TimAD

Making an Educated Decision Before You Buy


**Fully wrapped in Clear Bra^

Clear bra, PPF, Clear Wrap, Protection Film etc. are all words that any Porsche enthusiast has bound to have stumbled on in the past couple years. The industry has been growing substantially with newer vehicles in need of protection now more than ever. With the protection industry rapidly growing, many wrap shops are jumping on the bandwagon to fulfill the growing demand.

As a Porsche enthusiast, you want to ensure you know who is working on your car and ultimately protecting your investment. As a Porsche owner myself, I sure do! Unfortunately, you may not know REALLY who is the one working on your car. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what a shops perceived reputation is, what brand or product they use, how many Instagram followers they have or even how many cars they have in their shop at once. What matters is the skills and experience behind the squeegee or behind the blade that is working on your car.

Unfortunately as a consumer, it can be VERY difficult to know what to look for. As both an installer and owner, my ONLY concern is with quality. To obtain the optimal level of quality, there are key details that differentiate between a good install and a GREAT install. The challenge is avoiding a producer of a BAD install. Thankfully, there are metrics and determinants that can ultimately guide you to making an informed and educated decision about with what shop you place your trust.

*Let me preface that there is no such thing as "perfect." With every installation there is the potential for small imperfections simply based upon the nature of installing films; However defects such as Knife cuts, lifting edges, jagged cuts etc. do not fall under the standard of normal working conditions.

More elaborately, a great example of a "reputable shop", providing inconsistent results, is a vehicle that recently received a Full Body Stealth Wrap. Unfortunately the owner of the car did not know Adonis performed custom clear bra installations only originally bringing the car into the shop for our Spectra Photosync window film. With every vehicle we receive in the shop we do a thorough and in-depth inspection and evaluation before performing any work. Upon inspection of this vehicle we noticed a few of these Red Flags which could result in further issues down the road.



Below are tips/tricks when shopping for both a shop and a product that ensures high quality protection for your vehicle:


A Few Red Flags when consulting with a shop

• The shop rarely exhibits the completed work up close or in good lighting in pictures, hiding paint cuts and irregular trimming. They often take pictures from far way, outside or with poor lighting. Never highlighting the difficult to wrap areas of the vehicle.
• When viewing the shop’s work in person (which is highly recommended) they want to show the consumer the work outside, or excuse bubbles or other defects by asserting that the defects will "dry out".
• The shop lacks investment in its customers, not taking the time to educate on their installation process; whether they will be doing "custom" or “precut" etc.
  
  Pay close attention to these details:
• The underside of wrapped panels: examine how the film looks when wrapped around edges (if it was wrapped around).
• Corners and edges: See if the trim is smooth and neat without peeling film around seams or body edges.
• High tension areas such as bumpers and curved panels: Examine angles, taking into consideration large areas of distortion or tension in the film.

What to look for in a great wrap:

• Edges are trimmed clean and consistently, with no jagged lines or peeling film along the edge.
• Corners are wrapped smoothly, trimmed precisely wrapping firmly around the corner, hugging close to the tip of the corner, if possible.
• Panels are wrapped around cleanly where possible, otherwise film is wrapped closely to the edges of panels or trim pieces.
• Bumpers are wrapped cleanly with very little exposed paint without very high tension areasreflected in the form of distortion in the film or “fingers” that have lifted from paint.
• Mirrors are wrapped cleanly with film all the way up to the edge.
• Little to no seams present, typically indicating custom and highly skilled installation techniques (for example: One piece mirrors and bumper on a 911 or Cayman).

Example’s of a BAD Wrap

Cut Paint, this for obvious reasons is a big NO NO . Never should paint be cut on a car, A great installer can properly score film without cutting through or damage the surface underneath.





You can see the knick on the clear bra of the bumper even^












Jagged cuts and lifting film



Dirt/Debris under film





Uneven/jagged cuts/edges/bubbles and distortion









Lifting film/ fingers (will collect dirt overtime)













Loose, uneven panels and components, broken clips etc.


Damage due to removal and re-installation of body panels




What you should look for in a installation:

Clean, neatly trimmed and wrapped corners and edges















Precise trimming











Film is sealed properly to prevent lifting edges





High level of coverage in high tension areas on bumper









These are all items to look for, many shops will post pictures far away outside to hide these critical installation flaws.

