Bay Area paint protection,
done permanently.
One application and you're done with it. There's no reapplying every couple of years, and there's no annual maintenance package you've got to keep buying to keep a warranty alive.
The industry runs on selling it to you twice.
Ceramic coatings are about as thick as a human hair. They'll make your paint shiny, they won't protect it, and they can't do anything for a clear coat that's already fading, so you're back every year paying for maintenance to keep the warranty alive.
PPF looks premium right up until it doesn't. Shops charge $6,000 and up for full coverage, and the film doesn't even make it to the end of its own warranty before it starts going, so you're seeing it fade well before year ten and looking at a car that's yellowed and rough enough to want redoing as early as year five. The seams show on every curve and they sit there collecting dirt, and when the film finally comes off it can pull your paint up with it, so you're paying for the whole job a second time.
Icon Rocklear rebuilds your clear coat instead of covering it. It's real material that cures into a permanent layer thicker than the factory clear coat, so it brings faded paint back and stops peeling before it starts, and there's nothing to reapply because there's nothing sitting on top waiting to fail.
Two packages, and we'll tell you which one.
You don't have to work this out yourself, and we'd rather you didn't try. Tell us what you're actually worried about and we'll point you at the one built for it.
Gloss & Fade Protection
- One layer over the whole vehicle
- Stops UV fading, staining, and etching
- Brings faded paint back, and most owners tell us it looks better than it did new
- The call if the car lives outside and you're tired of watching it dull
Rock Chip Protection
- Three layers on the hood, front bumper, both fenders, and the mirrors
- One layer everywhere else
- Significantly fewer chips than a bare front end
- The go-to for a brand-new daily driver that's on the freeway every morning
Straight answer on chips, because I'd rather say it here than have you find out later. This is chip resistance and it isn't chip-proof. A soft PPF film absorbs a hard direct hit better than we do, and it costs several times as much to put on. For what it costs, Rocklear is the best money in the category, and if what you actually want is the most chip resistance the industry has to offer then ask about PeelClear and we'll book you a consult instead of selling you the wrong thing.
The price is on the page, before you talk to anyone.
It's priced by vehicle size, and what's below is Gloss & Fade Protection at the current 50% Summer Sale. Rock Chip Protection runs $1,725 to $2,475 depending on the size of the car.
| Vehicle | Regular | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Coupes & roadsters | $1,850 | $925 |
| Sedans & full-size coupes | $2,050 | $1,025 |
| Small SUVs & trucks | $2,250 | $1,125 |
| Midsize SUVs & trucks | $2,450 | $1,225 |
| Large SUVs & trucks | $2,650 | $1,325 |
| XL SUVs & trucks | $3,250 | $1,625 |
If you'd rather split it, Affirm breaks it into monthly payments and a coupe at $925 works out to roughly $77 a month over 12 months, at 0 to 36% APR depending on your credit. The quote itself is free and it doesn't take a card.
The number on the invoice is the number you pay.
There's no card processing charge, no shop supply line, and no tax appearing at the bottom that wasn't in the quote. Whatever the invoice says is exactly what we're charging you. We've been asked this a lot more lately and I don't think that's about us, it's that plenty of places have picked up the habit of adding three percent when you hand over a card, and once that's happened to you a few times you start asking before you commit instead of after.
Already in the price
- Full decontamination wash, iron remover, and clay bar
- Machine polish of the whole car before any coating goes down
- Mild paint touch-up, the small chips and shallow marks
- Your 30-day inspection visit, which is included and isn't optional
Nothing recurring, ever
- No annual fee
- Nothing you have to buy from us to keep the warranty alive
- No reapplication, at any point
- Once the 30-day visit is done, we don't need your car again
The machine polish is the one that surprises people, because a lot of shops sell paint correction as its own line item and we don't. It isn't a courtesy either, it's just that the prep is what gets the paint to the point where the coating can do its job. Rocklear self-levels as it goes on, so it fills a good amount of the light swirls and scuffs by itself, and it keeps settling while it cures overnight. Whatever is still showing after that is what your 30-day visit is for. Deeper scratches with paint actually missing are a bigger job, and we price those separately and tell you before you drop the car off rather than in a phone call afterwards.
We've handed back $66,079.75 in deposits.
Fifty-nine people have asked for one back because something changed, and we refunded every one of them. A loss in the family, a job that went away, a car still sitting at the body shop, and more than one person who just changed their mind.
None of them paid a cancellation fee, because we don't have one. Cancel more than 72 hours out and it goes back to the card you paid with, and inside 72 hours it stays on your account as credit toward the job whenever you're ready, so there's no version of this where your money disappears.
We pulled that figure out of our own payment records before publishing it rather than rounding off a guess. The deposit isn't an extra charge either, it's half the job total and it comes off what you owe at the end.
