I will put it on mine, had it on my last car. I do not expect to do the full hood, front grill area for sure and partial hood. Did not have full hood on my last car and it worked out just fine. At the very least I would suggest you do the headlights and door cups.

 

I just had Expel applied to front and hood (not fenders). Worked GREAT on dark green 911S with 9 years and 71,000+ miles. No chip damage and you couldn't tell it was there.

 

I have it on my full front - Xpel Ultimate- hood, bumper, fenders, front splitters, headlights plus the mirrors, rocker panels and the portion in front of and behind the rear wheel wells.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Me too! Add a small piece to the fender flares in front of the rears. The awesome stance will still catch rocks. Or go full coverage like the pros here do.

If yo want to do partial hood, do like 1/3 or 1/4 around the head light upper line. On our Giulias, would be ahead of where the vents are for the Quad. I had that done on my 348 and the line blended exactly with the flip up cover line. Worked great but on lower sharply angled hoods you probably want more. Rocks will curve ball up onto the rear of the hood into the high pressure zone.

 

It has improved over the years and may not be what you think. 98% of the people that look at my car in detail can't tell anything is on. 95% think i'm BSing them so i point them to run their finger under panels to feel the separation. If you throw a ceramic coating on there too... Forget about it. Btw i have trofeo white.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I had a partial clear on my 13 Boxster, so I know the material has gotten much better. Went with ceramic coating only on the Spyder, had a few dings but nothing remarkable.

I always have that 70's clear vinyl sofa covering feeling whenever I think of covering my car. lol.

I'm leaning toward a partial - 18 " on the hood, front, lights, bumper and mirror caps, just to prevent the majority of dings.

 

I got the full hood based on the fact that the 18” will leave a small line that will collect wax and dust which will require constant cleaning to keep the seam less noticeable especially on darker color paint. Got the bumper, headlights and side mirrors as well. Wish I could have done the entire car but you’re talking the price equivalent of a full custom paint job at that point.

 

Any thing you cover will help. Sounds like you made a great choice on coverage.

 

We had a partial hood done and front bumper and had it removed. We then went with a full front end everthing, rockers, rears, A & B Pillars no roof. Then nano coated. No one can tell the car is filmed because there is no line. The partial hood on the Rosso was horrible in the desert. To redo it was that bad to my eyes but I am pretty picky

 

Giulia front end looks very clear bra friendly as you can bra it to the joins and still get great frontal coverage against stonechips and not see any sightly joins - like you would get on a Porsche if you only wanted to clear bra the nose area, you would then have sightly joins where the bra finishes and the unprotected panel begins


unless im missing something

 

I am obviously not "everybody" but here is what I did:

Clear Xpel wrap on the entire car.
Ceramic Pro Gold over that.

It is expensive, but my drive is very hard on the car's finish. Winter road grit, tall weeds growing in my dirt driveway, flying bits of road tar, flying rocks (propelled by trucks and/or wind), bird you-know-what, bird strikes, bug splatter a plenty, rampant chipmunks, and who knows what else.

So far (about 4 months) I have been able to clean it all off although Giulia hasn't encountered all of the hazards yet. The only degradation I have noticed is about 2 tiny rock chips that seem to have gotten through the Xpel, and dark lines at the edge of the Xpel in a few places. Only the road tar has been hard to clean off.

I don't expect this treatment to deal with things like the wind propelled rock that dented my truck's front fender, and it probably won't help for a bird strike on the grill but it will hopefully deal with the rest.

 

:surprise:

wow that must have been fairly expensive. I'm 99% sure my wife would kill me if I went there... maybe 99.5 % :grin2: That's one heck of an abusive drive you do though.

 

I'm still getting quotes, so full frontal is not out of the equation. Most have come back around 7-800 for partial, 1500 - 2000 for full frontal. Passing on ceramic this time around though. Oddly, I missed washing/waxing the last car.

I'm mostly concerned about front hood/bumper chips, though it would be nice to have the entire hood covered. Thanks again for the replies!

 

So.. had a installer tell me something odd. That they don't cover the bumper generally because the bumpers are designed to take impacts and that the paint can withstand impacts. Never heard such outlandish statement before.

Next!

 

That is just bonkers.

