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My C4S is scheduled to arrive in Rhode Island April 9th. I’m trying to decide whether to do PPF wrap and Ceramic coating. I’m leaning towards no PPF. For those of you who didn’t do a PPF wrap, do you have any regrets? How badly has your paint chipped. If you didn’t do the PPF, did you do the ceramic coat? How did that work out?
My C4S is scheduled to arrive in Rhode Island April 9th. I’m trying to decide whether to do PPF wrap and Ceramic coating. I’m leaning towards no PPF. For those of you who didn’t do a PPF wrap, do you have any regrets? How badly has your paint chipped. If you didn’t do the PPF, did you do the ceramic coat? How did that work out?
I’m expecting my C2S in the next 10 days. I changed my mind from PPF to double ceramic coating because of ongoing maintenance requirements. For a 3500 mile per yr car, I will chance the 3 stone chips in 5 years.
I’m expecting my C2S in the next 10 days. I changed my mind from PPF to double ceramic coating because of ongoing maintenance requirements. For a 3500 mile per yr car, I will chance the 3 stone chips in 5 years.
I chose this car for long distance road trips. Hope to do 7,500 to 10,000 miles a year. Using your rate, I wonder how many stone chips that translates to.
Daily driver with full PPF & ceramic coating. Expensive but all this concern about chips makes me feel good about my decision. I have never spent this kind of hard earned cash and goodwill (in my marriage - god bless my wife) on a vehicle before so I am dang well going to protect it.
I do both PPF (front end - bumper, hood, fenders, mirrors) and ceramic on all. Never had an issue by not doing the rest of the car with PPF - with the 911 the factory applied PPF ahead of the rear wheels covers the most vulnerable area. About $2,000 for front end wrap and well worth it IMO.
Lol. Wish it was a linear relationship. A daily driver should get paint protection especially if its not a silver, black or white. My SUVs have 0 chips but my sedans would get a few on the bonnet after 5 year.
I had PPF on my 991.2 and it did it’s job. The downside of that job is you end up with gouged and/or bubbling film which requires replacement. In my opinion, it looks just as bad, if not worse, as chipped paint, and will usually be more expensive to replace. And to be clear, there’s limits to PPF. I had a chip or two that still made it to the paint.
If it wasn’t $2-3k a pop, it may be a more appealing option to me.
40,000+ miles in my 3 911’s, daily drivers over all sorts of roads, no PPF or ceramic. One black and 2 white car, I recall one or maybe two small chips on my 997 after 30,000 or so miles. Not saying you won’t get some of course but I don't agree that somehow these cars are more prone to road rash than others. This is just my experience.
But windscreens, now that’s different. The one on my 992 is nicely sandblasted already after only 3600 miles.
There is no standard rate of chipping you can calculate. A lot depends on where you live and the condition of the roads. These cars are low and pick up all kinds of shrapnel from the road and cars ahead.
Most can live with the small chips, it’s the bigger stones that come off your hood and leave an ugly scar that PPF then seems worth it.
I have it now, had it on my previous 911’s and will have it on future ones. I can count the PPF scars that have saved my paint.
In more than 15k miles of four season driving, including travel across more than a dozen states, the front of my C4S has 3 chips that you might notice if the car is clean and you actually go looking for them.
My C4S is ceramic coated, but I skipped PPF on the car, because I didn’t want to loose any of that depth in the Aventurine Green.
If you have the standard front fascia, there really isn’t a lot of paint in harms way. Sport design? Well, that’s a different story. If I had the front Sport Design fascia, I’d probably go with PPF, because the peppering would drive me nuts.
My Alfa Romeo 4C Spider is PPF’d, because it is a low car, white, and puts a lot of paint in harms way. I recently had the factory PPF replaced with Xpel. It was worth the investment with that car being in appreciation mode and it doesn’t exist to be a garage queen.
That brings us to cost/benefit. PPF doesn’t last forever and it does need to be replaced. Even self healing PPF weathers/ages and starts to look beat after a while. Once the glue starts to turn yellow (regardless of warranty, it will do that eventually), you need to pull it off and replace it. If you wait too long, it’s increasingly likely that some paint will come off in the process of removing the PPF. When you PPF a car, you should do it going in with the assumption that it will have to be removed/redone every 3-5 years.
So, is it worth it?
