Back On With The PPF - Page 2 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

I went up to Glasgow last Friday morning in the Cayman and leaving MK at 4am I managed Tebay Services for 6.45am , a beautiful drive at that time of the morning completely unmolested by Officialdom . Washing the Car after I returned back on Sunday I was delighted to find that I had escaped with only the smallest of marks on the lower front panel . It was then I realised once again that this luck clearly wasn't going to last and PPF again was pretty inevitable . I stuck the Car in on Wednesday to Auto FX at Tyringham who despite their commitments at Aston Martin managed to fit me in . I get the Car back tomorrow evening . Ive been sat thinking this evening how things were before PPF and how its almost become a prerequisite nowadays when it comes to many Cars . I suppose the real value comes when you buy a used example with this work already done , I always raise any eye when I see one offered for sale with the words " full PPF ". At £4k I think I've done the right thing .

As long as you are happy then it has done half of its job. Mine is "naked" for three reasons. 1.I'd prefer to spend the 2-4k on a roadtrip/wine/other stuff. 2. I really don't mind a bit of "patina" on a car. 3. It only stops the smallish stuff. If I had a dark colour then I might feel differently.

3. It doesn’t just stop the smaller stuff. Our 981 GT4 got hit by a half a house brick that fell off a wagon front of us and took a direct hit to the front bumper. The paint was perfect underneath the PPF. Small cost to replace that panel. But I wouldn’t pay £4k for full coverage either. There are certain areas that see more road rash, and those are the ones I’d cover. At less than half that price.

M11rph said: As long as you are happy then it has done half of its job. Mine is "naked" for three reasons. 1.I'd prefer to spend the 2-4k on a roadtrip/wine/other stuff. 2. I really don't mind a bit of "patina" on a car. 3. It only stops the smallish stuff. If I had a dark colour then I might feel differently. I echo your view. I wouldn’t discount a secondhand car with PPF where the previous owned has spunked their money on it but it wouldn’t convince me to pay much more money on a car without. Plus by the time I sold it when the PPF ages it’s not a good look to a prospective buyer.

As mad as this sounds, make sure you tell your insurance as it’s classed as modification these days on most insurance. Theresa thread elsewhere on piston heads where someone had their insurance voided.

This one..... https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Is Porsche paint really crap? I think so. We had our 2016 BMW X1 for 7 yrs, 102k miles, and it didn't have a single stone chip on it. Amazing. My 981 had a front end respray at 50k, the Macan we just bought has some chips at 22k, and the loan Macan we're in right now has a whacking big one on the bonnet at 6k. "They all do that sir" no doubt...

Armitage.Shanks said: M11rph said: As long as you are happy then it has done half of its job. Mine is "naked" for three reasons. 1.I'd prefer to spend the 2-4k on a roadtrip/wine/other stuff. 2. I really don't mind a bit of "patina" on a car. 3. It only stops the smallish stuff. If I had a dark colour then I might feel differently. I echo your view. I wouldn’t discount a secondhand car with PPF where the previous owned has spunked their money on it but it wouldn’t convince me to pay much more money on a car without. Plus by the time I sold it when the PPF ages it’s not a good look to a prospective buyer. I agree I wouldn't have the stuff fitted if you paid me TBH, Before long it will be more than 'just' Correction, PPF, ceramic it will be Corrections PPF, PPF to protect the PPF, Ceramic, wax then god knows. We have a thing called lacquer, paint chip repair and respray. Seemed perfectly adequate for 100 or so years. It doesn't yellow, look worse than nice original paint and lacquer, doesn't cost a fortune, you can polish it, it doesn't leave glue residue everywhere it doesn't add any weight and its erm cheaper Edited by Adrian-9iafn on Friday 1st December 06:42

