Why hardly anyone waxes their car anymore | Car

The New York Times A few years ago, mainly blamed the ‘millennials’, or the younger generation of car owners. Millennials don’t love their cars like their parents did, and if you’re selling car wax that’s a problem. As car enthusiasts among the baby boomers continue to age, manufacturers of car care products such as Meguiar’s and Turtle Wax feel compelled to target a generation that sees driving as a necessary evil and the car itself far from a status symbol.

“Reaching drivers 20 and under is something we’ve never had to do before,” says RJ de Vera of Meguiar’s, one of the largest manufacturers of car care products. “We have seen a slow decline in sales since 2007. The number of car shows fell, sales of car magazines collapsed and cars no longer captured the imagination of children.”

At competitor Turtle Wax, the turnaround came around 2013. “Our sales started to decline,” says marketing director Kelly Cagney. Research showed that there was a large group that wanted to keep their car nice, but did not want to put any effort into it. Both executives agreed that they needed to develop multiple product lines.

That was the beginning of the rise of synthetic coatings. Because wax is outdated, something for the enthusiast, say experts. But young people do not want to rub the wax first, let it soak in and then polish it out with a lot of effort. In recent years, ceramic coatings in particular have become increasingly popular. This not only protects against dirt, but also against minor damage and often lasts more than eight years. So you can save a lot of effort compared to about a month for wax.

The disadvantage is that such treatment, which is done by professionals, is expensive. You can easily pay between 400 and a thousand euros for a treatment with such a ceramic coating or similar product. That’s why many wax manufacturers have introduced ceramic ‘hybrid’ products, such as wax sprays containing silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide. “That makes the wax more durable, but it is not a ceramic coating,” says De Vera. “Yet these products are doing well, especially because young people are more relaxed when it comes to car maintenance.”