Road Strike, PPF Wrap and Ceramic

[eXntrc]

This post is a request for opinions from fellow M3 owners.

I bought my M3 new in early 2019. I really wish I'd done PPF at the time but I didn't.

In October I had an unfortunate encounter with a metal plate that took flight and impacted my bumper. The whole event took only 1 second and TeslaCam caught it on video which you can see here:

There was a lot of damage, but random orbital polishing followed up by Dr. ColorChip got the damage down to this:



This month I'm thinking about doing ceramic coating. I want the hydrophobics to help keep rain, dirt and mud from sticking to the car. But now I'm also wondering about PPF, since PPF should be applied before ceramics.

Would I'd have to replace the bumper before doing PPF? What about correcting the various pits and rock chips in the hood / frunk? I guess what I'm asking here is do you have to restore everything before doing PPF or do some people do PPF just to keep things from getting worse?

Finally, I should mention that I'd like to wrap the car in the next 2 years. I love the OEM blue for now, but I know I'll eventually get bored of it and want something more unique. I understand that if I wrap it, I'll need to do ceramics over again. But if I'm thinking about wrapping it in the next 2 years anyway, is there a reason to do PPF?

I guess I'll add a poll, but would love to hear any thoughts you might have as well.

Thanks!

 

[joebruin77]

It depends on your own preferences and how much money you want to spend. In my area, a whole car PPF with Xpel Ultimate runs about $5K. A full car vinyl wrap is $3.5-$4K.

I personally did the whole car PPF, but that is also because I plan on keeping my car for 8 to10 years. If I was certain I was going to do a vinyl wrap in 2 years, I would not go to the expense of PPF. I'd just do a ceramic coating for now and put the money towards the wrap in a couple years.

Keep in mind that vinyl wraps do not offer as much protection as PPF and they do not self heal like PPF. Also, if you do a full car PPF, the liquid adhesive for the PPF will fill in minor swirls and scratches. If you do only a ceramic coating, you want the paint to be corrected and polished, as the ceramic coating will seal in any blemishes and imperfections in the paint.

 

[JasontheBeaver]

If I was certain I was going to do a vinyl wrap in 2 years, I would not go to the expense of PPF. I'd just do a ceramic coating for now and put the money towards the wrap in a couple years.

Keep in mind that vinyl wraps do not offer as much protection as PPF and they do not self heal like PPF.

I absolutely concur with this.

 

[eXntrc]

Thank you @joebruin77 and @JasontheBeaver. I think that's sort of the way I was leaning toward myself but good to hear it from someone else.

Yeah, I didn't figure the wrap would heal like the PPF. I guess I'll have to think about how long I might want to keep the wrap too.