(upbeat music)
- All right, so we're about to go pick up
our Model Y after leaving it with Elite Finish for a week
to get kind of all done up and styled
and protected and all that.
And there are so many things
you could do with $68,000.
You could use that as a down payment
on a house and turn that into an investment property.
Buying a car is about the worst
financial move you could make.
It just really got me thinking.
And so I'm curious what you guys think like,
are you going to be buying a Tesla right now?
If you are going to buy one, of course,
you need to protect it.
And that's what we're going to go do today.
So let's head over to my friends at Elite Finish
talk about everything they did
to make sure that this car is gonna last.
And then in the end,
kind of wrap it up with any final thoughts
on whether or not it was really worth $68,000.
(upbeat music)
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and let's get back to the episode now.
All right so we made it here to Elite Finish.
The car is ready, I'm here with Wes and Kevin
and I just wanna hear what we did.
So what did we start with?
And how's it looking?
- So on your Model 3,
obviously we had just decided to just do a ceramic coating,
knowing that you guys are going to be holding
onto this a little longer and your family's growing.
We decided to add a few different things
to give the vehicle a little bit more protection.
Also, this car lended to some unique styling aspects
that we could play with a little bit without going crazy.
So that you could get really good protection
on the front end of this car
while you're driving on the freeway, on road trips,
things like that.
We applied STEK DYNOshield.
That's a paint protection film on the entire hood,
fenders, front bumper, the fog lights.
Normally, we would put that on the headlights,
but we did a little fun, little styling tweak here.
STEK has a really nice tinted,
clear bra that we put on there.
And then the mirrors were protected as well
with paint protection film
on your door handle faces.
So what's unique on the Model Y now
is you have all the sat and black trim.
So we put a satin clear bra
over the door handles to protect them.
Another unique characteristic of the model Y
is that on these rear doors,
unlike the other Teslas,
it has this kind of flared out piece,
and it actually flares out even up high.
We have the privilege of working
on the very first customer delivered Model Y.
We did a full front and clear bra on that car,
50 miles of driving later, all this was peppered.
So that got repainted and then we protected the door
with clear bra, so we've learned our lesson now
and protected your door for you.
So all this whole area through here,
as the rocks are hitting, it,
they'll be able to-
- So they're coming off of here.
- Right from the front tire.
- All the way hitting back there.
- 'cause if you look this curves underneath,
so this tire's sticking out
and especially on a performance
where the tires are stickier,
they're gonna throw rocks even more.
So those rocks are gonna shoot right down
and hit right into here.
- And then before we go on,
we tinted this window to match,
and this is 20%, right?
- 20.
- One of the other interesting things
we'll actually grab this real quick,
for some reason that
they're doing all the sat and black,
but they're still coming with a chrome plate frame
and chrome T's front and back.
So we made these sat in black for you,
and then did a custom sat in black plate frame
for you with our Elite Finish.
This is actually a pearl white
to match riding with your pearl white.
- Nice and then we tinted these as well.
Same as the front or is it different at all?
- It's the exact same.
They just, it has a little bit more of a darker appearance
just because the taillights are already kind
of smoked out on the inside and the red versus just clear,
but the shade is exactly the same.
So you'll see the light come through, no problem.
- And then we got the luggage strip.
Hope you can see it, but it's kind of like an extra piece,
starts right about here.
Probably can't see it on the camera, but--
- It wraps up and over and comes,
we put it right up into this bend,
and then, so that way, if you're accidentally,
you've got the baby stroller pulling it out
or luggage or whatever,
if it accidentally clips it,
then you've got that sacrificial barrier
of the paint protection filming,
that can take the damage instead.
- Nice.
- So, and then all this fabric,
we'll get into some of the interior work,
but all this fabric back here has CQuartz fabric
and all the plastics and leather
have CQuartz leather
protecting them as well. - Oh, wow, nice
- And then just like on your Model 3
of course, we had to protect the rest of the paint.
So we went through, your paint was actually
so very different situation obviously
when the black Model 3 came in,
had a ton of issues for us to deal with,
a major, major corrective work.
This car fortunately had very minor scratches
from the factory.
So not much to deal with.
So we're able to do like a light paint correction,
get the final polishing done.
And then of course put CQuartz Finest Reserve,
which is our flagship ceramic coating.
- And we do that on the panels
that don't have any protection film.
- Correct, all the panels with paint protection film
have CQuartz skin, which is really dedicated
for clear bra or paint protection film, or vinyl.
What's nice about the skin is it's,
what they did is they added a lot of UV inhibitors
as well as made it a little bit more of a malleable coding.
The paint's hard, you wanna put a kind
of a harder shell over it,
but on the paint protection film,
it's very malleable.
The way that the self healing works
on a paint protection film is that
if a rock piece of debris is coming across the surface,
it's not cutting into it, it's actually giving way.
And it has a memory, so with some heat,
it'll come back up to flat again.
So if you put too hard of a coating that can,
in theory, at least kind of mess with that.
So they've made that a little softer
to allow for that self healing.
