Is Supagard worth it?

[Anastasis]

Hi again everyone.

 

I am due to take delivery of a white Elegance near the end of October. Prior to delivery the dealer I have bought it from (Westover Skoda in Bournemouth) has given me the option to have Supagard treatment for the paint and interior fabric for £299.

 

So my question is (1) is Supagard worth having done and (2), if it is, then is it worth £299?

 

That sounds like a lot of money to me for a "treatment", so I am not really sure it is worth it at that price.

 

Has anyone had it done on their Skoda prior to delivery and if so do you think it was worth it?

 

Peter

Edited 5 September, 2013 by Anastasis

[Auric Goldfinger]

If it's free then yes.

 

you can buy some spray for the seats/carpets etc and some good car polish/sealer for a fraction of the price

 

Most of the time the dealers don't know how to apply these products.

 

It's a good way of making money.

[Damo]

I turned it down

But I do like to dabble in amateur detailing, so considered it an unnecessary expense

[AwesomeAl]

If you're any good at detailing and don't mind sticking a coat or two of wax on to keep it topped up every couple of months, then the AutoGlym lifeshine package is very good. 

These can be grabbed for a bargain price on eBay and aren't overly difficult to apply! For example: AutoGlym Lifeshine

These kits come with an interior protectant spray, glass guard and a paintwork sealant. They are relatively easy to apply! I even bought one of these and applied it to my fabia when I had it! It made cleaning the car a bit easier and nicer to do too!

[vtectransplant]

I used to sell a product very similar called GardX.

It's cost to us was £50 including application and we sold it for £399.

As said above, it's nothing spectacular that you can't do yourself externally. The fabric side is pretty good but unless you'll be drinking either red wine or coffee in the car I wouldn't bother!

[gadgetman]

I was offered this, bodywork protection and gap which would have added £1000 to the price.

Salesman seemed shocked when I said no.

[Mr Rubble]

Had my Superb Supagarded by Westover when I picked it up, preparation was certainly good although had to remove some excess over the bonnet edge and round a couple of the door shuts. Time will tell I guess, the kit the came with it is nice, the bird lime remover is very effective. My only complaint about Westover's prep is they need to buy the valeter a cleaner cloth, don't not what they used to clean the inside of the screen, took a couple of goes with Fast Glass to clean it off, minor moan, as other tham that prep was good

[Coops]

Depends on how enthusiastic (sp) you are at car cleaning / detailing - it does need to be maintained, they should give you a kit which contains things like shampoo, more polish, sealant etc

 

At the end of the day and as others have said, it's all down to the dealer prep - if they do it right I'm sure it can work but the majority of the time they just get slapped on quickly post-PDI.

[Didescharlie]

I went for Autoglym lifeshine, which was the first time for me on a new car having turned it down before. Farmers Leicester have two guys working on the car for 2-3 hours using the Autoglym materials, and I was happy to have the £80 worth of new Autoglym products also in its smart boot satchel. My dad paid similar money for Supagard and all he got was the smeary-capped remainder of what they actually use on the car in a tatty card box. A million other threads here on Briskoda on the same subject have never really agreed on how "worth it" the protection is, and I feel that it's down to a personal feeling based on how much you will look after the car yourself.

 

I'm a bit of a detailing enthusiast, but personally speaking, I felt my payments were so low I thought "why not?" - and if SWMBO doesn't badger me about the money, I'll happily spend it!

 

I think the life-time guarantee is a winner though, and worth bearing in mind. There's a thread somewhere, might be in Fabia II section, where one of the members spilled some paint on the seats which the life-shine didn't protect, and Autoglym covered the whole repair. Reading that really sold me on going for it in the end. 

[dyljam]

I've been offered the same Autoglym LifeShine but for £194.50 which is "half price" down from £389. Sounds like the £299 is negotiable to me.

Edited 5 September, 2013 by dyljam

[Wardy]

Their mark-up on these sorts of treatment is such that they can easily adjust the price. As you can see the actual products are not necessarily that expensive.

 

If it's applied properly, then it can be worthwhile.

[sharkrider]

I had supaguard, and wished I hadn't, was a bit of a waste of time (and money) , got better results myself first time I "detailed" it....

[Wardy]

That's the issue with application, like any detailing product.

Trouble is you pay for the service - then depending on the dealership you're not sure who is going to apply it, how long they'll spend, how well they'll do it, what application approach they'll use etc etc etc.

 

All-in-all, it's luck of the draw. Which means for me it's certainly not worth £300, or even half that IMO.

 

But I have to take into consideration that everyone is different, as are their car care regimes....

[LadyVienna]

Thanks for this thread as Im considering cancelling it on my order and going for leather seats instead haha

[nbramwel]

My experience of all these add ons is that they are never for my benefit, rather for the benefit of the company selling them (a massive profit). I wouldn't go for anything like Supaguard. Either do it yourself properly) or just keep the car clean and tidy.

