Full xpel or not to full xpel

[Aaaaaaaaa]

Originally Posted by GotM?

DO NOT DO THE FULL CAR!!! I did the full car and trust me it's not worth it. I would also recommend you do pre-cut. I would never again let someone do a custom job on my car. Perhaps I'm just very picky but the end result was not like I expected . Happy Holidays.

Please make sure you do your due diligence first before you spend about $7000 and you're not happy. I totally wish I left my car just the way it was from the dealer.

Isn't the shop you went to supposedly very reputable?

[Clark_Kent]

Originally Posted by GotM?

DO NOT DO THE FULL CAR!!! I did the full car and trust me it's not worth it. I would also recommend you do pre-cut. I would never again let someone do a custom job on my car. Perhaps I'm just very picky but the end result was not like I expected . Happy Holidays.

Please make sure you do your due diligence first before you spend about $7000 and you're not happy. I totally wish I left my car just the way it was from the dealer.

Please share specifics and/or pics. It's still not clear what happened or what exactly you're not pleased with.

[Aaaaaaaaa]

Originally Posted by Clark_Kent

Please share specifics and/or pics. It's still not clear what happened or what exactly you're not pleased with.

I'm guessing he doesn't like the orange peel effect but Suntek is supposedly pretty clear. Can't imagine a full paint correction followed by Modesta can be dissapointing. Maybe car got damaged somehow?

[GotM?]

shop did the right thing. Happy customer.

[shay2nak]

I'm going with partial and pre-cut XPEL and I'm planning to keep the car for a very long time.

[GotM?]

Originally Posted by shay2nak

I'm going with partial and pre-cut XPEL and I'm planning to keep the car for a very long time.

Who's going to do the work?

[shay2nak]

Originally Posted by GotM?

Who's going to do the work?

Most likely Sticker City in Van Nuys. Wrap Labs is closer to me, but charging me more. I'm getting additional coverage behind the front wheels and in front & behind the rear wheels. The way the body tapers away at the bottom of the car, there will be a lot of impacts.

My Exige came with Starshield and even with front mudflaps, the film on the rocker panels are shredded. I have skirts on it now which will help stop the impacts, but just goes to show what to expect. I have to replace the Starshield on the whole car. Other than the rockers, it looks great, except it's almost 11 years old.

[Bruce_SC]

Originally Posted by shay2nak

Most likely Sticker City in Van Nuys. Wrap Labs is closer to me, but charging me more. I'm getting additional coverage behind the front wheels and in front & behind the rear wheels. The way the body tapers away at the bottom of the car, there will be a lot of impacts.

My Exige came with Starshield and even with front mudflaps, the film on the rocker panels are shredded. I have skirts on it now which will help stop the impacts, but just goes to show what to expect. I have to replace the Starshield on the whole car. Other than the rockers, it looks great, except it's almost 11 years old.

You can do some extra thicker pieces on the area that see the highest road impact.

Bruce

[espressoo]

For my recent PPF install, I opted for a hybrid install. My installer is authorized in both Xpel and Suntek although he says 95%+ of his installs are for Xpel. Per his recommendation Xpel Ultimate is just slightly thicker (I'm not sure if it's the film itself or the adhesive that attributes to this) so it was installed on the high impact areas (front bumper & rocker panel). Suntek Ultra was installed on the rest of the covered areas (hood, fenders, roof and rear fender arches).

[shay2nak]

Originally Posted by Bruce_SC

You can do some extra thicker pieces on the area that see the highest road impact.

Bruce

Great idea. I have used thicker film on the underside of a splitter and side skirts. works great.

[Arcades]

Originally Posted by espressoo

For my recent PPF install, I opted for a hybrid install. My installer is authorized in both Xpel and Suntek although he says 95%+ of his installs are for Xpel. Per his recommendation Xpel Ultimate is just slightly thicker (I'm not sure if it's the film itself or the adhesive that attributes to this) so it was installed on the high impact areas (front bumper & rocker panel). Suntek Ultra was installed on the rest of the covered areas (hood, fenders, roof and rear fender arches).

Xpel Ultimate is thicker due to the adhesive they use, which is different it isnt the film itself.

Xpel Ultimate also has a texture to it, its very obvious next to Suntek Ultra and ClearGuard Nano. (I have seen all three in person side to side)

[Aaaaaaaaa]

The Xpel orange peel looks barely worse than the factory paint orange peel. More noticeable on darker colors with highly polished paint. Less noticeable on lighter colors that haven't been wet sanded and polished.

Here's my partial fender:

[espressoo]

My car is AW so the difference between Xpel and Suntek isn't noticeable standing 5 feet away. However if you look closely 1 foot away at the right angle, I will agree that Xpel does have a slight orange peel that's similar to OEM paint. The areas with Suntek is just a tad bit smoother. A good analogy is if you took plastic wrap or etc and lamented a piece of sandpaper. It's going to make the sandpaper slightly smoother since it will fill in the peaks and valleys making it appear smoother. I would assume if you had a piece of Xpel, Suntek or etc all applied to a piece of glass slide by slide you can more easily see the difference in thickness and smoothness.

[Eric S]

xpel and suntek are both 8MIL...
http://www.xpel.com/xpel-ultimate-pa...otection-film/
https://www.suntekfilms.com/Files/Su...PF%20Specs.pdf

Xpel is .1 MIL thicker (not noticeable to the end user, nor the installer). The adhesive is slightly stronger/aggressive. Sticks easier and faster, but leads to more working likes and stretch marks compared to suntek. Supposedly they have a new film coming out (still in beta testing and they cant get it to install cleanly all the time).

There has to be a compromise of adhesive, stretch, gloss and looks. Some films we have used stretch VERY well, have a hard time sticking, but it looks good. Other films stick really well and rock solid, but do not look good in the end. Suntek Ultra IMO falls in the best compromise category. We have put ultra on many many BMW and on a few occasions, it made the front end look better than the rest of the car because as mentioned, putting film on the panel adds depth and "levels out" the peaks and valleys of the BMW paint to an extent

[Detailers Domain]

at the least do the high impact areas. you will be happy that you did this later.

[adonisdetail]

Just to add to the above, in the industry all of the film TPU is purchased form the same supplier based here in the states. It is then gone through processes to add adhesive and top coatings to the films. With any product there can be variances per each roll, although these should be minimal.

With our testing, we have found SunTek to measure around 1mil less than that of Xpel, 3M PRO and ClearGuard Nano. Each installer is going to have their own material preference, with some choosing installation ease and price over thickness or quality.