I ordered a new car, 23 Corvette, and curious what others experience and suggestions are for Paint Protection Film. This car will be not be my DD and will sit in the garage quite a bit. I am thinking about getting the front end and rear quarters done. I had a 2015 Mustang and had PPF on the rear quarters only and that worked well for those areas. I drive mainly back roads and am not in heavy traffic. I only had a couple noticeable impacts to the front of that car over 7 years of ownership.

I am not huge on ceramic coatings. I think I would rather use a wax once a year but am open to suggestions for something that doesn't require aggressive removal and recoating to maintain.

A lot of experience…

Get the full hood, front quarter panels/fenders and bumper done. I’d also do 12-16” of the roof right above the windshield. Add in the rockers or kick plates below the doors where say, tennis shoes, would scrape on ingress/egress. Additional add ons would be the areas behind all 4 wheels.

Think of doing this like a condom where you are just going to have it on the “tip”. The first 1/3 of the vehicle from the front. That’s where most of your strikes are going to occur from rocks, pebbles, road debris, etc.

The stuff works amazingly well. I’ve been using it for over 20 years now. Motorcycle and automotive.

The process is paint correct, PPF, then ceramic coat over the whole car. With tint, this could be 5k all in. It’s expensive. But I’ve personally had my AP2 peppered with land scape rocks on a freeway from a construction truck many car lengths ahead. I thought I’d have to have the entire front end repainted. Instead, there was zero paint damage due to the PPF being in place. My PPF shop repaired it, used a blow torch after inserting some new small pieces, and it was back to full protection.

Price varies depending on what type of film they use and how much of the car you do. If it was something you KNOW you are going to keep permanently you could make the case for doing the entire car in PPF but it is quite expensive. For something not daily driven you should be able to get 7 years out of the film, maybe more. Way less for a daily driver. They also have a clear PPF that goes on the outside of your windshield to prevent rocks from cracking it. And they have a clear tint that goes on the inside of the windshield to prevent UV so you don’t have to use one of those fold em up sun blockers when you park in the sun.

I prefer shops and installers that hand cut the entire job. Many shops use these pre cut kits and my shop doesn’t like those and does it all by hand.

Great info thank you! What PPF brand are you using? Xpel seems to be popular.

Xpel was widely touted on the Miata boards when the ND came out & I was seriously considering one.

Lotta guys at the track just use that blue low-adhesive, masking tape crap…

But seriously, the clear bra stuff seems to work really well but that’s ancient technology?

Due to emission regulations, nearly all if not all vehicle manufacturers have switched to water based clear coat. It's much softer so it scratches easier. To make matters worse, they've saved money and made the paint system (primer, color, and clear coat) about 1/3 thinner so there is less probability of polishing/compounding out a clear coat scratch.

My current truck has PPF on the front foot of the hood. It's saved a lot of wear and tear, and is much better than the old plastic bug deflector I had on previous trucks.

Since my next truck will undoubtebly have soft clear coat and not much of it, it will have PPF on front 1/3 of it. The only add-on to Prefontaine's list would be the mirrors.

Here is the latest video in a YouTube series durability testing 8 brands of PPF:

I used STEK Dynashield on my '22 Volvo and it's holding up well. It comes finished with a ceramic coating on the film, and it still beads water up like crazy. It's been on for 14 ish months now.

I have 3M Scotchguard Pro on my '18 Discovery, and I've recently (last couple of months)saw the hazing on the film is noticeable against the dark metallic blue paint. Between 3M and STEK, I'd go STEK on my next car.

At minimum, you want bumper, front 1/3 of hood, and front 1/3 of each fender, headlights, mirrors, door cups, leading roof edge, rocker panels, and door/rear bumper sills. Full fender and full hood if you can spring for it.

Custom trim from full sheets wastes a lot of product (you can't optimize multiple pieces onto a single sheet), so gets really pricy. It's also not necessarily better. Your installer can oversize pre-cut pieces so that each panel still has a little bit of excess that gets custom trimmed and then wrapped around into the panel gaps. What you are really looking for is to minimize the number of film edges that are exposed to view. Film edges will eventually collect dirt.

If you've got the money for a full wrap, consider getting Stek Dynashield in Matte finish. It looks super interesting--and in about 5-7 years, you can peel it off and go back to gloss when the matte paint fad has run its course.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Xpel was widely touted on the Miata boards when the ND came out & I was seriously considering one.

It changes over time. I’ve used 3M, Xpel, Suntek, and the owner changes all the time as 3M likes to buy competitors out. The more important part is the shop doing the work. That’s more important than the brand of film. My PPF shop tests film regularly. So if something new comes to market they’ll order some sample sizes and beat the shit out of it on purpose.

As Tator pointed out, I did indeed forget to list the mirrors. I’ve done them also, every single time as well as the headlights. Headlight housings are so expensive due to LED, Xenon, etc, so get them done too.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:


As Tator pointed out, I did indeed forget to list the mirrors. I’ve done them also, every single time.

Don't forget the door handle cups! I see a ton of swirl marks and scratches in the door handle cups on other people's cars. Drives me nuts.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

But seriously, the clear bra stuff seems to work really well but that’s ancient technology?

It’s not ancient. It came from the aviation industry. The films are constantly being developed.

quote:

Originally posted by xantom:
Great info thank you! What PPF brand are you using? Xpel seems to be popular.

Xpel self healing is awesome. Did the full front end, headlights, and mirrors on my Mach E about a year ago. Holding up great. So thin and clear you can't even tell it's on there.

I use XPEL ultimate on a Soul Red Mazda 6 (4 stage paint). One of those cars that can really never be repainted correctly unless you spray the entire thing and paint is very thin. Had whole treatment like Prefontaine specified and then coated in ceramic. Lasted great until bad driver swiped me on pass side doors and deer hit driver's fender, bumper and hood while waiting for parts. Where the car hit, impact damage and PPF torn away. Where deer hit, paint protected by PPF, but all mounts were broken and metal was creased. It was about 5K for PPF and ceramic in Allentown, PA area. It was great to use some hot water and heat-gun/hair drier to remove bird stains and small impact damage. As you probably already know: be careful in your choice of bug/tar removers so you don't damage PPF.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TheBull,