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Out and about the past four days on a cruise with Nashville Corvette Club to the Great Smoky Mountains and took this photo just up in the hills above Gatlinburg, TN and goes to show you what a bit of XPEL PPF and ceramic coating will do!! Oh yeah, and my wife w/o PPF!!
Tail of the Dragon? Been there done that, so this year headed out to an 11 mile run up to a point on the Appalachian trail and 11 miles back down on Hwy. 32. Must say, this run had as many more twists and turns as the tail. All being tighter and quicker turns than the tail....without the traffic. Worth the run! Felt like a kid with a full size go-cart on an adult course!
@LT2/3LT Do you have a sense of how much of that shine is due to to ppf and how much is due to the ceramic? I've been going back and forth on ppf and my car is being built tomorrow. I'm basically at a "no" right now, but seeing your car has me questioning everything. My dealership offers ppf, but the company does the work at the dealership and without doing paint correction first. Beyond that, the whole car is $7,700 without ceramic, so at that price, I'm wondering if no paint correction is considered cutting corners at such a high price. Can you tell me anything about your experience that might push me back in that direction?
@LT2/3LT Do you have a sense of how much of that shine is due to to ppf and how much is due to the ceramic? I've been going back and forth on ppf and my car is being built tomorrow. I'm basically at a "no" right now, but seeing your car has me questioning everything. My dealership offers ppf, but the company does the work at the dealership and without doing paint correction first. Beyond that, the whole car is $7,700 without ceramic, so at that price, I'm wondering if no paint correction is considered cutting corners at such a high price. Can you tell me anything about your experience that might push me back in that direction?
all I can tell you is that the car WILL have marks, scratches, and swirls from factory and ppf will expose those in much greater detail. Skipping paint correction and applying ppf over that is a big no no.
as for me I'll be paying 9,800 for full ppf after a paint correction and they throw in a 5 years of ceramic coating for free as long as I bring it in annually.
all I can tell you is that the car WILL have marks, scratches, and swirls from factory and ppf will expose those in much greater detail. Skipping paint correction and applying ppf over that is a big no no.
as for me I'll be paying 9,800 for full ppf after a paint correction and they throw in a 5 years of ceramic coating for free as long as I bring it in annually.
and ppf will expose those in much greater detail. Skipping paint correction and applying ppf over that is a big no no.
Not advocating one approach over the other but PPF will actually mask/hide a certain level of marring/defects. Ceramic alone has a tendancy to magnify defects but the absolute necessity of perfect paint under PPF is debatable:
richbleak - hard to say. perhaps as shiny with just a bit of wax and devotion...but, I have owned several black vehicles in my years and this addition was a no brainer for PPF and ceramic coat.
And to be honest...if it wasn't black, I would have not covered 90% of the car and saved a large amount of funds. If any other color, I would have just followed through with PPF on the areas in need yet included the full ceramic coat.
C8 is quickly approaching 2 years old (Sept.) with a bit over 8K miles and couldn't be more pleased with the ease of cleaning and not a swirl mark, spider web to date! Yes...some minor rock dings on the PPF, yet knew this was inevitable and will be removing and replacing any sheets in need during the deep winter of '23. Out in spring again...brand new! Best benefit of PPF.
449er - Thank you. Yes, my color choice was simple when I optioned my C8. Black or nothing!!
Same place, same time just from the other side!
PPF or ceramic coat make it shine or just being **** with the detailing?! Lol...who knows, but glad I went with both:
Not being **** at all. With a black car your only chance of keeping a nice finish is by doing exactly what you have done. Looks great! Keep enjoying it!
Your C8 looks amazing, once you go black, you never go back
You'll never go back alright... You'll never go back to washing your car only once a week or two weeks because black cars look astonishing when they are clean and somewhat less so when dirty 😁.
With that being said, black is my personal front-runner when I order next year. It varies by day, but the odds now for me are like 50 percent black, 30 percent torch red, and 20 percent rapid blue. It doesn't hurt that when I showed my wife the build for black, she looked at it and said... "oooooh."
Single Black C8 Photo....
