I am relatively new to this entire PPF thing. When I purchased my car….I had PPF put on before I took delivery. After high insight this probably wasn’t the best decision. If I had to do that step over again…I would have take the car to a paint correction shop and had the car gone through before putting the PPF but thats another story.
So to start this off… I have a love hate relationship with PPF. The love part is easy. It projects the paint from chips, scratches, swirls and stains. The bad part….the hate side PPF itself can tear, scratch, swirl and get stains. So I look at it as a temporary shield that protects me more like an insurance policy. If and when I get PPF damage …. the cost to repair that will be a lot less than the cost of repainting, replacing a windshield or headlight.
For those of you who know me I am super ridiculous when it comes to maintaining my car. It gets oil changes every 3000 miles…you get the idea. If there is something I can do to keep the car working great, and looking great…I will probably do it. So…thats how the PPF thing got started.
Recently…on the way to one of our events….the front of my car was blasted by rocks falling out of a truck. Luckily the PPF did the job…it saved the hood but the windshield not so much. It would have been fine had I had PPF on it….so that will be something I replace in the near future. The headlights lens took some hits but not too bad…so had those cleaned up and PPF put on those now. Now PPF on headlights is a personal option that determines where your level of pain is. IF the PPF on the lens gets damaged….and you want to get it replaced…it’s going to be very costly to be done right…the lends has to be polished and sealed then PPF applied. So why do PPF sounds like its the same process of a rock hits it anyway. The answer to that is yes..it’s the same process BUT…..the depth the rock damage does to the lens will not be as deep so less sanding and less likely hood of causing major damage to the lens. The down side… in 10 years or so…if nothing has hit the lens you are going to probably want to replace the PPF and you will be faced with reconditioning the lenses at that time. So to me…it’s 50/50 sort of thing. Some say it will void your warranty…but so does a rock strike so not sure where to go with that one.
One important note….many cars, including mine have a plastic parts…many of which may get covered in PPF. When you get an object/rock strike on PPF that is covering plastic…the plastic will get a dent. Maybe not a scratch or a chip but a tiny dent. Better than a deep gouge and going through the paint…but nonetheless a scar may be noticeable.
PPF – self healing…. well…. so far….swirls self heal…minor scratches will self heal, but thats seems to be about it. With a good ceramic coating it’s even better. The car is super easy to clean and always looks great. But here is the downside…you have to keep it clean. More specifically you have to keep the edges of your PPF clean. Dirt can build up along edges and seams. This build up is like PPF cancer…once it starts and gets under the PPF…you have to either trim it off or have it cleaned and new adhesive applied to get it to stick…(this doesnt work well) so trimming or replacing the panel has always been the better option. So cleaning a car…in general is easier with PPF….the detailing of the PPF edges takes extra time and care.
So would I suggest PPF…Yes… especially if you are fanatical about your cars surfaces.
I would love to hear your PPF adventures. Drop and line.
John Ramirez.
John Ramirez