For some people, it removes some stress around actually driving/using the car. For example, if you’re the uptight/fastidious type, that PPF investment may actually increase your enjoyment of the car. If you’re that type of person, yeah, do it, because it will result in less worry.
On the other hand, we are in a golden age of paint chip repair. You can have a lot of chips repaired for the cost of that PPF — years really. Heck, if it came to it, you can get front bumper resprayed by an excellent shop for less than PPF install.
Oh, before you pipe up that such a repair will reduce the value of the car — most of the used 911s that you see at the dealer had the chips repaired or bumper resprayed. In reality, PPF doesn’t help the resale value if the install is more than a year or two old, because it’s hiding the condition of the paint underneath and removal can result in damage.
It really comes down to a personal decision on the investment. If it will allow you to enjoy the car more, I think that it’s worth it. If you’re doing it for the next owner or resale, I suggest that you don’t bother. It’s cheaper to avoid tailgating cars and trucks. 😜
If you only drive on backroads with no one in front of you then don't worry about PPF. Although I will say if you don't PPF your rocker panels, those will start to get chipped up quickly.
I am a huge proponent of PPF. Ceramic coat, not as much just since wax/sealant ultimately accomplishes the same thing as ceramic coat and I like that it is removable. Yes, ceramic coat does have better protection, but I'd recommend PPF over ceramic coat all day every day.
Went with ceramic but no PPF on my leased Targa ... One week in I had a large chip and swirl on the hood from a single rock. Over two years of it being my DD including in winter, I’ve added a few more paint chips (hood and painted section in front of the hood). I rationalized not spending the money for PPF on the short term car but will definitely not do that again. My cab has PPF in the front and it has done its job - no front end paint damage.
I do believe where the car is driven, how many miles one intends to put on the car and paint colour all play in to the decision for PPF as well as ceramic.
For me, deciding on whether to PPF or not is dependent on a few things:
1. How OCD-ish are you about your cars appearance? Will chips diminish your overall satisfaction with the vehicle when (not if...because they inevitably will happen) occur?
2. How will you use the car? Freeways are 'chip generation machines' no matter how carefully you try to mitigate the risk. Occasional local drives only...not so asthetically dangerous in general.
3. Do you have a great installer you know of and if not, do you wanna put in the time to find one? With PPF the skill and honesty of the installer is the key to PPF happiness. WHO does the install is far more important than WHAT (brand) they install; quality shops use quality products. Will they take the time to work with you based upon your specific wants/needs, being upfront an honest on what PPF can and can't do out in the real world?
All that said if you decide that PPF may be beneficial, some info I've kept on life with PPF after we had a car completely wrapped with PPF in April 2019. For the sake of context/perspective:
1. We are somewhat OCD-ish about appearance; chips bug me and become something my eyes are drawn to when i look at the car. Also, I like clean cars but don't really like cleaning cars so ease of maintenance is very important to me.
2. Our 'fun' cars come outta the garage in Spring and are pretty much daily driven until November here in NE Ohio. They see sun, rain, freeway miles, backroad fun miles and everything in between. Birds target them on occasion, they get rained on in the morning, bake in the sun in the afternoon. Short version, they get used.
3. I have a great installer relatively close to me, one who I trust without question who will do what's best for me based upon my needs, wants and budget. They will not add unecessary sevices, won't oversell product abilities and will stand behind the work in both materials and workmanship.
So, on to some general thoughts on a variety of things:
I'm an avowed ceramic coating hobbyist junkie and have lived with coated cars since 2016, both daily drivers and fun cars. Ceramics alone are great w many benefits but for cars i really care about and want to drive the snot out of, PPF offers me significant advantages; but like most things, YMMV and it really boils down to the considerations of each individual.
The PPF lifestyle has proved beneficial enough for me that I'm having it done to a CPO 981 Cayman which has been battered a bit over the 12k miles since I bought it. They just came and picked it up yesterday:
Some preliminary thoughts on why PPF in this case and will be following this latest adventure here as it progresses: https://budgetplan1.wordpress.com/20...pray-ppf-more/
Best of luck w whichever path you choose; there really is no universal right or wrong course of action but rather just what is right for you!
Last edited by BudgetPlan1; 02-20-2021 at 02:53 PM.
02-20-2021, 11:57 AM
PPF or not
