How to protect nose of the Roadster from paint chips, rocks, and ground scrapes?

[wiztecy]

I searched through the threads and didn't quite find any good answers on this subject and curious what other's have done.

So my concern is the following:

- Paint chips on the front bumper and hood area, such as a newly paved road that cars kick up
- Scrapes on the front bottom leading edge of the nose and bottom sides of the bumper cowl

So out of nowhere they paved a portion of a commute route I take and CalTrans didn't do a good job cleaning up all the rocks and road pebbles. Even though I followed very far behind the rocks that were kicked up from the car ahead of me managed to pelt the front of the roadster. I only saw two small chips in the paint which makes me a little sour but there's nothing I can do about that. What's the best solution for protecting the front bumper, hood, and fenders from being damaged? My friend's Fisker had the Clear Armor placed over the front which protects it but has a funky line that can be seen running across the hood. The other part is to just touch it up by hand every now and then.

The other level of awareness is how low the roadster's front end is. I'm very conscious with granny'ing it over bumps and through dips but last light I granny'd it across a dip (Pulling out from a driveway to a road) and felt the front lightly graze the road. I checked to see what grazed and it appeared possibly to the the lower front right side of the cowl (part directly in front of the fender). Nothing that a little touchup paint can't fix and I rather have a slow graze to make me aware of this and try to remedy it. So one part was I had a passenger in the car and making a right turn. I'm sure the roadster dipped a little more than with just me. It also appears the previous owner did the same for that I see a matching graze on the other side of the roadster as well. I may not have done any of this too for that I may have already been scratched before I had the car. Interesting how when you analyze things your eyes open up wider. Anyways I think this would be a good place to put the 3M paint armor or some sort of Tape Protection. Possibly little hard plastic sticky bumpers that will scrape instead of the paint.

Has anyone come across these minor cosmetic issues and have any ideas? I really want to protect the roadster as much as I possibly can, its my baby and feels like I have a commitment to do so when becoming a new owner.

 

[augkuo]

You can get a clear bra done that covers the entire front section - I have it also on the rear and side panel. As for the low front, there's not much you can do about it except for being careful. I cracked my front bumper 3 days after getting my car because I wasn't familiar with it! A front camera helps for parking curbs but for driveways, dips, etc you have to go through them diagonally.

 

[wiztecy]

Thanks Augkuo for the info, one of these days I do want to meetup and see your awesome ride and the cool improvements you've made. Just been busy this past month... I'll have more time next month and still want to connect. Do you know the cost of the clear bra? That does seem like the way to go. I may start looking to make the double sided taped hard plastic runners for the bottom. I think that if I'm careful I can hear the runners scrape and back up the attack, secondly if its a light scrape it should only scrape the hard plastic and the front bumper cowl should have a little give to it to prevent any minor scraping damage from occurring. If I make it and it works I'll post some pics.

 

[Nvbob]

We just got a "full wrap" of the star-shield on our car. It covers just about all the painted surfaces. Tesla charged us about $2200 for it.

 

[augkuo]

Clear bra/paint armor should run you about $1-3K depending upon how much you want covered - ie one mirror was $40 at Tesla, my install was $2.5k at a custom shop. Tesla's paint armor was a $1.5k option, not sure how much it'd be now.

 

[Jaff]

I had my Roadster "re-wrapped" by TMC as well...well worth it imo!

 

[DSA]

Tesla offers the original Paint Armor (aka clear bra or Starshield) as an upgrade for used Roadsters - they charge $2,000 for the materials and install and $200 for a detail prior to install. I'm planning on getting it. By the way, I did some measurements of the family vehicles and the Roadster actually has the highest front lip of our 3 cars. Some rough measurements as I recall for clearance at the lip of the front spoiler: A bit more than 7 inches for the Roadster, though it's lower behind the front lip, then only about 5.75 inches for the Acura NSX and the BMW 330i with performance package (M3-like wheels/front spoiler) was somewhere in between - around 6.5 inches, as I recall. So I'm pretty impressed with the ease of driving the Roadster - the NSX is actually even more difficult when it comes to dips and inclines. As long as I take it slow and diagonal I haven't had problems. Of course there was the one time when I was leaving Tesla Menlo Park and took the exit dip a bit too fast and heard a bit of a bump in front. Ironic that the only issue I've had happened there. I checked later and there were no visible scratches, and it was a good reminder to take it slow.

 

[dwegmull]

I recently got a new front bumper after a small parking lot accident...
If I remember the details of the invoice correctly, installing starshield on the bumper only was close to $1000.

 

[jordanthompson]

I have the original body armor from TMC and the only nicks I have are where its not.
I have had to go up some awkward angled driveways, and have done it at an an angle also (mentioned earlier.)
For what its worth, my wife's Mercedes SLK 280 is actually lower to the ground and just (today) came out of the body shop because the front was (yet again!) damaged by hitting a parking lot bumper. The roadster actually has MORE clearance than her car!
I think when it is time, I will get the body armor replaced with the same stuff. I am very impressed with the fact that there are no nicks where the plastic is.

 

[slcasner]

When comparing the Roadster to other cars that are as low or lower in the front, you need to also consider the distance from the front axle to the tip of the nose (or other low point).

 

[jordanthompson]

Fair enough - the nose on the SLK seems much long when you are sitting in the car and it is harder to judge where the curb is.