Long-term update: Our SRT gets ceramic paint protection and wheel protectors
Our cars are parked on the street. As much as people like to baby their cars, some of us truly have no time to fiddle with microfibre cloths or doddle around at manual car washes. So we do what the majority of people do — get a dude to clean it. These dudes use dirty cloths and muddy waters, but there’s not much you can do about it unless you like sitting and supervising these things. Regular paint protection loses its shine in months and barely lasts a year, as per our experience. So we decided to try out the new-fangled “nano-ceramic” paint protection on our Chrysler 300 SRT, whose red “tri-coat metallic” paint was looking shabby due to heavy swirl marks, bird poop and a botched smart repair job on the front lip.
The “nano-ceramic” paint protection was done at a garage called Super Fix in Dubai. They said they’ll touch up the door dings and all as well. They didn’t, so we had to go back again for that, although it was just a dab of paint quickly splashed over paint chips rather than artisan work. However, the included detailing job removed many scratches (and reduced a huge key scratch across the bonnet that was left by a jealous vandal — may he get trampled by a thousand camels), while the paint protection job itself was done really well. It’s been 6 months now, and the car still looks shiny. It comes with a 3-year warranty.
We also got “AlloyGator” wheel protectors installed, which are basically slivers of plastic fitted onto the outer ring of your alloy wheels to reduce curb damage. We went with basic grey rather than ricing up the car with red or yellow options.
The total cost of all the above work was Dhs 2730 (it won’t be included in the cost totals below).
The car also went in for dealer service in July. The “20K” service included an oil and filter change, new cabin and engine air filters, and a Dhs 100 engine flush that they claimed was part of regular maintenance. As part of free warranty work, the carbon-fibre door trim was replaced yet again (on a couple of separate extra trips), and we fully expect them to fall off again by next summer. Also replaced was warped exterior rubber trim at the base of the windshield. A recall was also conducted for a potentially-scary cruise control issue, although we never had any issues.
The total cost of the dealer work was Dhs 1760.
About a year ago, it went in for minor “15K” service, which cost Dhs 780. If you read our old story about SRT service costs, we said service was mandatory every 5,000 km or 3 months. Since that story, the policy has been changed to every 6 months, while retaining the 5,000 km periods, as per our service advisor. This is much better for us, as we don’t do big mileages in such short periods.
On a positive note, fuel consumption is finally down to 13.5 litres/100 km (from highs of 17+) due to a combination of “Eco Mode” driving, a better broken-in engine, and winter weather. Yes, we drive it in “Eco” mostly nowadays, not to save fuel, but because it reduces the car’s tendency to do unwanted burnouts all over the place, even with ESP on. Reduces, not eliminates.
Original Mileage When Bought: 9,010 km
Latest Mileage To Date: 14,528 km
Latest Average Fuel Economy: 13.5 litres/100 km
Cost of Latest Problems: Dhs 0
Cost of Latest Maintenance: Dhs 2540Total Non-Fuel Running Cost Since Bought: Dhs 4890
Comments
Chetan Ved
some of ^us truly
Hamad
I truly believe paint protection gimicks are short term solutions.
Paint protection will last 4-6 months, less if you commute on highways with sandy storm days; very prominent in the western region of UAE.
Unless you wrap your car which can cost up to 20k aed.
Other solutions simply fade out. I didnt try nano or ceramics on any of my cars.
The problem the leading edges (i.e front parts fenders bonnet and wheel arches) will fade out.
Then you have to apply those sections again; you end up different parts exposed to the elements differently.
Having proper car washes will help; but then again you need to find a washer who will do it properlt (dust the car first with an air gun, and wash the car in a systimatic diagonal direction to reduce wash marks)!! who has time to !?
Finally its down to the car paint job/color too.
Buying cars with custom rare colors just worsens the matter. Lighter colors tend to fare much better in our weather.
This is just my experience…
It will be interesting to hear about your paint protection job, good luck!
Farhan
I got nano protection done for my black vehicle back in 2016 that is always parked in sun and in spite of multiple off roads and picking up dirt on the way, post every car wash it still feels like new in its 9th year. At the end, it really boils down to the material, workmanship and more importantly whether the doer is there for a quick buck OR really trying to solve the problem.