Most cars are in within a week.
From the day you put a deposit down, the median wait for an install date is four days. We're appointment-only and we cap how many cars we take in, and I want to be clear that isn't a countdown-timer thing, because every shop on the internet claims its slots are running out.
Ours are genuinely limited for a boring reason. We only book a car in when we know there's staff to finish it that day, so the number of slots in a week is just the number of cars we can actually complete in a week.
Usually next day, and never longer than it needs.
Most cars are a next-day pickup, and that comes down to how the shop is run rather than how fast anybody is working. We don't overbook, every stage of the job is checklisted, and we only take a car in when we know there's staff to finish it that day, so your car isn't sitting in the corner of a lot for a week waiting its turn behind six others.
Some cars want more time than that, and multiple layers genuinely need it because each one has to cure before the next goes on. When yours is one of those we'll take the time it needs and you'll hear that from us up front, and we'll confirm your actual pickup once the car is with us instead of guessing at it before we've seen it.
You don't have to be here while we're open, either. Leave the car any day, including the days we're closed, and drop the key through the mail slot at the front. We'll pull it inside that night and the clock starts on the next open day. We won't have staff there for the whole day, so bring anything you need out of the car before you go.
Seven steps, and you know all of them now.
Free quote
Tell us what you drive and we'll send your exact price. It doesn't take a card, and you don't have to get on a call to find out what something costs.
We confirm your date first
The date gets agreed before any deposit request goes out, so you're never paying just to find out whether we can fit you in.
50% deposit holds it
It comes off your total rather than adding to it, and it's refundable outside 72 hours. More than one person wants the same Saturday, and this is how we know which bookings are real.
Drop-off
Any day that works for you, including the days we're closed, through the mail slot out front.
The install
Decontamination, clay bar, and a full machine polish before any coating goes down, then the coating itself, which self-levels as it goes on and keeps settling overnight while it cures.
Pickup
The balance is due at pickup, and it's fine to get the car wet on the drive home.
Your 30-day visit
Bring it back and we check the cure, sand or polish out anything still showing, and hand wash the whole car. It's included in what you already paid, and it's the one thing we do ask you to come back for.
It's fine in the rain the very next day.
- The drive home
The surface is dry and it's fine to get wet, so it could rain that night and nothing about it affects the coating.
- Day 1 to day 30
It's still hardening, so leave it alone. No car washes, automatic or by hand, and no soaps, cleaning chemicals, or waxes. That's the whole list and it's shorter than most people expect.
- If something lands on it
Bird dropping, tree sap, bugs, spray the spot with water and wipe it gently with a clean microfiber. Don't scrub at it, and if it leaves a mark we'll take care of it at your 30-day visit.
- Around day 30
You bring it back in. We check that it cured properly, sand or polish out anything still showing, and hand wash the car.
- After that
Wash it, drive it, park it outside. The only thing that changes for good is how you wash it, so skip the automatic washes with brushes because those are what put swirls into a coating.
Dirt and grime stop getting embedded and crusted into the paint the way they used to, so a rinse takes most of it off before you've even started. Plenty of owners go from washing weekly to washing about every five weeks.
Fifteen years is the floor, not the average.
The 15-year warranty is identical on every package, and that number comes out of 4,000 hours of harsh lab UV testing that simulates a car parked outside in the sun 24 hours a day, so it's a worst-case minimum rather than a typical result. If your car is ever garaged you'll see more than fifteen years out of it.
Wear-life is the other number and it's the one nobody hears about. Each layer carries its own UV inhibitors and blockers inside it, and it takes roughly fifteen years of sun and weather to wear a single layer's thickness and blockers away, so three layers on the front works out to around 45 years of wear-life on those panels. The warranty doesn't stack, the wear does.
Think about what the warranty covers the way you'd think about a phone. The manufacturer guarantees the phone works for its term, but if you throw it off a roof that's not their problem. Same idea here, so the warranty guarantees the coating won't fail early or wear away ahead of schedule, and if it ever did fail early the manufacturer pays us or any other Rocklear installer to reapply it. What it doesn't cover is external damage, and if you go out and destroy the coating then of course that one's on you.
Small stuff is free. Real damage is about $150.
If you pick up a bird-dropping stain that won't wipe off, or paint transfer from whoever parked too close at Costco, and it's five minutes with a polisher, we'll just take it out for you. We're not writing an invoice for five minutes of work when the invoice takes longer than the repair does.
Something real, a key scratch or the kind of damage that takes an hour or two of actual work, is usually under $150, though it depends on how bad it is and I'd rather look at it than quote you blind over the phone.
None of that is generosity and I don't want it read as generosity. You already paid us for the coating, and coming back to squeeze another couple hundred out of somebody who'd already trusted us with their car would be a strange way to run a shop.
The largest Rocklear shop in the Bay Area, and the highest-rated in the country.
