Dealer "options" (ceramic coating, UV window film, wheel warranty)

[Argelius]

I'll be picking up my Macan 4 EV in a couple of days. My salesguy asked if I want some of these protection options for the car:

Ceramic coating for paint
UV window film (supposedly keeps the car cooler)
Wheel warranty (for scratched, dented rims, etc)

My internal dialogue: [1] Just a dealer profit-thing, [2] I don't keep a car past 3 years, [3] Same services performed outside of a Porsche dealership are probably MUCH cheaper, and [4]well, it would be convenient having, maybe, the ceramic coating, done now when the car is pristine and it's at the place of service.

Thnoughts?

 

[PanameraFrank]

Dealer warranties suck and the quality of their tints/ceramic/ppf generally also suck.

I like ceramic, but get it done at a reputable shop.

 

[ericf]

I did the wheel warranty because we live in the city and the curbs are square and granite. My current three year old car has two curbed wheels on the passenger side. I figured I would do this with it being a lease and help cover the cost of repair for the lease return assuming they’ll eventually get curbed on the Macan.

I did talk them down on the price though, they wanted over $3K, I said $1,500, we settled at $2,000. Probably not worth it, but at least I had the feeling of getting a “deal”.

I skipped their ceramic coating and taking it to a detail shop who specializes in Porsches (they are down the road from the dealership and the owners have several Porsches from my dealer) for a wheels-off ceramic coating and paint correction. on this keeping the barrels of the wheels looking nice and easy to clean.

 

[krissrock]

i'm acutally surprised it's an option... there's dealers just adding on hundreds if not thousands of dollars for stuff like that to the price of the car, before you buy them...

 

[PSPJames]

Hello Fellow Palm Springer! If you want ceramic or window tinting, I would just use a third party shop. When I bought my GTI years ago, I opted for the dealer to do the tint. They just farmed it out to a local shop (and took their cut for arranging/delivering it). I did ceramic on my Tesla four years ago and it still looks brand new. However I only did it because word on the street was Tesla paint wasn't very good. For my Macan, I'll just do window tinting at the shop I take all my cars to here in the desert.

 

[DTaxman]

The problem with various protection plans from the dealer (wheel, windshield, paint, etc., protection) is that the odds are against you. As others have noted if you can get the price low enough could be ok, but still feels a bit suspect at whatever price you can get. They are counting on (1) damage never occurring, (2) damage occurring but you're too lazy to get it repaired, and (3) you forgetting that you even have the protection plan.

I'm considering wheel protection just because I've gotten burned with a lot of wheel rash on my current Mercedes GLS (yes, I admit it... it wasn't all my wife's fault). I know logically, that I'm probably better off not purchasing the protection plan and then just paying out of pocket when I actually need a repair, but I'm cheap when it comes to stuff like that so tend to just live with my nasty scarred up wheels. I suspect if I had the protection plan on my GLS, I would have gotten things cleaned up by now.