[Didescharlie]

That's the issue with application, like any detailing product.

Trouble is you pay for the service - then depending on the dealership you're not sure who is going to apply it, how long they'll spend, how well they'll do it, what application approach they'll use etc etc etc.

 

All-in-all, it's luck of the draw. Which means for me it's certainly not worth £300, or even half that IMO.

 

But I have to take into consideration that everyone is different, as are their car care regimes....

 

Totally agree with this. It's impossible to find out out exactly how and what is applied, it does come across as "emperor's new clothes" syndrome in most cases. GAP insurance is the same - decent GAP can be had for £100, but dealers try to triple that. A friend of mine was recently pushed to get GAP when buying a 53 plate Golf recently, which I found totes ridic.

[Defenderben]

My Octavia has "lifeshine" it was done by dealer as it was a demonstrator. Must say it glows after a quick shampoo and micro fibre dry off. The interior was done to and it has not marked even when getting covered in crap, no stains and seems to keep it clean.

Not sure I would part with that sort of money though.

Possibly look at a specialist valeting company for quote for something similar or the same and see how it stacks up?

[Babs]

The only good thing about it is the interior treatment, which is just like any other furniture protection.

[Anastasis]

Wow! What a lot of replies - thank you everyone!   :clap:
 
It seems that the consensus is that whilst these treatments can be effective, especially the fabric treatment, that they are just not worth that amount of money. However, I think Ben's response is worth checking out:

 

Possibly look at a specialist valeting company for quote for something similar or the same and see how it stacks up? 

 

I would probably be willing to pay £80-100 extra for the treatment, but nothing more than that.

 

It seems like an easy upsell for salesman to offer this at £299. No doubt the cost of the materials used is not that much so the bulk of what you are paying for is very expensive labour by the dealer. NO doubt the salesman gets more commission on the sale as well. This feels a bit like you get at Currys and such like when you spend a lot of money on a TV or an appliance and you are offered an extended warranty. The cost of them is very expensive compared to the actual risk. All you are paying for is over-priced insurance.

 

Thanks again all. What a friendly forum this is

[Coops]

A specialist valeter or detailer will probably charge between £200 to £300 for a new car protection detail but that is unlikely to include anything on the interior. However if maintained correctly (in much the same way as Supaguard) this will protect your vehicle's paintwork.

 

I've applied GTechniq I1 to my seats and the product is fantastic and IMO probably much better than Supaguard - it costs approx. £15 for a 500ml bottle and this will complete the all the interior fabric.

[oldstan]

Use the search box and type Collinite in to "Forums". (that's C o l l i n i t e)

 

Collinite 845 is the stuff I was recommended and subsequently bought from Ebay and use a couple times a year.  Use very sparingly in cool weather.  Pretty impressive!

[MickA]

Just to add my tuppence worth.

I had the Autoglym lifeshine applied from new. I got it down in price as it was the only hard sell the salesman did on me, but come to think of it he wasn't that pushy. Anyway decision made we went for it and the car looked A1 when we picked it up. Can't really say 1 year on that it looks any different now to any other well looked car and I do keep my cars clean and tidy. One thing I did notice is the wax coating did fade after around 3 months, but to be expected really, they need to be reapplied regularly. I've since done this and the car really looks when done to be almost as good as the day we picked it up.

Well would I have it done again to another new car, don't think so. I reckon with the correct products I could do the job myself as well as the dealer did, I'm sure they didn't have a specialist come in to apply it all, just their valeting team. And from what I've seen in some dealerships a bucket, sponge and an hosepipe, but what do I know, maybe better than that.

[Wardy]

Wax duration is an interesting observation there. That doesn't seem all that long to me, particularly for a product that's aimed at the general public. As such I would have expected the product spec to place protection duration over gloss and/or shine.

 

My record is with Collinite 476S - 12 months of wax protection and beading on an everyday car, that spends all it's time outside and only receives regular 'maintenance' hand washes.

[Coops]

There is the question of maintenance too - once the Supaguard has been applied it needs to be maintained with the AG supplied shampoo. Now as soon as the shampoo runs out or the user forgets and uses another brand (especially some cheaper / supermarket brands), it is likely that the protection will be stripped off thereby rendering the product useless. Leaves the car unprotected but the owner still thinks it protected because of the sales patter from dealer.

[Wardy]

Yep, another great point - if you're using an aggressive shampoo then it's going to strip protection very easily.

 

Especially as people might buy them on how effective they are at removing dirt, so some contain agressive cleaning agents, e.g. TFR (Traffic Film Remover) that will strip anything. Or people still use washing up liquid in a bucket of course...