Great thread! My own view, as evidenced by the $4,400 dent in my wallet, is full car XPel PPF/Ceramic Coating/Paint Protection. Only a couple days after having the process completed I suffered a major rock chip that tore the film. No problem - it tore the film, not the paint so I have an appointment to go in and have that entire section of film taken off and replaced. I can't stand the idea of this imperfection so it's worth it to me to pay the installer again to replace that one section of PPF. I attached some pictures - the completed product at the installer, and the tear in question.


Completed full car XPel PPF/Ceramic Coating/Paint Correction

Tear in the PPF only 2 days later!!!

One more note - I agree fully that this all comes down to the quality of the installer. I would advise against the dealer because, in my experience, their primary motivation is to earn the best markup margin on your invoice and that means choosing the most inexpensive sub-contractor to do the work. Instead, I chose a well reviewed installer with a shop full of other high end cars already in process. It also meant I paid a premium, had to wait my turn and the process took a whole week because he removed EVERY body panel on the car, which was perfectly acceptable to me for a full car treatment. The last thing I wanted to see was lines or differences in the car because I only had the front done, or certain sections etc. If I was going to do this, I decided I would do it right the first time. Just gonna have to wait a bit on that plenum/Y-Pipe/Intercooler upgrade

 

Wow, I'm really surprised that 80% of all respondents are doing some level of PPF. If you asked me to guess the take-rate I would have said the opposite...20%. I wonder if this is skewed on Rennlist b/c we're all enthusiasts and likely a bit more **** about our cars than the average citizen (or the average Porsche driver, at least).

I've never done PPF and hadn't planned on it for my soon-to-arrive 992. Due to having a small garage and no room for a 3rd vehicle I use my Porsche as a DD (current 718 Cayman S and upcoming 992 C2S; wife has the SUV for the kids) and I feel like my paint still looks pretty new. I tend to get few, if any, little chips in my front bumper paint and the rest of the car's paint seems to hold up just fine. I never have others wash my car and I know what i'm doing so I don't get swirls in my paint. Other than road debris and paint swirls is there any other reason people tend to go with PPF?

 

Most ppf on the market have some form of self-healing. However, they are not equal. Here is a video in which we tested the major brands:

This is the reason we use ClearGuard Alpha by Prestige Film Technologies (www.prestige-films.com)

*super hydrophobic
*ultra clear - no orange peel texture
*no heat is required for self-healing
*high gloss


ClearGuard Alpha vs. other films:

 

I don’t pick up a lot of rock chips on the front end, but the 911 is unlike any other car I’ve owned. The front tires absolutely thrash the rear hips of the car.

 

How many miles do you have on the 718 Cayman? It's not so much the front bumper as much as the rocker panels and front/back of the rear wheels. I know at 33k miles on mine with only ceramic coating I had plenty of peppering in those spots.
The "hips" of Porsche sports cars is a great design element. But, it also means that anything your front tires pickup is getting spit at the rear fenders. Also, the way the body curves behind the rear wheels is going to get blasted with anything from the rear wheels.

 

wow what color is your car? beautiful color

 

It is interesting how the pricing can vary so dramatically by region. I am in the New York City Metropolitan area and I am getting quoted $7,200 for a full wrap and Ceramic (Suntek Ultra + CQ Quartz). That is a full $2,800 more that Pd Pedis paid! Hard to imagine I would recoup much of that $7,200 down the line on either a sale or trade in. This is part of the struggle when for me the car is not going to be a year round driver, I have a Jeep for winter/bad weather so probably only 6 or 7 thousand miles per year, if we ever actually work somewhere other than are homes again! Partial wrap plus Ceramic is coming in around $4k. One of the things that is making me think more about doing it is because I do want to eventually track it a bit so for that reason alone it may make sense to at least do a partial. Are others doing it with the track in mind besides just normal road debris risk?

 

Interesting. Only 11K miles on that, and put about 15K on my last Cayman S before this one. Plan to do about 10K/year on the 911 though and keep for 3-4 years.

 

curious.... has anyone experimented with Carnuba wax over ceramic coating to get that shine? Seems like as good as ceramic coatings are, they just don't shine like wax.

 

Honestly, yes...some will say watch out for edges etc etc, but I've had a few of my former SUVs totally done in PPF so I could do this and I never had a problem. WORST case, you replace that section but it seems pretty damn rare.

 

As far as an answer to this question...it depends on the car's color IMHO. For a highly metallic silver or grey, i tend to just do front of the car and ceramic over the rest...but if its a dark color that shows swirls easy and I plan on having the car for a minute, Ill just PPF the whole thing. Being able to basically spray wash your car without worrying about swirls is the BEST. Unfortunately the new water based paints on these cars don't last well at all, so its always a consideration now to just protect it from the get go.

 

Thank you! The color code is Agate Grey Metallic.

 

I guess the "NYC" premium is strong! For what it's worth, I estimate adding 2K miles a year to my 991.2 TTS and I still thought it was worth the peace of mind for the full car treatment.

 

The best I could find in Washington state was $7100 for full Xpel and ceramic coating. At least for a quality install. One place wanted 9k just for the PPF

I was told by my installer that I could use pretty much any product on the ceramic coat (Xpel Fusion) except for carnauba wax, he didn't explain why though.

 

Just once it would be good to get a proper scientific explanation as to why one cannot put a layer of wax onto a ceramic coating... I mean, I hear it all the time, but nobody has bothered to explain why 😂