Xpel, Suntek, or Equivalent PPF Survey (Part Deux)

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Haha, me again.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Darn I messed up my surveys. It should be viewable without voting. Now people trying to decide whether to install PPF or not can't see the results. Can the moderator fix this or delete the thread? Rookie move

 

[houstonian]

Darn I messed up my surveys. It should be viewable without voting. Now people trying to decide whether to install PPF or not can't see the results. Can the moderator fix this or delete the thread? Rookie move

Can you edit your OP to modify the poll?

FWIW I am planning on installing a clear bra (24" XPEL Ultimate film) on the entire hood, fenders, mirrors, door handles, and the complete front bumper - quote I've got for the DEN area came to $1,300 for this ($875 if I did a partial hood install).

Had a clear bra on my old Acura, liked it, but it did start to degrade around the 8th year and with the partial hood install, it was very clear where the line was. When I weigh the pros vs. the cons I do a fair amount of driving (~20k / year) with a good portion of that on interstates in cold weather states so added protection against road sh#$it is a plus for me. Yellowing / degradation is also a concern but I'd rather deal with that issue than pitted leading edges. Finally, Xpel offers a 10 year warranty (I think? Guessing the others do as well?) so by year 8/9 I plan to be going over the bra closely to warranty out any fade, degradation, etc., which I see as helping to mitigate the clear bra aging risk.

Anyways, my takeaway is the more interstate driving one does, the more likely the clear bra will protect the hood, bumper, fenders, etc. from damage. If you're driving in rural settings or cold weather climates, there's even more reason to consider it. The first stop after delivery for me is the clear bra installer.

 

[DrivingRockies]

I heard enough people have issues with sensors that I decided against. Not worth paying the money to have a safe car just to make it less safe.

 

[houstonian]

I heard enough people have issues with sensors that I decided against. Not worth paying the money to have a safe car just to make it less safe.

I read through this thread: Sensor interactions with wraps such as Xpel?

...and based on it it does appear placing a layer of wrap over a camera (or camera housing) will distort the camera's ability to see and therefore impact the camera's functionality. But, if you're not doing a full body wrap, you should not be covering any cameras. Think the only cameras that would be wrapped in a full body setup would be the ones on the B pillars?

See the quote below for where I pulled that info from.

Dear friends,

My S is in the middle of being wrapped by Brett Miller of All American Paint Protection, located near the Rockville SC. Brett is very careful about all the details. My conversation with him over the phone and again in person convinced me that he cares about and thinks about every possible aspect of his work.

Wednesday night, my co-pilot and I drove our new S over to AAPP immediately after taking delivery. The car was exposed to the world for five minutes or less. Brett and I did a thorough walk around the car and discussed every aspect. Brett immediately realized that he was looking at AP2.0 cameras that were new to him.

If I have them down correctly, I believe the cameras are these:
+ 3 forward-looking, mounted on rear-view mirror
+ 1 backward-looking, mounted on rear bumper
+ 2 side/backward-looking, mounted on little flanges on the side of the car
+ 2 side-looking, mounted on the B pillars roughly at head height behind driver's head

Wrapping is a non-issue for the cameras mounted on the rear-view mirror (although windshield tinting might be an interesting issue) and the rear-bumper mounted one. None of these get wrapped anyway.

The ones mounted on the side flanges are located in such a way that a body wrap will go around the flanges and never involve the cameras. So hopefully no issue there.

Finally, there are the two mounted on the B pillars. It's tempting to wrap them as there will be a single piece of plastic protecting that pillar. Cutting holes in that plastic means that there will be edges around the cameras... and stuff could accumulate at those edges, fingers could snag on them, etc. So it'd be nice to just do a single piece of plastic.

Out of an abundance of caution, Brett researched the issue. Here's what a birdie told him (in Brett's words):

I spoke with [redacted], and although those 2 cameras on the b-pillars are not active currently they will be in the next few months with the updates for the vehicle. They are in fact high def cameras and will distort the vision of the cameras therefor making them not operate properly. They will NOT void any warranties whatsoever.​

I believe the translation of this report is: (1) a layer of plastic over the camera may well result in distortion and (2) even so, no warranty will be voided.

In any case, the upshot is that Brett is recommending that we NOT wrap the B pillars at all, to avoid the problem of cutting holes in it. Instead, he's going to apply a bunch of extra layers of Ceramic Pro. As the B pillar is rarely if ever involved in the kinds of incidents for which one purchases Xpel, I think it's a reasonable compromise. So I guess I'm getting a 95% body wrap.

Thanks,

Alan

P.S. From yesterday: front has been undergone paint correction, whatever other prep needed; wrapped in Xpel. I think this photo looks like something you'd see in an advertisement in an automobile magazine.

View attachment 205121

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Darn I messed up my surveys. It should be viewable without voting. Now people trying to decide whether to install PPF or not can't see the results. Can the moderator fix this or delete the thread? Rookie move

Looks like the moderator fixed this for me. Thank you. At least it doesn't show that a vote needs to be casted to see the results on my screen. But I think I voted so I could see the results.

 

[tomas]

I'm not sure what good this does, as it is not a statistical sample. The people who responded to this sort of thread seem to be people who got PPF.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Yeah it looks like it's going to be a big flop of a survey, but it was worth a try.

 

[tomas]

not a flop at all. Tells you something... >90% of the people who got PPF are glad they did. That's important.