Advanced options
typical dealer upsell: GBP 300-600
Ceramic coating is real chemistry oversold: it delivers genuine gloss, easier washing (dirt releases with less scrubbing) and chemical resistance to bird lime and fallout: it does NOT stop stone chips, scratches, dings or scrapes (that's paint protection FILM, a different, dearer product): "9H hardness" is pencil-scale marketing. Most of a pro job's visible transformation is the machine POLISH underneath: the correction removes the swirls, the coating just preserves the result. The coating still needs washing: "never wax again" means the maintenance changes shape, not disappears.
What The Ceramic Coating Calculator Works Out
- Cost per year: the price of your option divided by a realistic coating life, capped at the years you keep the car. Marketing claims five to seven years; the calculator assumes four for a professional coating, two for a consumer kit and six months for a spray sealant.
- What ceramic is and isn't: it delivers gloss (mostly from the machine polish underneath), hydrophobic sheeting, easier dirt release and chemical resistance to bird lime and fallout. It does not stop stone chips, scratches or dings; that is paint protection film at GBP 1,500 and up.
- Honest verdict by buyer: the hand-washing keeper gets the best value and the GBP 60 DIY kit on well-prepped paint gets 70% of the effect. Anyone selling within two years should spend GBP 50 on a full valet the week of sale instead.
- Coating life you expect (advanced): override the built-in life with your own figure, for example a detailer's warranted duration or your experience of how long the water beading lasts. Leave blank for the automatic 4 / 2 / 0.5 years.
- Price of each paid wash replaced (advanced): the simple mode values each replaced wash at GBP 15. Use GBP 50 if the coating genuinely replaces mini valets rather than basic washes.
- Maintenance and add-ons (advanced): a topper spray and annual decontamination typically cost GBP 30-80 a year, and wheel or glass coatings add GBP 50-150 where brake dust and road film concentrate. Both are added to the total spend.
- Reapply when it wears off (advanced): if you want the car coated for the whole ownership period, the calculator counts how many applications that takes at the expected life and multiplies the cost accordingly.
- Total spend and net cost (advanced): all applications plus add-ons plus maintenance over the ownership period, minus the paid washes the coating offsets while it is active. The net figure is what you are actually paying for the finish.
- vs the dealer's offer (advanced): the dealer's new-car paint protection upsell, typically GBP 300-600, is the same product with less prep and more margin. Enter the quote to see the saving from going to an independent detailer or doing it yourself.