Just to be clear; I'm not about rebutting anyone's statements, nor am I carrying around any inside information neither pro nor con about this new.... shall we say "substance".
I was just going to ask. This is a paint right and not a coating am i correct?
Looks to me like far more of a 'paint' than a 'coating', yet from looking at the video it seems to be MUCH more of a "film".
(A lot more info was added to this thread while I was composing and...er...eating lunch, so please excuse some speculation that has already been corrected by other posters)
I'm just speculating,.......
As I'm afraid we all are at this point.
It's a coating, but it's applied via paint gun like normal paint. It will require a booth/clean room to be applied and needs to be IR and UV cured (from what I read, not sure it needs both though).
But it isn't a replacement for clear coat, it meant to be an additional layer to traditional systems. I've sprayed sereral coatings now with my HVLP gun, but that doesn't make them paints...
Don't think anyone ever said it's a replacement for a 'true' clear coat paint.
Alas however; Having to use not only a "paint gun" and a "paint booth" surely positions it well within the realm of 'painting' much more so than simply a "coating".
I would still say however that it is MUCH MORE of a ppf than anything. Not hard to find 3M spray on ppf out there that surely looks similar. (
Albeit not with miraculous healing properties.)
What DOES look like paint is the way it is laying on the surface!
Also what DOES concern me is just how much trash was/is in the 'film' on the test panels.
If it has THAT MUCH trash in it and those are the test/display panels I shudder to imagine how bad an entire vehicle would look.
(
Especially a black one!!!!!!!!!!)
That alone screams 'paint' to me. Which adds all the associated proper prep, clean wipe, dust free, downdraft and any other high-end paint booth processes to the mix when it comes to application of said 'film'. :dunno:
Since most of you know I left my association with CARPRO ,I do wish them luck. I do however think they are starting to forget the people who got them there! I take care of some of the most wealthiest clients in the country,they will not pay what most finest installers charge,they see no reason to spend that much,even on a La ferrari or p1, of which I take care of several.Carpro does not understand the concept of it is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
I tend to agree with you Mike.
Carving out a niche (high end) market within the detailing community is what made names like Optimum and CarPro grow to the point where they are now. It remains to be seen however if leaving (as in moving on to greener pastures) the mom-n-pop detailiers in search of some sort of holy grail mass market will be a move that helps grow, (or topples) either. :dunno:
Wasn't this the discussion from last month, just replace CarPro with OPT?
And I guess there are cheap rich people, and not cheap rich people (relatively speaking), just like there are cheap middle class people and not cheap middle class people, some who care about their car and others for whom it is just an appliance or a status symbol.
Oh believe you me... there are PLENTY of cheap rich people. :laughing: Take my brother-in-law for instance; he was an Executive VP/CFO with Coca Cola for almost 2 decades. He ended up leaving the company (not of his own doing) and now works in Anaheim (as a CFO) yet wouldn't pay $49.95 for a wash/wax/detail.... much less $499.95. When they moved to CA rather than transport their vehicles, 2 BMW's and a Nissan SUV (
which were all CA emissions complaint) he felt it wasn't worth it to pay the transportation bill. Instead he sold them all and just bought new ones. OTOH, rather than send his kid to college here in GA (as a resident when the kid started college, and as such tuition would have been MUCH less) they wanted the "kid" to have "the AWAY at college experience" and sent him to Clemson. Then 2 months later good ol Dad lost his job and transferred 2500 miles away! Talk about the "away experience"! :laughing: If the kid had known... he'd easily have picked UCLA! :laughing:
I'm beginning to see there's more than one flavor of Kool-Aid. Fortunately I stopped drinking that stuff when I was a kid.
Awwwww.... say it ain't so!
Besides.... what flavor Kook-Aid do you want? We have CarPro, Pinnacle, Optimum, Blackfire, Swissvax.... and the list goes on.
Quick; do this Google search: "extravagant detailing products" and see what favorite detailing site comes up FIRST!
With that said, I'm still amazed how some will pay $1-2K to have their car detailed. More power to you, of course. :dblthumb2:
But Mark.... how many out there do you think will pay $70,000 for a Camaro?
rops:
For a lot of guys out there with a sizeable investment in their "dream car" those very same guys just don't know how to take care of it like it deserves. Better yet, they DON'T WANT TO KNOW! All they know is that they want it 'clean' and 'shiny'. One guy I have (
used to live up the street) that has a TON of both 60's & 70's muscle cars along with half a dozen newer ones, GT500, Viper, Z06, C7 (
on his 2nd one this year) even a new Challenger Hellcat (#99) and all he wants is "clean" & "shiny". He is by definition one that'll never spend $1500+ on a detail, but that doesn't mean he's unwilling to spend anything.... just doesn't want to spend what he SHOULD.
Then there is the other side of the coin. The ones that only want the most exclusive thing, service, price that they can get. (
Doesn't mean it's any better than the next guy, just that it cost's more.) Case in point; I'm in between 2 very high priced detailers in my market, literally the only ones in the Atlanta area charging the rates they do. Both are good at what they do, but as you've stated..... can't believe anyone would pay that much. (
People scoff at me and I don't charge but half what they do, which is easily twice (if not three times) what anyone else charges, go figure.)
Anyhow.... getting back to people that only want the best.
They also (
for the most part, by and large) feel
their time is worth more than
YOUR time. So if you are charging them $50, or even $75 an hour to pamper their "dream car" for 20~30 hours, *that* means THEY can spend those hours on a golf course, or at the gym, or playing tennis with Biff and Muffy.
Theeeeennnnnn..... once they start talking about "their guy" that detailed their pride-and-joy and how "their guy" is 'exclusive', and "their guy" charges more than your guy, or how
THEY didn't have to put any work into it, and how it took
30 hours, and yada, and yada, and yada yada yada.... blah blah blah. Well you get the idea.
Back from 98~2002 when I was designing/selling Home Theaters (
my own firm) I would work in neighborhoods that were FILLED with the like. One guy would spend $10K on (
what I'd consider a VERY basic system more suited to a bedroom) for his home and the guy 2 doors down would spend $30K, then the guy around the corner would get wind and ask what he could get for $50K. I literally had one guy spend $6K just on speakers (
in a dedicated theater room he'd already built) and the guy 3 doors down spent $36K then the first guy came back and spent over $85K all in the same 6 month period. Who knew? :dunno: All the while.... both were sending friends & co-workers, most of whom wanted to one-up the others.
There will always be a market to be found for those that have more money than sense. The trick is to be able to present yourself TO that market and capitalize on it. I *would not* however want to try to pay all my bills day-in, day-out with nothing but plucking the fruits of those trees. (
As they are fairly small trees!)