Adrian-9iafn said: I agree I wouldn't have the stuff fitted if you paid me TBH, Before long it will be more than 'just' Correction, PPF, ceramic it will be Corrections PPF, PPF to protect the PPF, Ceramic, wax then god knows. We have a thing called lacquer, paint chip repair and respray. Seemed perfectly adequate for 100 or so years. It doesn't yellow, look worse than nice original paint and lacquer, doesn't cost a fortune, you can polish it, it doesn't leave glue residue everywhere it doesn't add any weight and its erm cheaper Edited by Adrian-9iafn on Friday 1st December 06:42 Is it cheaper ? Both Sills are vulnerable as are the rear Quarters the Front Valance and the Bonnet . There are plenty of Threads on here talking of the poor Standard of "remedied" Paintwork even in OPC Dealerships . One on this very section is now going to the trouble of sorting the Paintwork on a used GT4 and then applying PPF and good luck to him as he says he got a Discount from the Vendor which will no doubt address some of the cost . I have had the Xpel on a couple of Vehicles and it dealt adequately with the usual road rash scenarios . I even had one section replaced for £150 on the rear wing of a new Vantage . Would repainting by Aston Works or an Approved Paintshop been any cheaper ? Utter Rubbish . I don't know what your experience of PPF is because yours certainly isn't mine .

Armitage.Shanks said: I echo your view. I wouldn’t discount a secondhand car with PPF where the previous owned has spunked their money on it but it wouldn’t convince me to pay much more money on a car without. Plus by the time I sold it when the PPF ages it’s not a good look to a prospective buyer. I have a 10 year Guarantee with the Xpel so it will comfortably see out my Ownership and ensure that the Product still looks presentable when I come to exit . Its interesting for me how Dealerships view a PX already fitted with PPF . In my experience its seldom ever removed and the Purchaser is left to do as he chooses . Most I would argue leave it on and merely update any panel which looks " tatty ' I didn't need to pay the £4k which is for the total coverage but could have escaped for a much lesser fee by attending to vulnerable areas only , One thing is sure , whatever you do someone on PH will argue the opposite

I wasn’t taking about a quarter panel on a rear wing I was talking about the cost of a full PPF Both my 911’s with 50k miles between them look near mint

Adrian-9iafn said: I wasn’t taking about a quarter panel on a rear wing I was talking about the cost of a full PPF Both my 911’s with 50k miles between them look near mint Delighted for you .

Everyone's going to have a different view and everyone will have a different set of priorities. I had PPF on the high risk areas of my car pretty much the 2nd day it arrived. My previous car had a fair few stone chips on the front after only 11k miles in 2 years. When I was able to get my dream car after my BMW was stolen, I put PPF on to the costs. 8k miles later the car still looks like new. Someone with different priorities will say that was a decent Ski holiday spent on that and they'd be right.

Yeah fair comment . I am getting her back later this morning and I am looking forward to it .

reddiesel said: Adrian-9iafn said: I agree I wouldn't have the stuff fitted if you paid me TBH, Before long it will be more than 'just' Correction, PPF, ceramic it will be Corrections PPF, PPF to protect the PPF, Ceramic, wax then god knows. We have a thing called lacquer, paint chip repair and respray. Seemed perfectly adequate for 100 or so years. It doesn't yellow, look worse than nice original paint and lacquer, doesn't cost a fortune, you can polish it, it doesn't leave glue residue everywhere it doesn't add any weight and its erm cheaper Edited by Adrian-9iafn on Friday 1st December 06:42 Is it cheaper ? Both Sills are vulnerable as are the rear Quarters the Front Valance and the Bonnet . There are plenty of Threads on here talking of the poor Standard of "remedied" Paintwork even in OPC Dealerships . One on this very section is now going to the trouble of sorting the Paintwork on a used GT4 and then applying PPF and good luck to him as he says he got a Discount from the Vendor which will no doubt address some of the cost . I have had the Xpel on a couple of Vehicles and it dealt adequately with the usual road rash scenarios . I even had one section replaced for £150 on the rear wing of a new Vantage . Would repainting by Aston Works or an Approved Paintshop been any cheaper ? Utter Rubbish . I don't know what your experience of PPF is because yours certainly isn't mine . I agree with you. Some people do have a very strange take on things...."doesn't add any weight" lol. Probably stresses about the weight of the fuel in his tank, and wears lightweight shoes. Just in case. I have PPF on the front bumper and bonnet of M3 and full coverage on my Spyder. As well as making cleaning much easier and less stressful (no swirl risks) one of the benefits is that I do not worry about cr4p thrown up by other vehicles, especially in winter - including "gritting" vehicles and their trails of destruction. I used to stop and wait in motorway service areas to avoid the pain of passing one of them. So....PPF actually saves wait....

