I am waiting for my MINI (Cilli Red) to show up and the dealer insists that I should consider spending $490 to have a teflon coating on the car done at the dealer before checking out the car to prevent decoloration due to peagon droppings, scratches, etc. He says they gurantee it for many years. I have a tough time spending almost $500 on what seems to me to be basically a wax and polish job. Any ideas?

 

NO, DON'T DO IT! this is a huge rip off. It is nothing but a wax job and while it does look very nice you can do as well for less than $10 at home.

I got a partial bottle of the stuff from a VW dealer. It seems the same as that wax that comes in the orange bottle - can't think of the name but same stuff. All of the preceeding is just my humble opinion of course.

 

It's not any better than any of the synthetic sealants on the market. MINI isn't alone in this - it's one of the high-profit addons that dealers try to push in order to pad their profit margins.

For a buyer that would never otherwise touch their paint other than to run the car through an automatic car wash every once in a while, the dealer-installed sealant will help the paint look good a little bit longer, but it's wasted money if you're going to be claying/polishing/waxing the paint yourself on a semi-regular basis.

 

Thank you very much. Good advice.

 

I'd sooner pull out my fingernails with rusty pliers than to allow the dealership to touch my paint.

Use that money for a PC buffer and a full stock of DP's Epic products, you'll be a million miles ahead of the dealer and their teflon coating. In fact, tell them to put that stuff in the frying pan where it belongs.

 

Turtle wax $5.00 for a huge jug, $4.00 for Armorall. It would take 1 hour of sweet waxing and buffing to make it look awsome. My dad waxes his 2500 GMC truck! It is a small car, learn to enjoy waxing it.

 

I personally like Simonize - which is a teflon coating. I had a car done with it 3 years ago. Today I can still rub waterspots off with my finger. I got it done for $300.

 

Huge ripoff, never ever remotely consider such stuff.

If you gotta have "Teflon", I think DuPont sells a Teflon Wax for around $10.

 

I just did my new MCS this weekend. Saturday I clayed the car with a Meguiars Clay kit. It contained the clay, lubricant and microfiber cloth. Today I waxed with their NXT Generation liquid wax. You will read that there are issues with waxes discoloring the plastic trim that is all over the mini. I was careful when waxing, but even so got a bit of the NXT wax on the trim. I am happy to say it was not a problem.

btw, the car looks FABULOUS!

The paint felt like it had sand in it before the clay job. Working with plenty of breaks and fooling around, it took about 2 hours to clay the car, and about an hour to wax.

If you are interested, you could use this as a shopping list:

Meguiar's Gold Class carwash
Meguiar's NXT Generation Tech Wax ( liquid )
Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit

Clean new bucket ( Target )
Microfiber towel pack


Now if you don't want to do it yourself, pay a decent detailer to do the job. You can get it washed and waxed a lot of times for the $500 they want to charge you.

Paul

 

Dealer's cost on this paint protection:
-product .................................................. ........................ $5.00
-some minimum wage kid after school to put it on .................... $20.00

Cost to customer .................................................. ............. $500.00

Look on business manager's face when customer says, "YES" to this ....................... PRICELESS!

Same sort of thing goes for rust proofing, interior protection and extended warranty.

 

This is a pure profit item for the dealer, like scotchguarding upholstery and undercoating. Most of this stuff is of dubious value. If you feel better having it, you can do it yourself very easily for wayyyyyyy cheaper. Once upon a time, car finishes were crap and rusted and etched like crazy. It's been a long time since those days.

 

Zymol. It may cost $50 for a tin, but with two or three applications a year, you'll still have the wax after selling your MINI, and your car will still look like new. The teflon stuff is bogus, a complete waste of money.

 

i know it's not the same, but those dealer add-ons always remind of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry is buying the car and the dealer is trying to sell him the "undercoating".

Jerry says: "That undercoating, that’s just a rip-off, isn’t it?" and Puddy (the salesman) replies:

"Oh, we don’t even know what it is."

 

while the price of the teflon coating may be a ripoff - I'm a believer in the product. the ***** works.

 

A quick Google search offer this as well as many other websites with comments on the "teflon" coating issue.

http://www.autoanything.com/car-care/50A25A161A5.aspx


Pure fiction: Teflon waxes and protective coatings offer the ultimate finish protection

If you've browsed the wax aisle recently or just bought a new car, chances are you heard about Teflon paint protection. While these waxes and expensive dealer treatments may contain some trace amounts of the magic no-stick substance, their use of Teflon is flat irrelevant.
To get the wondrous protection enjoyed by omelet chefs and Mafioso bosses, a true Teflon coating has to be heated to a searing 600°F. Any guesses what such extreme temps would do to your paint?
While you may see some Teflon-like effects with these waxes and treatments, they aren't a true Teflon coating. You do still have to care for your paint as normal, you will have to wax your car again, and the "Teflon" wax layer is still susceptible to the damage that all auto paint combats daily.

 

It's been said here that a good brand of wax will do just as well. Let me add one additional thing. Buy a orbital polisher. Mine cost $129 plus $8 for pads. Makes the sparkle really stand out. I shop at GRIOT's, but there are some other excellent products.

 

So would a good coat of Zymol or Zaino. Unless, of course, they applied your Teflon onto your car inside one of those volcanos you've got where you live.
It's sometimes amazing how really well something seems to work the more money is coaxed out of our pockets. The car sales world runs on "believers".

 

Teflon - it's not just for baking anymore.

As has been said, take a pass.

 

Seems like now a days the dealers know we shop Edmunds.com and want the deal priced accordingly. They do, but make it up by getting in your britches on the waxes, protecterants, warrenty extensions, body fixing, tire fixing etc. Tried to hit the girl next door to me for over $7,000.00 in extras after the Edmunds.com deal. Yea, that's right, over $7,000.00. Good thing I went with her and we blew all that stuff off.

 

Kind of like the blob of fat they put in the can of beans and call it "pork and beans."

 

ewwww...

 

exactly...

 

Speaking of automotive Teflon applications, does anyone else remember when Slick 50 first came out? Teflon was/is the main "active" ingredient in Slick 50, and it used to cost $70-100 per bottle when it first hit the market.

Finally, DuPont (the developers of Teflon) came out point-blank and said that using Teflon as an oil additive wasn't an appropriate use of the product, and had limited or no benefit. I tend to believe the company that actually developed the stuff.

 

Back in the 1960's there was a Teflon paint designed for the bottom of boats. It made two claims, lower drag in the water, and barnacles and algae wouldn't grow on it. It was a standard paint carrier with tiny Teflon spheres in it. Thing was, you had to sand it lightly to expose the Teflon. Don't know if it worked. We never tried it. Nice idea though.

 

We purchased a truck the other week and the dealer tried to scare us into a teflon coating. He kept scaring us with 'acid rain' damage. It's like putting tomato juice on you car and letting it dry. It will pit your paint if you don't have this coating.

You would be glad to run away quickly from anyone who wants to sell you teflon. I had a Suburu for 6 years in this Northeast climate, ungaraged and the paint was fine. The finish could use a nice waxing, but since I turned the vehicle in for a truck....

The MINI dealer in our area didn't try selling us the teflon or undercoating etc. He was pretty straight up with us. The paint has held up and the car still has a lot of shine after 6 months of a hard New England winter (even without detailing *blush*).

And, just as an aside, there's some evidence that teflon is a health concern and an environmental concern. I'd rather not contribute the problem if I can avoid this stuff.