needle.
The way very few products thread the needle, but we would never overpromise with a product like
that. You got to keep your interior clean. I mean, it's not going to magically last forever and
protect everything in under the sun. It's not going to, you know, you're not going to not burn
your seat if you dry, you know, drop some hot ash on it, but it's going to burn like, you know,
I just like you said, I always wonder what people are trying to accomplish. But if you have heavily
oil and greasy, you're putting a dressing on. I got news for you. You're dressing it with the
same thing that goes on your tires. And let me tell you, there's a lot of those for sale. Yep,
absolutely. Fun question. How much do you guys charge per window for hardwater spot removal?
I haven't seen the per window question. We won't stick there. We'll move on. I just thought it
was funny per window. There's people I know some of you are listening that don't even mess with it
at all and just say I'm not doing it. You know, sorry. All right, so we got a trim question.
Car is a 2025 Toyota RAV4 about seven months ago. He said he put on this not ours, but on this other
compound. And he got was working on the paint. He got some of the scratches out right that did
pretty good job. But he got it over and we can imagine right he noticed some smear marks on the
plastic trim. Normal wash does not remove the stains. How can I remove this? Can it be cleaned
with alcohol? Oh, can you polish it away? Yeah, there's there's some it depends on the type of
plastic, right? But here's an easy thing, guys, get our trim trim cleaner. And you'll be set to go.
That's the thing to do. Use something that was formulated exactly for this, which is to clean
up your plastics, because look, you can get a lot of different plastics. You can get really porous,
you can get harder plastics that don't have as many pores. Some of it is quote unquote,
polishable. I think you have to be a little bit more sophisticated to know exactly what to use
on those things in the exact right plastic. I tell you just use trim cleaner and move on with your
life. All right. 2025 Toyota RAV4 there's the plastics above the tire, right? So it's that fender
well. Yeah, it's use trim cleaner. It's porous, right? Use trim cleaner. Yeah, it we're not ever
going to try and polish that. No, it can get it can go bad. Go worse. Yeah. You know, the white
that is in there, you know, seven months ago. Now that is what's interesting. How you know,
why it happened seven months is the white from the solvents is that bleached it at bleach then
white it out. We don't know, right? And not be the polish at all, right? Could run the
run the machine over it thought you didn't, you know, didn't have it taped off if that's what
you needed to do. A lot of things can happen, man, use trim cleaner and it'll make your life a whole
lot easier. All right, let's go with final questions. I'm going to go back to the interior.
Maybe I should have like, labeled them back and from my butt. Okay, whatever.
All right, back to the interior. How can I fix this? That's a picture of his steering wheel.
And he says, I need to fix and restore this my steering wheel. I use leather cleaner on my X5
and it made my steering wheel matte and fuzzy. Is it X5? So yeah, it's a great question. I don't,
you know, I was hoping you would know your genius, you know, your X5 you would know what was on that
steering wheel. It could be Alcantara. But look, BMW, there's a lot of car manufacturers like this,
where people clean them very aggressively and you're seeing like actual the top layer come off.
I mean, you've seen that at a dealership. I mean, you get in there and go, what are they doing here?
And they just sat there and kept wiping and wiping really aggressively or used a brush that was
really aggressive like an old tire brush. Look, if it's Alcantara, you know, he's probably in
sanding the Alcantara, which is possible for those that have never done it and getting it down and
getting it to new fibers and things like that. But this is one of those things that we used to see
a lot more. You know, that worn leather. Yeah. And once a steering wheel gets past a certain
point, you're just talking about rewrapping it, right? You've already damaged so many layers or
things going on. Something in a poultry shop can do pretty quickly. You know, I mean, it's usually
like a one day job for a decent upholstery shop. But I mean, I've seen some kind of horror stuff
with with steering wheels. I mean, I'm sure you have over your life to like, there's people that
aggressively go after cleaning up their steering wheel and you go, but there's just no way this
happened with normal stuff like what the hell happened. And it looks like that that might be
one of those situations. Well, definitely. Yeah, they've rubbed it. I I know. And I think it's
interesting. You get some of these older cars, you can tell because you can definitely see on my
Jeep, you can tell where my hand was a majority of the time, right? Every other part of the
steering wheel is completely fine. And then there's this one area where you go. But here's the perfect
example. If you run up on a car at your car, and you have that, and then you aggressively go clean
that area, make you you've now made it 10x worse in just one cleaning. That is the time that I say
use revive versus impress. Yeah, there's no question. Yeah, by the way, don't go crazy with the tools.
Like on those areas of the tornado door. Yeah, this is one of those times just, you know, spray
some on the towel, maybe some different spots on the steering wheel and just kind of give it a
wipe down and get the stuff off. But if you go one of those like beat up areas, man, I've seen
those turn out, I've seen people scrub all the way down to the the actual underneath steering,
you've you've definitely seen that. Yeah, we've like you said earlier, we've been around. Yeah,
yeah, you can see some craziness. And what you guys need to do is you need to be around the
hyper clean specialist group. So we'll see you guys there. It's on Facebook. We say it every
year every week, because well, it's a great place to be. So we'll see you guys there. See you guys.
About this episode
The discussion dives into the advancements in the auto detailing industry, particularly focusing on new products like sprayable PPF and wipe-on clear coats. The hosts debate the practicality and effectiveness of these innovations, questioning whether they truly benefit detailers or are merely marketing hype. They also touch on the challenges of educating consumers about these products and the realities of running a detailing business in a market filled with both genuine advancements and 'snake oil' solutions. The episode is rich with insights on the evolution of detailing tools and techniques, making it a thought-provoking listen for professionals and enthusiasts alike.
Original notes
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss the evolving landscape of the detailing industry, focusing on advancements in technology, tools, and products.
They explore the increasing consumer anxiety surrounding weather events, the implications of new products like sprayable PPF and wipe-on clear coats, and the challenges of pricing and consumer understanding in the market.
The discussion highlights the need for critical evaluation of industry claims and the practical applications of new technologies.
Chapters
00:00 Snowpocalypse 2026: A Cultural Shift in Weather Reactions
03:12 Advancements in the Detailing Industry: Tools and Technology
06:08 Evaluating the Value of Industry Advancements
08:51 The Reality of Sprayable PPF: Innovation or Illusion?
12:00 Wipe-On Clear Coats: A New Trend or Old Technology?
15:02 The Economics of Detailing: Can Advancements Be Profitable?
17:55 The Future of Detailing: What Lies Ahead?
24:13 The Economics of Luxury Car Care
27:04 Imagining the Perfect Car Protection
29:57 Market Viability of Advanced Products
30:18 The Shift in Car Enthusiast Culture
33:52 Challenges with Carbon Fiber Maintenance
36:09 Interior Care: Balancing Cleanliness and Protection
39:52 Addressing Common Detailing Questions
42:42 Restoring Worn Interiors
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Nick Walters and Marshall Hill
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45:51