I did Xpel on mine, A pillars forward, and I’m not too impressed. The finish is fine but I’ve had three chips through the film. I am very cautious to not tailgate and stay away from trucks, etc. For what I paid for the film I could’ve repainted the bumper/fender multiple times... really hasn’t been worth it so far and I doubt I’ll do it again.

The question is, is it worth doing the full car. Before you say no, do consider that there are substantial amount of carbon fiber components, roof, wing, side skirts, which if damaged, unlike regular painted panels, would not be possible to be just repainted.

I have xpel ultimate on my gt350 everywhere except partial roof, trunk, rear bumper and after 37,000 miles and multiple very long road trips (including the last 2400 mile in the middle of december with all of the road debris), not a single chip except 1 door ding damage that xpel caught and saved the paint.

I’m looking at an extra $2,500 to do the full car.

I did my whole car and have had no problems.

I have had PPF applied to my last three corvettes. Rubbed a high curb in my 2011 Grand Sport - figured there was no way the PPF was going to help in that situation, but after removing a section of heavily damaged PPF, paint was fine under - just had the PPF section replaced. I had about half my 2015 Z06 covered in PPF and held up great (I do about 2 to 4 track sessions a year). Had some deep small rips in the PPF on the front bumper but I was cautious to remove because it (PPF film) was applied over a color change vinyl wrap and I was concerned the color would peel up when replacing the PPF. The Gentlemen that I sold the Z06 to took on the project and was thrilled the PPF was able to be removed, while leaving the color vinyl fully intact (PPF did its job). My 2019 ZR1 is about 95% covered in Expel Ultimate. Since taking delivery late fall, I’ve only had one track day but it’s held up as expected.

As earlier comments have pointed out - PPF is expensive. I have been thru a number of bumper repaints on my earlier corvettes and while I have not done the math on the number of repaints to break-even against the PPF - the major reasons why I have chosen PPF: 1) corvette down time with paint process 2) aftermarket paint never to the quality of factory 3) and finally, while I never think I will ever sell any of my cars (5 sold corvettes later), it’s been much easier to remove worn PPF film to show a very good to great condition factory paint over a repaint when it comes to re-sale value.

Just sharing my experiences, understanding not all are alike . Sorry about the length of the replay but hope this helps. Wish you the best on your decision.

One last note - if you do go with PPF, find a quality installer. No different than seeking out a reputable paint shop.

Ford's paint is about 5 to 8 mils thick. It's not much different than most other manufacturers. This paint thickness is not really much of a justification for installing PPF. I see so many people boasting of the protection they will receive when they are purchasing a PPF. This belief is unjustified. If you spend a lot of time on busy highways in very busy urbans areas with billions of trucks and road construction you may be in for a surprise just how ineffective PPF can be. I have been on busy Interstate highways where 18 wheel trucks tires explode and also have had their rethreaded tires unravel at 80 miles an hour. If you are nearby in your vehicle your PPF will provide no help. I also had experienced a gravel truck flying by my vehicle spewing gravel at 80 MPH. So much debris had fallen off this uncovered truck. Numerous stones 2 and 3 inches long peppered my Boss 302 Mustang shattering my front windshield and peppered the entire front end of the car with gouges and chips that went down to bare steel. Headlamps shattered. If I had 3 layers of PPF it would not have helped. My insurance company was saddled with having to pay $6,000 to restore all the damage as I was unable to catch the culprit.. This story is not that uncommon. If you live in an area where there are quarries, or lots of road construction, or numerous 18 wheel rigs and sand trucks you probably know what I am talking about. So my lesson, at least to me, is if you DD your vehicle forget the PPF. If your vehicle experiences paint damage, and chances are high it will at some point in its lifetime, deal with it. Get it repaired. Chances are high PPF will not get the job done. However if you are overly obsessive about your car you should not be driving it. Leave in the garage and just use it to take pictures.

^^^ Now this boy makes sense. Great to see some honest opinion that goes against the status quo.

Are you sure you had xpel ultimate? Xpel had other products that werent as good.

A simple respray of a front bumper or another body panel, if done right, with paint blending will easily cost $1500-2000. And you can easily find yourself in a situation where you are respraying it and in a week, its in bad shape again. I have had multiple experiences with reputable body shops with multiple car brands. Its not as good as you may think and even after paying all of that the end result wont be like factory.

Xpel’s film is extremely rigid and I honestly dont see how one can have multiple punctures on it. Its so rigid that a friend of mine scraped his entire front bumper while parking only to realize paint underneath was unharmed.

Also in an expensive car such as ZR1, it will make a difference in resale maybe not for the price but for the sale to go through. If two zr1s are on market and one has full xpel and other has none, the full xpel car will sell quicker.

I have 37,000 miles on my gt350 and xpel since mile 400. Not a single puncture and no discoloration. Every time I wash it looks new and covered vs noncovered areas are identical. I even took 2x2400 mile road trips crossing 7 states and had no problems and I had a fair bit of loud “bangs” of rocks hitting the body.

One issue with not having xpel is how easily clear coat scratches even if you are super careful. Parts of my car that are not xpel covered is full of swirls and deep clear coat scratches. I regret not paying for it from the get go.

Painting a panel is a lot of work. Paint will match I never said it wont but it will require other panels to be painted and remember you can be back to square one in 24 hours.

Are you sure we're not related?