I work on 10-20 Tesla weekly. What questions do you have about Window Tint, PPF and coatings?

[Glamisduner]

I work on alot of expensive car. Maybe ill show you guys my shop on instagram.

Bulk is FINE if they can guarantee they wont cut on your car. ask them that...

they said they can cut on paint without touching it. They are professionals.

 

[e-FTW]

Any thoughts on putting on Xpel Tracwrap in order to “make it” to when my installer is available for PPF?
Wondering how hard it is, and if it can look decent.

 

[alseTrick]

if you do it in 2 pieces you will see the seam. you won't see the seam from the outside but you will definitely see it from your rear view mirror.

if they are doing it 2 pieces I not sure If i would want them to touch my car, you have to be experienced installer to do it 1 piece.

Shaving the side windows will make it look like the tint is factory built in the glass. You run the film a bit long during the install and you shave it off so there's no visible gap.

I don't see the two pieces as a big deal. Especially since it would be cheaper and hard to notice if it's on the defroster/antenna line and each piece is the same % tint.

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

go with a coating... do the paint correction yourself and hire a shop to install ceramic pro Sport.
Ceramic pro sport is 100x better then wax in my opinion

Sweet and Simple. Thanks!

 

[735l4wh0r3]

There's only two xpel installers in my state. One plainly turned down the business the other quoted 4k for front end only. I could drive up to Denver or Phoenix, but decided to try to install a precut ppf 18" front myself. Car has 300mi and paint looked great (hit 2 spots with swirl remover+ DA to knock down a defect). You got any tips???

Thanks,
George

 

[mcbarnet007]

There's only two xpel installers in my state. One plainly turned down the business the other quoted 4k for front end only. I could drive up to Denver or Phoenix, but decided to try to install a precut ppf 18" front myself. Car has 300mi and paint looked great (hit 2 spots with swirl remover+ DA to knock down a defect). You got any tips???

Thanks,
George

What color is your car? My recommendation is watch a ton of youtube videos, see where they tack down and how they pull the ppf to fit the curve of the bumper. Start from headlight, hood, fender and then tackle bumper last. Make sure you have 8 hours to do the entire install. The whole process was much harder than I expected. I almost gave up on the bumper but finally figured it out. Buy a heat gun as you can use it to shrink the films slightly to avoid "fingers" on curves. Follow the steps and instructions from the kit as it was very detailed. Make sure to use tons of slip solution. Best of luck!

 

[mcbarnet007]

they said they can cut on paint without touching it. They are professionals.

You don't actually cut on paint, you score the film half way then you pull the part you want to remove away slowly. The knife is much harder than the clear coat and will definitely leave a mark if it touches.

 

[rzareiser]

I dropped my car off this morning. They said they use the Xpel plotter for everything, but with the hood they do an extra inch and then tuck. I think on a model S I saw there were relief edges at the top though, not sure.

They get boxes of the T emblems from Tesla apparently and put new ones on. Only slight worry I had is that someone in the shop said they were backordered. They said they had one for me, but I hope they don’t try to just restick a used one because of that.

He said they remove the camera housings and tuck the film under. They do a ton of Teslas apparently, which was in evidence from the parking lot.

My hood had a couple of small lines/scratches in the clear coat. Honestly not sure if they were there from the beginning or were from driving or my one quick wash and towel dry session. He said they’d need about a half hour to buff them out and would charge me $45 so that’s what they’re doing. I told them to let me know if they find anything else as I know their eyes are better for this sort of thing than mine.

Let me know how it all goes. I’m taking my car there next week for the exact same full front wrap. I’ve heard good things about these guys. Thanks for your info so far.

 

[orangefish]

Thanks for answering!

I'm reading about Ceramic Pro Sport now and it looks like it's intended to be coated over an actual ceramic coating?

Is it safe to apply a hybrid wax on top of it after a while? If not, what's the best way to guarantee that the car is still protected after the Sport wears off?