 

I've got an appointment for 1/2 up the hood, A pillars and forward section of roof, where windshield meets roof.

Ya, I'm not totally into on clear bra everywhere, I've had it on 3 cars now, and it looks OK until the bra takes a big hit, then it pockmarks. On a dark color it can stick out like a sore thumb, and after awhile it starts to permanently change, it becomes more noticeable. After a few years it frankly looks kind of crappy on dark colors.

Obvious areas- Front bumper, A pillars mirrors, above windshield, yes - the rest nope.

I usually make small patches out of bulk bra and put those on the fender right behind the wheel, so the very forward edge facing the wheel has 2" spot of protection. Easy to DIY and worthwhile to prevent sandblast rash there.

 

I've got an appointment for 1/2 up the hood, A pillars and forward section of roof, where windshield meets roof.

Don't do the half-hood.

I really won't recommend it. I had my front, mirror, lights and half-hood done.

Two days later I was back - to ask them to remove the half-hood. The Xpel line is very visible across the middle of your hood. And in sunlight, the line catches the light and reflects it - making it look like a huge scratch across your front hood. And during rains it looks unsightly as well.

I believe @MINIME had the same experience?

Either go for the full hood or skip the hood altogether.

-krish

 

I had a "Track Package done. hood, fenders, front bumper, door edges, mirros and the door handle cups. I then had 3M carbon fiber wrap on the lower front going to the rockers and the rear bumper. It was also ceramic coated.

 

Xpel on mine over 1.5 years. Worth every penny! The ease of which the front end the car is cleaned is worth it alone!

 

There are a number of folks that have done the nano coat themselves. A lot of what they are charging for is the “paint correction” even out of the factory it isn’t perfect. Well I think you can “correct the paint” with a orbital or hand very light compound. People have had good luck with Gyeon which is not super expensive. Check out the Ceramic Coat thread. I think personally we wasted money and he is a good detailer but $3000 really. Windows and wheels didn’t need it since the CCMs don’t get dust on them anyway.

I got full front everything, mirrors, a pillar b pillar rockers and fender flares rears. Roof I would like to get but I want the full roof which is another 675 and I honestly may try that with SunTek myself. They are all kits. The front bumper is very hard to do on your own but you can do the film for a 1/3 of the cost with SunTek or 3M but Xpel has a quick setting adhesive layer and you don’t have a lot of time to correct and stretch for your mistakes.

I know i am a very lucky wife. My husband will get me a paint correction kit from Autogeek for Christmas including a mini orbital and all the pads. Actually I enjoy detailing the cars i like. It is therapeutic and I don’t think he does a thorough job (he sort of knows me so I think he purposely leaves a big spot knowing I will say forget it I will do it)

 

As for Ceramic coating, costs seem to be all over the map. It might be due to the amount of paint correction necessary before application. I had full paint correction and Opticoat Plus on my car and it was $750. Nowhere near the $3K some are reporting. My applicator tech did say that the paint condition of my QV was one of the best he'd had, and required minimum correction. For those considering ceramic's it pays for itself. If you have your car detailed 3 times a year at $200 a pop, in 2 years you've more than paid for the up front costs. And washing is a breeze. I don't even use a bucket anymore. Hose down the car to remove any heavy stuff, mist and wipe with optimum no rinse wash, dry with opti seal and a micro fiber. I can do the entire car in about 30 minutes and it looks like it was professionally detailed.

Now I'll look into Xpel or 3M, but having the ceramic coat already, might prove problematic. I've read that some Xpel vendors refuse to apply it to ceramic, due to adhesion issues, while others have said no problems. I've already found a couple of rock chips on the front, so need to do something soon.

 

Hey. I think the reason this is all over the map is the cost of the product. There is only 1 CQuartz Finest Reserve certified installer in all of Arizona. Modesta is not offered in the state. Opti and Ceramic Pro you can buy online and lots of installers. The Finest Reserve and Modesta are both very expensive and you can’t buy them like you can the other ceramic coats and DIY. The paint correction is also a nice clean polish from the factory but nothing deep. However the application to the paint, wheels come off to ceramic, then the windows. Is it worth $3k? Don’t know. Probably won’t do it on my next car but not because of the cost. I just have more auto detailing products for the various cars I just want to be able to use the same technique on all cars. Not one thing for one car and this for the other. Since I can’t buy Reserve I can’t apply it to my truck and mini. So they will get something off autogeek or the carnuba has served the Mini very well.