I need to make a decision whether to PPF my upcoming Cayman (GT Silver) and I'm pretty conflicted. I see the following options: - Partial PPF (front + sills + rear arches): £2k - Full PPF: £4.5k - Respray front when selling £1.5-2k - Full respray when selling £5-8k - Don't bother I'm going to be driving the car as much as possible, don't really care about values etc. I'd actually prefer to just drive it and don't care about damages and when the time comes, respray where needed. But I see two problems with this: - Colour matching across panels - Resale value if paint isn't original / car has been resprayed Has anyone gone through the same thought process? Anyone opted to just respray - what have the results been like? I also believe that when replacing the PPF at some point, the colour on the non-PPF panels would be different, so feels like back to square one when comparing against respraying chipped panels. Any advice?

£4-5k to PPF a car... PPF manufacturers/installers are creaming it. Car worlds gone mad.

Oh I'd definitely have PPF. It's made an outstanding difference to my Citroen, and I can see me keeping this for at least another 6 months, or 5k, before having it ceramic waxed with the power option, and the extra tinted paint on the sills. I'm sure that it will reap at least 5k on increased residuals when I trade it for a newer unit. But really I want to know that I'm looking after it as much as possible because that's what love really is. And anyway, who would be able to drive a Citroen, and not have a spare 5k for the PPF ceramic finish with extra wax, and could look at St Moritiz for a quick heave ho on the slopes. Perhaps not push the boat out too much this year you know.

quote:::I used to stop and wait in motorway service areas to avoid the pain of passing one of them. That is so so sad, it’s a blooming car FFS

I have yet to be convinced that spending £4-6k on a wrap of polyurethane on the car is a great idea, it still reminds me of people who used to keep the plastic covers on their seats to avoid marking them. Only they didn't pay £5k for the privilege. Problem areas like rear wings or lower sills manufactures have already been dealt with adequately enough for me Maybe seeing that brown Austin Allegro for sale 5 years on, as a young lad, with unmarked fawn seats that just reminded me how pointless it was, when interior shampoo and a little care would have been just fine. I get it if that's your thing, but the idea it's a must, or essential is in my view misplaced. Even if it stops me from cruising next to the gritting lorry

c3m said: I need to make a decision whether to PPF my upcoming Cayman (GT Silver) and I'm pretty conflicted. I see the following options: - Partial PPF (front + sills + rear arches): £2k - Full PPF: £4.5k - Respray front when selling £1.5-2k - Full respray when selling £5-8k - Don't bother I'm going to be driving the car as much as possible, don't really care about values etc. I'd actually prefer to just drive it and don't care about damages and when the time comes, respray where needed. But I see two problems with this: - Colour matching across panels - Resale value if paint isn't original / car has been resprayed Has anyone gone through the same thought process? Anyone opted to just respray - what have the results been like? I also believe that when replacing the PPF at some point, the colour on the non-PPF panels would be different, so feels like back to square one when comparing against respraying chipped panels. Any advice? Surely you'll only ever need a full respray if you have done something catastrophic. At 50k miles you expect a few stone chips, at 100k people are more worried about worn mechanicals and worn seat bolsters etc, a good detail and I suspect the paint condition will be better than the mechanical or interior wear.