 

[735l4wh0r3]

What color is your car? My recommendation is watch a ton of youtube videos, see where they tack down and how they pull the ppf to fit the curve of the bumper. Start from headlight, hood, fender and then tackle bumper last. Make sure you have 8 hours to do the entire install. The whole process was much harder than I expected. I almost gave up on the bumper but finally figured it out. Buy a heat gun as you can use it to shrink the films slightly to avoid "fingers" on curves. Follow the steps and instructions from the kit as it was very detailed. Make sure to use tons of slip solution. Best of luck!

Ok thanks for the advice. My car is white (Pic Attached). I was wondering do you not mold/heat/shrink the wrap before applying it... Like tint?

 

[mcbarnet007]

White is easier than darker colors. You don't need to do the heat part until it's already on. The PPF are stretchable unlike tint so it is easier to work with. Just look at some video on how professionals deal with curves (stretch and squeezgy) then you'll know what to do.

 

[shart24]

This is a great thread - thanks for starting it and the participation @MinnesotaMX.

I had my windows tinted about a month ago, with 30% Rayno S9. The sides turned out great and I really like it. The installer said the rear window was very challenging, and he needed several attempts to get it on (all one piece). Apparently it wasn't sticking around the defrost wires, although he tried to clean the glass as best as he could.

There is still a band of about 1/8 to 1/4" thick around each wire, where the tint is not fully stuck to the glass. I am assuming this is just filled with air, as I think any water has since evaporated. This isn't that big of a deal during the day, but at night light from cars behind me get really scattered along all the defrost lines. The effect is that I can hardly see anything out of the rear window at night. This is particularly problematic on the Model 3, as there is a heavy concentration of wire "squares" right where you need to look out (bottom middle of the glass).

A few question:

1. Is this normal? I am not exactly sure what to expect, but I wasn't thinking my visibility would be impacted so negatively.
2. Have you had any Model 3's that had this same difficulty with the rear window? My installer said he has done many 3's, and mine is the only one that he has had issues. He things there is some type of metal contaminant covering the wires and the glass.
3. Any thoughts on how to correct, or how to better prepare the glass for another attempt?

Thanks!

 

[balajeek]

I did Llumar PPF on high impact areas and full Ceramic Pro 9H Gold package.
I have a question, now that I got all done, I would like to wash the car myself, what kind of soap/shampoo you would recommend and is it better to do two bucket method with spray and wipe or hose sprinkler/power wash?

 

[NathanielHrnblwr]

@MinnesotaMX Thanks for offering your time to share your knowledge.

I have PPF over the most common parts of the car. I planned on polishing / protecting the entire car with something like CQuartz UK or similar but was advised to only put these products on the parts of the car without PPF as my detailer applied a silica sealant on the PPF already. Good news for me as that’s less car to have to apply a coating to, but curious as to your recommendation on what to put on the bare paint. My detailer has products to use over the PPF which I’ll pick up soon (silica sealant) but I will need a game plan for the paint.

My previous go to was Zaino show car polish but it seems there’s much better products on the market now than resin based polymers even for DIY. So much has changed in 10 years!

Thanks.

 

[Matte_3]

If you could choose between Suntek or Xpel?

I have Suntek on my X and Xpel stealth on my 3. I regret the stealth!

 

[outie]

Any benefit on putting ceramic on top of ppf and then another ppf on top of ceramic to protect the ceramic?

 

[Dolemite]

Any benefit on putting ceramic on top of ppf and then another ppf on top of ceramic to protect the ceramic?

 

[zoomer0056]

Thanks for the explanation so it seems that I need to accept that my paint will get cut while scoring the PPF, even by an experienced installer. I guess it is a balance between accepting the paint being cut and more visible damage elsewhere...

Would pre-cut pieces mean less chance of the paint being cut?

No. Scoring is not cutting. An installer experience in bulk can score the film only. In this way the installer can then pull the film off at the score.

 

[Jejunjm]

Can anyone describe the best way to get rid of dirt that has worked it's way under ppf?