Thanks for taking the time to look through, I highly recommend doing your research prior to making a decision.

Happy to answer any questions below.

Nero Corsa

If you are in San Diego, just go to Tim....do it right the first time and never look back.
His works speaks for itself. I have had several cars done by Tim and never had any issues at all. Stand up guy and the best in so cal. Request for Clearguard Nano when choosing the film to install, its clear as glass. The best installer with the best product hands down, bar none.

03LX470

Speaking of clear film I took my super low km, never tracked RS for its 1st service (purchase anniversary) and was shocked to know:

1. In addition to oil change the 1st service requires changing air filter which requires removing the rear bumper (lots of labor). Damage to wallet = $900

2. They noted the clear film on my full front end of the car and commented that the headlights have UV protection coating from factory so I shouldn't have wrapped the headlights in clear film as removing the film might cause the UV protection on the headlights to come off while peeling the film off. I somehow felt they were trying to create a future defense for warranty claim denial against the headlight cracking issues many people have been reporting (if that headlight problem were to happen to my car in the future).

Kobalt

Very informative, thanks Tim!

RealityGT

Tim, in your experience.

Are PPF fire resistant/proof?
Would the new nano coatings provide some protection from fire?
Or
would these all be combustible?

ChicagoM4

Thanks Tim, very informative.

A lot of shops I run across use machine cut PPF pieces to wrap cars (instead of cutting by hand). If you wanted to wrap the edges would you recommend staying away from these types of shops or can they still wrap edges with machine cut pieces? Thanks

bronson7

Great question. I would also like to know. Thank you.

TimAD

I appreciate the compliments! Means a lot to hear my clients are enjoying all the handwork and passion that goes into their cars.

Thanks for reading!

I wouldn't say it's fire resistant or fire proof. It's up to OEM paint requirement in terms to heat resistance from natural sources ie. (the sun, thermal heat from engine bay etc.).

Many nano coatings have a high heat resistance, but this doesn't prevent the substrate underneath from heating up.

Thanks for reading!

A large majority of guys in the industry use machine cut designs, this is not a bad thing at all. When installed properly they will look great and do a great job at protecting your vehicle. Custom installation done correctly takes years of experience to perform, so oftentimes you are are better off with a precut because of this. I couldn't group all PPF guys into precut or custom and say stay away from one or the other, because there are too many variables. A shop can as easily perform a bad installation with a precut as they can with custom. Great custom work is just on a whole other level from great precut work.

All cutting software is flexible and enables you to edit and modify the templates. Most edges are extendable which allows them to wrap (For example wrapping edges on a hood or door precut). The final result and degree to which the edges are wrapped are up to the installer and what they choose/are comfortable with wrapping.

If you view their work in person, and notice many/all edges don't wrap I would ask them if they modify the templates to wrap edges. Not all edges can be wrapped, but many can.

ChicagoM4

Thanks, I had no idea you could request the precuts to be extended.

bronson7

Thank you for the info TimAD.

GiuseppeM

Great write up Tim and thanks for adding pictures!

jkm155

Guy, I had my GT3 wrapped with Xpel and it has multiple blemishes that are visible, but only when wearing polarized sunglasses. Xpell tells me this is normal. I'm suspect.

TimAD

Yes correct, indeed this is normal when looking at clear bra with polarized sunglasses. This would fall under the shop not taking the time to invest in their customers, explaining what to expect with their installations.

Premier

Excellent information here Tim. The paint protection film industry has undergone a phase of saturation in which just about any shop carries some type of film. However, this also means that for consumers it is difficult to assess the difference between various companies. We recommend looking at the shops' work before making a decision. Most companies take photos from 5'-10' away and from those distances, everything would look good.

TimAD

Thanks Premier, being in the industry as long as you guys have I'm sure you've seen your fair share of the above. Subpar work, paint damage etc. etc.

Being a lesser known installer this is especially frustrating as our only focus is quality, and people oftentimes go for the higher volume more "well known" shops in the area without understanding the potential risk and extremely subpar workmanship.