c3m said: I need to make a decision whether to PPF my upcoming Cayman (GT Silver) and I'm pretty conflicted. I see the following options: - Partial PPF (front + sills + rear arches): £2k - Full PPF: £4.5k - Respray front when selling £1.5-2k - Full respray when selling £5-8k - Don't bother I'm going to be driving the car as much as possible, don't really care about values etc. I'd actually prefer to just drive it and don't care about damages and when the time comes, respray where needed. But I see two problems with this: - Colour matching across panels - Resale value if paint isn't original / car has been resprayed Has anyone gone through the same thought process? Anyone opted to just respray - what have the results been like? I also believe that when replacing the PPF at some point, the colour on the non-PPF panels would be different, so feels like back to square one when comparing against respraying chipped panels. Any advice? I’ve been through this a few different ways round with 4 Caymans so far, 3 of them bought new. First time around was 2017-18, when I had some ceramic coating on 718 Cayman 2.0 paint from new, but no PPF. It had a hard first 9 months, doing about 12k of motorway miles, and had a lot of small stone chips on the front bumper. Also managed to gouge the driver’s door mirror, so at about a year old had the front bumper and mirror resprayed by a very good Porsche recommended paint shop. Front bumper paint was £450 + VAT, also had full detail and Swiss Vax, and of course the mirror painted. It was an amazing job, and less than £1300 with VAT all in at the time. Sold the car absolutely mint with 17k miles and not a single mark on it later that year. Next one was a used 981 GT4. No PPF, but probably ceramic coated, might be Swiss Vax. Easy to clean which ever way around. Covered in gravel rash and tiny stone chips in all the usual places when I bought it with about 7k miles on it. I’ve done over 10k more miles in it since, and will at some point get some panels painted and PPF applied in the places that attract gravel rash. The patina looks quite good though, and doesn’t seem to be getting any worse despite quite a few track days. Next up was another new 718 Cayman 2.0 identical to the original one, in 2021. This time I had PPF on the front bumper, and ceramic (“glass”) on everything else. Sod’s law, about 5 months in got hit by some sharp flying motorway debris just above the windscreen. Sold the car just over a year later with those 3 tiny marks, but otherwise absolutely mint. The PPF, detailing, and ceramic coating came in at about the same price as the paint and detailing on the first Cayman 2.0, but with the added bonus that the car wasn’t stuck in a paint shop for a couple of weeks having the front bumper painted. Finally, thinking I have the perfect recipe for keeping a winter daily drive mint, got a new 718 GTS 4.0 in September. Again went with PPF on the front bumper and ceramic coating everywhere else, but the PPF fitter very kindly threw in some PPF panels behind the side air intakes, and behind the rear wheels in areas that can get a bit pebble-dashed. He was planning to do above the windscreen as well, but that ended up getting ceramic coated before he had fitted the panel. Fingers crossed on flying debris… Weirdly, slightly “mates rates”, but yet again, about £1300 inc. VAT. My thinking so far is that unless you might be inflicting many motorway miles, or track days, PPF is probably overkill. However if there’s the slightest danger of either, getting the front bumper covered is essential, and for track days, get some patches ahead of and behind the rear wheels. This is best done when the paint is new and unmarked, so I have taken to just biting the bullet and doing it. Ceramic, glass or Swiss Vax type coatings are not always well loved, but I only ever wash cars with plenty of plain water (very soft in our area) and a wash mitt, and dry with a micro fibre drying towel. They seem to stay perfect for up to 2 years that way (hopefully much longer). I wouldn’t do without them. Aside from the misgivings you have about colour match and resale value, paint shops are not always all that good at keeping trim fasteners intact, or tightening any panels they might have removed back down again properly. Money spent avoiding resprays is well invested; there are reasons why getting cars painted devalues them. Hope that helps Liam