And then one of the things that I'm super excited about,
this is actually the very first time we've done it,
we took the pink coat of the pearl white
and painted your calipers and perlite,
and then made the black decals
and then shot clear coat over that.
So they are integrated in.
The brake calipers on these Model Ys
are coming basically raw.
They look just like a raw cast aluminum.
They do have like a coating to basically help prevent,
weathering and stuff,
but they just look very unfinished.
You can see if you took this wheel off,
it's completely evenly painted
all the way around to the back.
Our goal in customizing a bright caliper,
is to make it look like it could have come
that way from the factory.
- When I was looking at it at first,
it's almost, it's very subtle.
It doesn't stand out if it were red or green,
just seeing the car drive by,
that would stick out.
Here it doesn't, but then when you look,
it has a sense of elegance, like a bit more upgraded.
I think that covers the outside right?
- Yeah.
- All right, let's talk about the inside a little bit.
I'm gonna pop the thing off the camera.
Let's do that.
So what do we do here on the interior?
- All right, so throughout the entire interior,
we, obviously, even though it's new,
we still cleaned everything
and then applied CQuartz fabric
to all the carpet and fabric.
- So then the seats and everything are ceramic coated.
- Yeah, so what you'll see is
they don't look that much different, right?
- No, they look maybe a little bit darker.
- Yup, it darkens it up a little bit,
but really what it's doing
is it's providing just a sacrificial barrier,
so, when kiddos in the back,
spill stuff something,
or if you get some sunscreen on the arm or whatever,
it'll wipe off much easier.
- That is awesome.
- People call me, like, is the coating, like grease unit.
It's such a nice feeling.
It just feels a little softer and stuff like that.
It doesn't feel, it doesn't look shiny,
it's not greasy, it's not addressing.
- Right, okay.
It's not Under Armour.
(laughing)
See I know stuff, I'm a com a car, I've owned cars.
- And then on the leather and all the plastic,
all these, different materials,
we applied CQuartz leather.
And then on the center console,
we have some different options.
They obviously come gloss black.
A lot of people like the gloss black,
and we can protect that,
against scratches with a gloss paint protection film.
I would say that most people,
what we prefer is to put the DYNOmatt,
which is the satin paint protection film on there.
And the reason for that is that it cuts the glare
so when the light's coming in,
you're not getting that blinding light hitting your eyes,
as well as fingerprints don't show up as much on the satin.
On the white interiors, a lot of times we'll wrap it
with sat and white, and that looks really, really nice.
- And okay, so what percentage of cars you guys work on
are this kind of car versus,
I mean, you've got your Mustang here
and I'm sure we've got some crazy cars over there.
Like so what kind of clientele
are you guys working with typically?
- The reality is Tesla's are our number one client base.
- Really?
- Yeah, and-
- They've been for awhile, you were doing them 2012.
I mean, right when the Model S came out.
- Yeah, I remember I kind of,
at first time I saw one going down the road.
It was actually, it was when Tesla still allowed you
to do a paint option.
- Oh, right.
- And there's that pink one
that's run around here in San Diego,
kind of a fuchsia pink kind of color.
I saw that car and I was obsessed.
I'm like, I gotta detail a Tesla, I gotta detail a Tesla.
And then the very first one I got,
we did a wash and he said,
"Hey, I wanna coat it, but it needs to get painted."
I'm like, "Why does it need to get painted?"
And he said, "it's got scratches."
And we fixed that, I was like, no, no,
I know I can fix all that through detail, fixed it.
- Yeah, they're gonna paint the whole car.
- Tesla was of course ecstatic.
And then, we started doing work with them
and it just it's been off to the races.
And the Tesla community is so cool there.
It's kind of a fresh, they're car enthusiasts,
that they're like fresh car enthusiasts.
A lot of these Tesla owners
that are getting super into their car
really never were into cars before.
- That's me, I had a 99 Tacoma.
I still have it, I still love it.
I own house, I need it.
But that's literally all I had before I bought Model S.
So before, I did not care.
I'm like go to the beach, I can run over medians,
I don't care right.
And then now, like I've been, done all this stuff.
- So I think what's fun for us is kinda have
that like clean slate a little bit
of being able to really show
and I haven't been jaded by,
look, the car industry is filled
with a lot of shady operations
and shops that just end up doing bad work and damage cars.
And I'm not just talking detail and stuff.
I'm talking just in the automotive business as a whole.
So it's fun to get people who haven't experienced
those bad things yet,
and they're not afraid and they wanna do cool stuff.
And they're just excited.
It's just a really cool community.
Second to that would be the Porsche community.
Porsche community is huge for us.
They really love, and they drive their cars hard.
So paint protection film,
and ceramic coatings is like really a must.
We do a lot of full clear bras on Porsche's
because of how hard they're driving and what they're doing.
And then, yeah, beyond that, I mean,
this is my GT350R, it's 1100 wheel horsepower,
it's a Tesla killer baby.
(laughing)
- Well, when I get my Roadster, I'm coming back,
we're gonna see, we're gonna see that.