That's the highest review score and the most reviews of any Icon Rocklear installer anywhere. We've protected 4,100 vehicles since 2017, and a $5,000 Honda gets the same obsessive attention as a $300,000 Porsche, of which we've now done several.
I'm at the shop for nearly every single job.
Dragon Auto is AAPI-owned, women-owned, and LGBTQ+-owned. I started it in 2017 as a mobile detailing side hustle while I was still in college, and in 2019 I did my first ceramic coating in my grandparents' garage. All of it came from money I'd saved working minimum wage, so there were no investors, no loans, and nothing handed down.
Sean and the front desk will usually be the ones you talk to first, and they'll walk you through your options before you ever come in. Once you're actually here though, you're dealing with the two of us. I'm at the shop for nearly every job we take, so if you don't see me at drop-off you'll see me at pickup, and on the rare day I'm at neither, Jenn is.
36 Winsor Street, Milpitas. Appointment only.
We're open Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon, and we're closed Tuesday through Thursday, though you can still drop a car off on any of those days through the mail slot and we'll pull it in that night.
If you're wondering how to get home after dropping the car off, we can help. We can give you a ride to BART nearby, or cover a rideshare so you're not stuck. Tell us when you book so we've got it planned.
People ask whether they're too far out, and the answer is almost always no. We've had customers drive in from Sacramento, from Windsor, from San Luis Obispo, and from Southern California, which is the better part of six hours each way. If you're an hour away, you're closer than a good chunk of the cars sitting in the shop this week.
Everything else, answered.
Is paint correction included, or is it extra?
It's included. Every job gets a decontamination wash, a clay bar, and a machine polish before the coating goes down, and the coating self-levels as it goes on, so it fills a good amount of the light swirls and scuffs by itself. Deeper scratches with paint actually missing are a separate job, and we'll tell you that before you book rather than after.
Do I have to wax it or maintain it?
No. There's no waxing, no annual maintenance, and no reapplication, ever. It's water- and dirt-repellent, which mostly means dirt and grime stop getting embedded and crusted into your paint the way they used to.
Do I really have to come back at 30 days?
Yes, and it's the only thing we ask of you. That visit is when we can see how the coating cured, sand or polish out anything still showing, and hand wash the car, and it's already paid for. It's also in your waiver, because we can't fix something on a car we never get to look at.
Can I split the cost into monthly payments?
Yes, through Affirm. A coupe at $925 works out to about $77 a month over twelve months, at 0 to 36% APR based on your credit, and the exact terms show up at checkout.
How thick is it?
Up to 2.5 mils per layer, which is thicker than your factory clear coat. That thickness is part of why the finish reads deeper, because it works like a magnifying glass over the metallic flake and a car with metallic paint comes back looking sparklier in the sun.
Has it actually been tested, or is that just marketing?
It's tested. Icon Rocklear carries ASTM results for impact resistance (D-2794), adhesion (D4541), and accelerated weathering (D4587), and the 15-year figure comes out of 4,000 hours of accelerated UV testing rather than out of a brochure.
Will it fix paint that's already faded?
Usually, yes, and a faded or older car is where the difference is most obvious. It'll come back looking brand new and then some.
What about bird droppings?
Factory clear coat isn't chemically resistant, so on a dark car on a 100-degree day droppings can eat through it in under 24 hours, and once that reaches the colour coat underneath it's permanent and the only repair is repainting the panel, which runs roughly $700 to $1,000 at a decent Bay Area body shop. We've had owners leave droppings sitting on a Rocklear-coated car for weeks in summer and we've still been able to take the mark out.
What's the difference between Icon Rocklear and PeelClear?
Icon Rocklear is permanent. PeelClear is removable and colour-changeable, so you can peel it off or change the colour without touching your factory paint, and its 20-year manufacturer warranty covers that removability. Tell us what you're after and we'll help you pick instead of steering you toward whichever one costs more.
Can I bring a car that isn't new?
Yes, and some of the best results we get are on older cars. If the paint is oxidised or fading that's exactly the case where you'll see the biggest difference.
Get your price. It costs nothing to find out.
Tell us what you drive and we'll send your exact number. It doesn't take a card, you don't have to get on a call, and there's no obligation to book anything. Or just text us whatever question you actually came here with, because that works too and somebody here will actually answer it.
From the shop
What we have written down
Owner check-ins, install standards, and straight answers about what a coating does.
- Is Icon Rocklear worth it? An honest answer from the shop that installs it
- An engineer ran the numbers on Icon Rocklear. Here is what he found
- A collector with 10+ vehicles uses only one protection method
- We checked on cars 1 year after coating. Here is what we found
- Nissan R35 GTR: the full Icon Rocklear installation process
- Our AI quotes every lead in under five seconds. It closes about 1 in 50