For PPF shops
PPF shop software for jobs that keep the car for days.
A full-front is a day. A full-body with paint correction is three, sometimes over a weekend, in a controlled bay with the frunk open half the time. GuestLot gives you a single custody window that covers the whole stay, alerts if the car leaves the lot, and closes into a receipt the owner opens from a text.
One window, four days, one end time. It closes on Monday whether or not the counter is busy.
Thursday through Monday
The car is yours for four days and nobody wrote down a single thing.
A Model S comes in Thursday for full-body film and a two-stage correction. It gets washed, decontaminated, and pulled inside. Friday it is taped and half wrapped. Saturday it sits under lights curing while your installer starts the next car. Monday the owner picks it up and asks, casually, whether anyone drove it.
There is a right answer and you almost certainly have it — somebody moved it from the wash bay to the install bay, which is maybe a tenth of a mile. But “no, nobody drove it” and “here are the four times it moved, all inside the lot, total 0.6 miles” are very different sentences, and only one of them ends the conversation.
PPF also makes the frunk a working surface. Edge wraps, hood liner, sensor covers — the frunk opens repeatedly across the job. Any custody scheme that locks it, including Valet Mode, is a custody scheme your installers will defeat by lunchtime.
Apex Paint Protection
SNAPSHOT CLOSED — MON 17:02
Four days, six tenths of a mile, zero after-hours exits. On a long job the boring receipt is the valuable one.
Defaults for PPF
Thresholds tuned for film that takes days, not hours.
Choose PPF at check-in and the job configures itself. These defaults exist because a paint protection job moves the car more than a tint job and needs the frunk more than any of them.
- An 8-mile odometer threshold — enough for wash bay, install bay, curing, and a slow roll into the sun, not enough to hide a lunch run.
- Frunk access is required, so the job screen tells your crew not to enable Valet Mode on this car.
- No speed cap. A capped car in a tight lot is a car your installer fights instead of moves.
- Any Supercharger session on the owner’s account alerts the GM. A car in your bay for a weekend has no reason to be charging on their statement.
- Guest Mode stays on, so the shop cannot add keys or change PINs while the car lives with you.
Shipped defaults for a PPF ticket. Valet stays off because the frunk has to open.
Booked jobs
Full-body work is scheduled weeks out. Handle the keys then.
PPF is the most-booked category in this business — nobody walks in for a full body wrap of film. Because the appointment exists in advance, pre-authorization fits it perfectly: the owner approves the day before, access arms, and it activates the moment the car reaches your lot.
- The owner keeps their key card. A three-day job no longer means three days of somebody else’s plastic in your drawer.
- Early Thursday drop-offs before your doors open still start inside a valid window.
- Both sides get a text when access arms, activates, and ends. Long jobs make people anxious; those three messages fix most of it.
- Armed access reads nothing. Until the car is on your lot, there is no data at all.
The full pre-authorization flow, with what the owner sees, is on how it works. What the owner reads before approving is the owner page.
Risk on a long ticket
Four days of custody, one afternoon of memory.
The longer you hold a car the weaker recollection gets and the more people touch it. A closed, unedited record of a four-day stay — access window, miles, exits, charge sessions — is the document you want if a rock chip argument turns into a claim, and the thing that keeps it from turning into one. Read customer car damaged at a shop and garage keepers liability.
Questions
From PPF installers
Why is Valet Mode wrong for PPF work?
Valet Mode locks the frunk and the glovebox. A paint protection film job needs the frunk open for edge wrapping and hood liner access, so Valet turns a normal install into a fight with the car. GuestLot leaves Valet off for PPF by default and says why on the job screen.
Can a custody window last a whole weekend?
Yes. The window is set to your pickup time, not to a fixed number of hours, so a Thursday drop-off with a Monday pickup is one continuous window. Access still ends on its own at that pickup time, and one tap ends it earlier.
Does the owner see that the car sat for three days?
They see the window: when your access opened, when it closed, and what happened in between as counts and timestamps. For a long install that is usually the point — the receipt shows a car that did not move, which is far more reassuring than your word for it.
Keep reading
Valet vs Service Mode
Why Valet locks the frunk and breaks a film job.
For wrap shops
Vinyl work, fleets, and cars that move between prep and bay.
For tint shops
The same shop, the shorter ticket, tighter thresholds.
Pricing
$179 per location per month, however long the jobs run.
Security and limits
What we can and cannot do while your car sits for a weekend.
Printable check-in kit
QR signage for drop-offs before you open.
Cover the whole install, not just the morning.
Fourteen days, no card. Run your next full-body job on it and send the owner a receipt at pickup.