I am buying a new car! My dealership is pushing the First Place Finish Car Care System, a protection for interior and exterior for $500. They reapply it every six months for 3 years and you get a little kit with all the products. I see you can buy the products separately from the website. I am assuming $500 is a rip off, but are the products any good? Any one have experience with this? Thanks, Janet
you are paying up front for 7 detailing jobs at $70 each…would you do that normally? Not many would choose that option…of course it is not worth the money…your choice.
$83 for a full-on detailing job is actually a very fair price. However it’s unlikely your car would actually need a detailing job every six months, unless you’re basically neglecting it.
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Your Sales Person Is Competing For A First Place Finish In Dollars Generated For The Month.
Tell them you’ll take the car without it and think about it for a little while and get back to them. See what kind of story they give you.
I have found that any of these offers that pressure you into making a quick, one-time-offer deal are not very good.
CSA
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A typical car sales ripoff. Probably nothing wrong with the product, but it’s no different than what you can buy at a Walmart for $10 or less. And you won’t be getting a detail job every 6 months, just a wash and wax. Way too much $$$.
Pay me the $500 and I’ll send you a kit consisting of a bottle of car wash soap, a bottle of NuFinish, and a spray can of Scotchgard. I’ll include floormats.
It’s a rip off. Use the items I listed, maintain your car properly, and you’ll be just as well off and about $480 richer.
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I know a place just up the road from my house that’ll detail the car front to back for about $120. But not only are they cleaning the seats, carpets, and body, they’re also cleaning the engine bay as well. They offer varying levels of detailing besides that, but I don’t think they charge more than $60 for the basic detail
You make a deal with a car sales person and then the dealer sets you in front of another guy (or gal) who then trys to sell you stuff like extended warranties, and this junky product.
If you spill something on the car seat you can buy a number or products at your regular supermarket to clean it. It is more money for the dealership and they need to sell you this stuff to pay for the fancy lounges and waiting rooms in the building.
Learn to say “NO” repeatedly and forcefully. Eventually you will get your new car.
I’m real late with this and I know you brought your car already but one thing I found out after purchasing it, was that every BMW dealer does not carry this product. I purchased my vehicle and car in another state. The state I live in never heard of first place finish so my money basically went down the drain. The reason I purchased it was because my older BMW upon trade I noted fade in color from the sun. what’s great about this product though is that I only have to wash my car - no wax treatments at all and it comes out shining like a great investment just from soap and water every time!!!
“every BMW dealer does not carry this product”
Why would you assume that every BMW dealer would carry a particular brand of car wax that has nothing to do with the car’s manufacturer?
That is like assuming that because one BMW dealership has a Pepsi vending machine, all BMW dealers will have a Pepsi vending machine. Except for the cars themselves and the OEM parts for those cars, car dealers have the latitude to feature any products that they wish to carry.
Yet another flashy name for a box of near worthless and overpriced products. Pass on these products.
A Nissan dealer I used to work for did this on every new car they sold. At the time the paint protectant for example was priced out at going on 300 dollars and was added to the window sticker. If the customer paid this without question then fine. If the customer negotiated this, at best, down to zero dollars the dealer lost practically nothing because the product cost was about 5 bucks and took half an hour of time from their near minimum wage detail guy. Do the math on that and compare to the 300 dollar figure.
One trip to the car wash will remove what is essentially a very thin wax and the interior protectant is nothing more than a Scotchguard product.
Remember Polyglycoat?
That was the worthless, overpriced paint protectant being flogged by car dealers back in the '80s.
This “new” product may, in fact, be the same scam product under a different name.
As the veterans of this board know, any products that are pushed by the dealership after you have settled on the purchase price of the car should be avoided like the plague.
Never purchase anything from a dealer that can’t be seen. Sure! They can tell you they applied an interior/exterior protectant. But how would you know? These products are invisible.
Tester
I have paid for this finish on all four of my Subarus. I do not have a garage and I would not take my car to a detailer often because of inconvenience. I do go to touchless car washes. If I occasionally have someone hand wash and wax it I have the kit for them to use. My dealer refreshes the exterior finish anytime I take it there. Each of my cars has kept a great finish which added to my trade in value. I’m a senior citizen and consider this addition to be a good decision for me.
Like said, people wouldn’t be selling stuff if there weren’t some that would buy. Glad it worked out but me thinks after ten years the original poster has either traded or turned the car into a washing machine.
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So Bonnie, what part of the country do you live in, roughly how many miles do you put on a car before trading it in, and how much does this benevolent dealer charge you for “refreshing the finish”?
The finish on my son’s 96 Camaro here in hot, sunny Oklahoma still looks new without ever being refreshed at all.
No charge to refresh. I live in NC.
Happy for you and your son.
Do you believe that paint maintenance is exclusive to the original poster? Minnesota hospitality.
I would be surprised if any modern car could not last for 10 years with just normal maintenance. Also, keeping a car for more than 10 years isn’t unusual, and it’s a wise financial decision. I still have my 2004 Toyota Corolla, the only new car I ever purchased in my lifetime. Every year I keep it, it puts money back into my pocket in the form of loan payments and higher insurance premiums which I’m not paying.