My car with software added grad filter

Had some neat clouds yesterday, and took some more car pictures, I haven't ordered actual filters yet so I used Camera RAW's grad filter to fix the difference between the sky and ground, the darker picture is original exposure. It was a + 2 difference according to the slider, dont know if that mean 2 stops or not?

Both have the contrast increased for dramatic effect obviously, and some orange and yellows de-saturated as the ground was distracting with all the blues in the picture.

Just kinda seeing what kinda stop difference I need when I buy a actual filter, does 2 stops look right?

I think they look great!! And with a dramatic skies like these also make excellent B&W images, too.