Paint Protection
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5 min read
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How the 15-Year Guarantee Actually Works
By
Noah Satho
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Milpitas, California
What the 15 years covers, and what it doesn’t
It covers the coating itself failing early. If the Rocklear wears away, breaks down, or stops doing its job before 15 years, that’s the manufacturer’s problem to fix, and it’s the same on every package, whether you got a single layer or three layers up front. The warranty is 15 years across the board, and it doesn’t stack when you add layers. It doesn’t cover damage from the outside, the phone off the roof. A rock chip is a rock hitting your car, a key scratch is somebody with a key, and neither one is the coating failing. The coating did its job by taking that hit instead of your paint, and the repair is a touch-up rather than a warranty claim. Touch-ups are usually under $150, and small five-minute polish-outs are free, because you’ve already paid for the coating and we don’t feel like trying to milk the owner of the car after that. If you sit there and destroy the crap out of your coating, of course that’s not covered, because you did that. Everything short of that, the sun, the rain, the bird droppings, the tree sap, and the road grime, is exactly what it’s there for.
Why 15 is the minimum, and what a garage does to it
The 15 years is a minimum rather than an average. It comes from 4,000 hours of lab UV testing that simulates a car parked outside in the sun around the clock, so the number is built for the worst case, a car that never sees a garage. If the car is ever garaged, it’s going to last longer than 15 years. The warranty is written for vehicles that are parked outside, so if yours is seeing mixed use and it’s out of the sun part of the time, you’re going to see more than 15 years out of it. There’s a second number that gets mixed up with the warranty, and it’s worth separating. Each layer has 15 years on it, because inside it you have the UV inhibitors and blockers, and for the environment and the UV to wear down the thickness and the blockers for the material to disappear, it would take 15 years. If you stack up three layers in the front, it’s going to be 45 years of wear life on those panels. That’s wear life, how long the material takes to wear away, and it does stack. The warranty is the promise the manufacturer stands behind, and that stays at 15 years no matter how many layers you add. Both numbers are true, they’re just measuring two different things. When it does finally wear out, it doesn’t peel or bubble, it just wears away, and the factory paint underneath is left untouched with years of life still in it.
What actually happens if it fails at year 12
Let’s say it wears away at year 12. The manufacturer would pay us, or any other Rocklear installer, because there’s more in the area and there’s more in other states, so we’re not the only one, to go ahead and reapply the coating. You can take it to any Rocklear installer, and the redo isn’t coming out of your pocket. The manufacturer covers paying the shop to redo the coating if it were to fail early, but not external damage. It should have no problem making it the full length of time, and that’s what the paper is for. There’s nothing you have to do to keep it valid. No annual fees, no required inspection visits, and nothing you have to buy. Some paint protection warranties require paid yearly visits, and ours doesn’t. It’s installed once and you’re covered. Our own guarantee sits on top of that, and it’s separate from the manufacturer’s. If the coating fails or the finish doesn’t meet our workmanship standard within 30 days of pickup, we redo the work or refund you in full. A manufacturer warranty doesn’t mean much if the shop isn’t going to do clean work, so pick the shop first, a warranty is only ever worth what the shop behind it is worth. The part I still want to write down is the claim itself, step by step, who you call and what you send, so it’s here before anyone needs it.
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