A Car You Will Sell in a Few Years

You'll have the car for three years, maybe four. Then it goes back to the leasing company or into a classified ad. In that situation, paint protection feels like an expense someone else will end up enjoying. But you know what a pre-sale inspection looks like: the buyer walks around the car, checks the front against the light, and crouches down by the sill. What they see there shapes what they offer. So the question isn't whether protection pays off. It's what scope, and for how long.

A twelve-year warranty tells you nothing about a three-year-old car

The manufacturer's warranty on the material runs eight, ten or twelve years, depending on the line. On a car you'll hand over in three years, even the shortest of those won't come close to running out. So warranty length isn't something you need to think about at all.

What is worth thinking about is scope: how many parts of the car the film covers. That's what drives the price — and what the buyer will see in three years.

The buyer looks at a few specific spots

They don't look at the whole car with the same attention. First the front end, because that's where stone chips from the motorway collect. Then the sills and the boot edge, where scuffs from shoes and bags show up. And the door handles, where every fingernail mark shows after three years.

These spots can be protected on their own, without wrapping the whole car in film. The smallest scope costs a fraction of a full wrap, so if you're only keeping the car for a short time, partial protection fits within what you'll get back in the resale price. Full protection makes more sense for a car you plan to keep for a long time.

Check the paint before installation

Do this before you bring the car in: walk around it against the light and see whether there are scratches already there. The film won't erase them. It preserves the paint exactly as it finds it, flaws included — and those flaws will stay under the film for the next three years. If there's something on the paint, paint correction belongs before the film, as a separate step with its own price.

The film's self-healing top coat works in the film, not in the paint underneath it. Heat from the sun or from lukewarm water closes up wash marks and fine hairline scratches. It won't close a key scrape or a puncture, because there the material itself is missing and there's nothing left to level out.

If you're weighing ceramic coating instead of film, here's the difference that matters to you: ceramic is a chemical surface treatment, not a layer against scuffs. It won't help you on the sills or against stone chips on the front end. For what it does and what it's for, see the ceramic surface protection page.

The film comes off, and the paint underneath stays as it was

This is the whole argument in one sentence: the film is reversible. When we remove it before a sale, the paint underneath appears exactly as it was for those three years. So the buyer sees a car that looks lightly used — because the paint really is lightly used. Most people, though, leave the film on and sell the car with it still on.

What to do first

Don't calculate anything in advance or pick a scope sight unseen. Tell us the make, the age of the car, and how long you plan to keep it; based on that we'll tell you which spots on your car are worth protecting and what it will cost. You can also call +420 739 374 074. The car is then filmed at our workshop in Ústí nad Labem.

With a vehicle that goes back to a leasing company rather than to a buyer, the logic is the same, and it is covered in a vehicle going back off lease.

You'll find the scopes and pricing on the PPF film page.

Enquire about PPF film