 

I do it simply because the threshold to get a pockmark in the clear is higher than what it takes getting a chip- the way I drive it will happen- it's just a really hard hit is what's required to damage the film. It will never stay nice in the long term, especially on a dark car. It's just a way to keep the car out of the paint shop a little longer.

 

The film will get marked up but most of the better films are all self correcting and will fill in the dings. Maybe not when it is freezing in the cold states but but a hot blow dryer and you can rub any imperfections out.

 

I’m not sure i can offer any help here. This is my third car with PPF. Two white this one black. The first was 3M and i had it for 7 years. No real problems had a few places were i saw some lifting which allowed some dirt under but very small not worth replacing. Did not yellow and i take good care of my cars. Offered great protection.

Second was white used expel had on car about 2 years. Full front mirrors some other little pieces. Same, no yellowing no issues with coating. This time got expel pro self healing. Black car. I agree it is harder to work with but once on looks very good did have some dimples in the PPF thinking once in heat the sun will heal that if not the installer said if I wasn’t happy he’d replace for free. It’s very small most wouldn’t see it so ill give it a minute before deciding. The kit only covers the top half of the mirror so he custom made pieces to do whole mirror for better protection. It it was harder to stretch around the mirror with no bumps. So far I’m happy with it think it will last many years and it cut my cleaning time by 70 percent. Hope this helps.

 

On the Spyder it was way less than 3K for nano coating and it certainly made it easier to clean. I'm pretty compulsive about washing/waxing, so I'm going to use a sealant while thinking about nano again.

Wife is pushing towards the full frontal, have a few calls in and waiting to hear back on quotes. Seems like 2K for full front is going rate for 10 year warranty film.

Happy 4th everyone!

 

Wife is right and i am a wife. We know best. Suntek Ultra carries the same warranty as Xpel looks very nice (no one can tell) and it should be a little less than XPel. I think if you are going to be tracking Xpel may be the better choice but we hit some very high speeds accidentlally of course and have been very happy with the suntek ultra. I plan to so my own rear end trunk kit once it gets cool out and my own full roof. It isn’t rocket science and it is all pre-cut. I have a pretty good technique but that is suntek I would not attempt a front end install with any film but not any part of the car with Xpel. That I would leave to the pros because I need working time.

 

Here are today's carwash before and after pictures illustrating why you want a ceramic coating.

 

Screwing around with 3M scotchgard pro film this AM. Put clear film on rear rockers. Turned out swell. Wrapped bumper behind wheel and under bumper where garbage collects.

The car now has front bumper,1/2 hood and fenders, mirrors, A-piilars side skirts (done by a Pro) and now, rear rockers done.

Those air bubbles will disappear in the AZ sun, in short order.

 

I'm trying to decide between a full-front and full-car Xpel wrap. If i get the full-front, im concerned that over time there will be a color difference between the part which is wrapped and the rest of the car. The car is garaged at night, but is parked in the sun during the day.

 

I vote nose only. Only on surfaces that have a real risk of rock damage.

It will take a long while for any real discoloration to set in- however scuffs and slight hazing will be an issue in short order. It will look good the day you pick it up, but it goes downhill from there. If that car sees any real street duty and sees elements, it will be apparent after awhile.

A clear bra doesn't clean up like actual paint does. You can't cut and buff a clear bra- you can do that to regular paint to restore it.

Pic of cobwebs. Try taking that out of clear bra- you can't.

Food for thought.

rjp

 

Wraps are not permanent. They last 5 years or so depending on your driving habits.

 

That is why they the detailers will do a paint correction before they do the ppl and then a good ceramic nano coat on top of everything. The nano coats will protect and prolong the life of the film. The good ones are not cheap. CQuartz Finest Reserve and Modesta seem to be the best but they are pricey and you can’t buy and do it yourself unless of course you know someone.

 

That stuff is IN the clear bra itself....That's what I'm saying. Put a bright light on it after awhile, it becomes slightly opaque and hazed and covered in that. IMHO the only thing worse than cobwebs is touchup paint.