Most dealerships present a single paint protection option in F&I — PPF, priced at $3,500 to $6,000 on a full front plus rockers. The buyer says no. The deal moves to extended warranty, interior, wheel and tire. Paint protection revenue on that deal: zero. The buyer drives off with an unprotected vehicle and rock-chips the hood within 90 days. Neither side wins.
The problem isn’t PPF. PPF is a strong product for the right buyer. The problem is a single-option menu. A menu with one price point captures one slice of the buyer curve and loses everyone priced below it. Adding peelable coating to the F&I menu as a second, lower-cost paint protection option is the cleanest way to capture the 50-plus percent of buyers who said no to PPF but would’ve said yes to something.
Why the single-option menu leaks revenue
Picture three buyers walking into F&I on the same day, each buying a $45,000 vehicle.
Buyer A wants permanent armor and plans to keep the car 7 years. PPF at $5,000 is a yes. F&I captures $5,000 at roughly 30 to 50 percent gross margin on film plus labor.
Buyer B is on a 36-month lease. They care about protection but don’t want to spend $5,000 on a vehicle they don’t own. They say no to PPF. Under a single-option menu, F&I captures zero paint protection revenue. Under a two-option menu with peelable at $2,800, there’s a real shot at yes.
Buyer C bought a used vehicle with visible swirls. They want gloss and easier washing but don’t care about rock chips. Ceramic would be the right answer. Some F&I menus already carry ceramic, some don’t. That’s a separate gap.
The single-option menu captures Buyer A and loses Buyers B and C. A three-tier menu — PPF, peelable, ceramic — captures all three. The pricing ladder itself sells. Buyers who see three options pick one more often than buyers who see one option pick it.
Attach rate benchmarks
Published industry data from sources like NADA benchmarks and major F&I training programs points to these commonly observed attach rates on new-vehicle deliveries:
- Extended warranty or VSC: 30 to 50 percent attach rate at most franchised dealers.
- GAP insurance: 40 to 60 percent.
- Wheel and tire protection: 20 to 35 percent.
- Paint and interior protection (combined, single line item on most menus): 15 to 30 percent.
The paint-protection category is the one most stores are leaving money on. It’s the lowest attach rate of the major F&I products despite being the one the customer is most likely to regret skipping within the first 90 days of ownership.
A realistic target for a well-run paint protection menu — PPF for the premium tier, peelable for the mid tier, ceramic for the gloss-only buyer — is 35 to 50 percent combined attach. That’s double the current benchmark at most stores.
How PeelClear gross margin compares
F&I product economics commonly land in these bands:
- Extended warranty: 30 to 50 percent dealer gross on the reserve, varying heavily by product and lender.
- GAP: 40 to 60 percent.
- Wheel and tire: 40 to 60 percent.
- Ceramic coating installed by the dealer’s detail department: 60 to 80 percent gross.
- PPF: 30 to 50 percent gross, with the film itself being the biggest material line.
- Peelable coating (PeelClear): commonly projected at 45 to 65 percent gross based on low material cost relative to PPF, short labor compared to PPF, and premium F&I pricing position.
The margin story is the first thing F&I directors ask about. Peelable sits between ceramic and PPF on gross margin percentage, but the ticket size is materially higher than ceramic, which means gross margin dollars per deal beat ceramic handily.
The booth day economic argument
Detail department economics at most franchised dealerships are marginal. The detail bay does pre-delivery prep, reconditioning, and the occasional ceramic install. Utilization on any paint booth the dealer owns tends to be erratic.
Peelable coating converts unused booth hours into revenue-generating hours. A full peelable install is roughly 4 hours of spray time plus prep and cure. A single tech can produce 1 to 2 full-body peelable installs per day in a properly-equipped booth. Material cost on a full-body install commonly runs $450 to $750. Installed price in F&I commonly sits at $2,800 to $4,500.
Run the booth day economics at conservative assumptions: 1.5 installs per day average, 4 days per week, 48 weeks per year. That’s 288 installs per year. At a $2,800 ticket with 50 percent gross, that’s roughly $403,000 in detail department gross contribution on a product that previously didn’t exist on the menu.
Compare that to the same booth sitting idle between collision jobs or reconditioning work. The booth is already paid for. The labor is already on payroll. Peelable coating converts fixed cost into variable contribution.
Implementation: what it actually takes
Adding peelable coating to the F&I menu is not a 6-month project. The commonly-seen implementation path at franchised dealers looks like this.
- Certification for one or two techs. Multi-day hands-on training through the manufacturer. Plan for 3 to 5 days of tech time and a certification package cost.
- Booth access. Most dealers with an existing body shop or detail bay with a booth are already equipped. Dealers without a booth need a partnership with a local body shop — commonly $50 to $150 per hour for rental time, which still works at the margin levels above.
- F&I menu integration. Print collateral, digital menu updates, F&I manager training on how to position peelable versus PPF versus ceramic on the menu.
- Sample vehicle. A demo unit with peelable applied — ideally the GM’s or a loaner — gives the F&I manager a walk-out demo that PPF can’t match. The peel moment is the close.
Total time from decision to first sold install: commonly 60 to 120 days.
A real-world implementation framing
A mid-size franchise store doing 120 new deliveries per month currently running a 20 percent attach rate on a PPF-only paint protection menu captures roughly 24 PPF deals per month at an average $4,200 ticket. Monthly paint protection revenue: about $100,800.
Add peelable at a $2,800 average ticket targeting the lease and short-hold buyers. If peelable attaches at 15 percent of monthly deliveries — a conservative addition on top of existing PPF sales rather than cannibalizing them — that’s 18 peelable deals per month at $2,800. Monthly peelable revenue addition: $50,400.
Total paint protection revenue: $151,200 per month, up from $100,800. That’s a 50 percent lift on the paint protection line without touching PPF pricing, without adding floor staff, and without displacing any other F&I product on the menu.
Annualized: roughly $600,000 in additional gross revenue on the paint protection line. At a 50 percent gross margin on the peelable adds, that’s $300,000 in additional gross profit.
Most dealerships run that math once and move.
Next step for F&I directors and GMs
The fastest way to evaluate whether peelable fits your store is a certification conversation plus a demo install on a loaner or GM vehicle. That puts the product in the F&I manager’s hands for walk-outs and lets the detail manager price it against real booth hours before any menu change goes live.
If you run F&I or detail at a franchised dealer and want to evaluate what peelable coating looks like on your menu, start with the installer certification pathway. Activate your dealership.