So if the thing that's exciting about that,
I think for you guys, and for everyone watching too is,
the Model 3, just out sold a Honda Civic in California.
- That's crazy. - That's awesome.
- That's insane.
So you've got just a huge amount of people coming in
to, I mean, this doesn't compare to like a Rolls-Royce
in terms of luxury or even Mercedes,
I think you could argue it use a bit more like,
I don't know, like fancier finishes.
But I think for most people,
this is their first highest end car.
- I agree.
- And so that's why I'm telling you guys,
if you are gonna do that,
you should protect it and invest it.
I didn't do it early enough on my Model S, the Model 3,
because we weren't keeping it forever,
we didn't go full bore.
This one I feel good about.
- Well, I'm glad you feel good about it.
I'm glad you're keeping it,
'cause I think it's a great car.
I think it's gonna do everything you guys want it to do.
And I think it makes sense for a lot of people.
I'm really happy that Tesla created this car.
I think it's gonna take over the world a little bit,
just because it's so, I mean, it just does all things
it's practical, it's quick, it's I mean,
the range is awesome on 'em still,
even though they're an SUV,
it's pretty amazing so I'm really happy.
- Give me a quarantine go,
thank you guys - Thank you
I'm gonna go take my car for a drive.
(upbeat music)
All right, so here in the car,
you saw all the amazing stuff Elite Finish was able to do,
those guys are just so great at what they do.
Every time I take it in there, I'm impressed.
But yeah, $68,000, it's a lot of money for this car,
but I think the reason why we ended up going with it
is because a few main reasons.
For us, we make content for a living
and specifically this car
is gonna provide us a lot of value.
We're gonna make a lot of videos and help people,
decide to go electric, see what this is all about.
Realize that it's not too far-fetched
to have a car that doesn't take gas.
And so I think that's gonna do well
and that's going to help us recoup a lot of that cost.
Also, obviously the maintenance,
being zero and then fuel for us
with solar and the power, well, being, I mean,
practically nothing.
I think I calculated it last time,
it was like 20 bucks a month or something like that.
Now that we're not driving much
that I moved the studio back home.
Yeah it's, the cost of ownership or operations
is gonna be extremely low.
So those two things kind of play in our favor
that are kind of unique,
but thinking about it,
you don't actually lose all that money.
So when you spend $68,000 on a car,
or whatever it may be,
the only way that you would actually
spend that entire amount,
if when you were done with the car,
you got $0 million back.
And even if you sell it for scrap,
you will get some of that money back.
Although obviously it'd be a minimal amount.
So the depreciation on Teslas despite what people say
and the bias kind of information out there,
in my experience,
isn't better necessarily than any other car.
I mean, it's about the same from what I can tell.
So when you look at that, I mean,
you are gonna take a hit on depreciation,
but that's 68,000 after you sell it,
five, seven years from now,
let's say you sell it for, I don't know, 20,000, 30,000,
you're gonna get a good chunk of that back.
So you look at it and yet it will be the biggest expense
in your true cost of ownership,
but it will be, let's say 50% of that.
So really you're not dropping 68,000,
you're dropping 34,000 or whatever.
So that plus the ability for us to use it
in many more ways than we could the Model 3,
with Jenny's business,
doing design and hauling around furniture and materials,
this is gonna be infinitely better.
Going on camping trips with the kids,
sleeping in the back, surf trips, with that,
this vehicle is so much better suited for our family.
We're gonna get a lot more value out of it
than we did the Model 3.
Not that the Model 3 isn't functional and all that,
but just for us, it wasn't a great fit.
We knew weren't gonna keep it forever.
So we kind of went into it,
knowing that it was made mostly for content,
that's why we got it.
We didn't need a car or anything.
So yeah, it's a decent amount of money obviously,
if you are not in a financial situation
where you're needing a car or looking for it,
or it's a decent amount of money,
then yeah, definitely hold off, I would say.
But if you're looking for a crossover,
maybe in that like Subaru Crosstrek kind of family,
this is gonna be a compelling buy.
So I'll do another breakdown on the total cost of ownership
and calculating that out,
after we go, after we have some miles under this car,
but we're pretty excited about it right now.
I think this is gonna be, serve us well as a family,
the cost looking at it.
'cause we do plan on keeping it
for an extended period of time,
for much longer than we've kept our Model 3 anyways.
We're gonna get a lot of value out of it.
So for us, we decided that it makes sense,
obviously, with things happening in the economy right now,
we could have taken that money
and done other things to make money.
But in this situation we're in,
this kind of makes more sense for us.
So that's the reasoning, that's the thinking.
I'm not getting it back, I'm going to keep it.
And you're going to see a lot more over here on the channel.
So let me know what you guys think.
If you have other questions,
things that you're interested in,
leave a comment down below, hit me up on Twitter, et cetera.
And also follow on Instagram.
You can have a lot of cool photos with this car,
coming out soon on Instagram
that I won't share anywhere else.
So make sure to check me out there
and that's it for this one guys.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you back here in the next one.