Paint Protection

[NC Cobra]

Thinking of having a ceramic coating applied to my Cobra. My primary objective is to avoid chips so IÂ’ll probabally go with a 3M film for the rear fender flares and coat the rest. Paint is a single stage Chroma base and is still in very good shape. The guy IÂ’m considering uses Gtechnig Crystal or Feynlab products. Curious if anyone has experience with the process or products and if you think itÂ’s worth it. Thanks for your thoughts.
Cheers,
Jeff

[jcpresto]

I did my entire car in sun tech wrap. Not one rock chip and it’s summers old

[BEAR-AvHistory]

10K miles & nothing special to the paint. Run 100 treadware tires so the potential of thrown stones is higher then normal 300 tires. All is still good. Expect a wrap will add some protection but how much from a chip worthy rock? IIRC none of the Triangle Club are wrapped or coated.

Think the money spent on wheel well liners might be a good plan, have them on my rears.

[NC Cobra]

Think the money spent on wheel well liners might be a good plan, have them on my rears.[/QUOTE]

That’s an interesting perspective on solving the problem. Any Suggestions on who makes them and how difficult it is to install after the car is built?

[boat737]

Think the money spent on wheel well liners might be a good plan, have them on my rears.

That’s an interesting perspective on solving the problem. Any Suggestions on who makes them and how difficult it is to install after the car is built?

Alex's wheel well liners. Alex's Custom Roadster Interiors, Hillsboro OR. (503)706-7384 http://acroadsterinteriors.com/Index.html

They take just a bit of finessing and or trimming, but overall pretty easy to install. They really make it look nice and finished up in the wheel well.

[rsw81]

I'm sure you are already aware, but ceramic coatings due not protect from rock chips... at all. It is only a thin hydrophobic coating on the paint to protect it from chemical exposure, UV, water, etc. I have a full ceramic coat on my daily driver and it has tons of rock chips in the front bumper and hood from the Mass highways. In hind site, I should have ppf wrapped the car which does rock protection, and then ceramic on top of the ppf for water beading & chemical protection.

When I'm done with the MkIV, I plan to do a full wrap with Xpel ppf to protect the paint from road/rock debris, then yearly apply a hydrophobic coating on top (personal choice of wax vs ceramic).

[wareaglescott]

I'm sure you are already aware, but ceramic coatings due not protect from rock chips... at all. It is only a thin hydrophobic coating on the paint to protect it from chemical exposure, UV, water, etc. I have a full ceramic coat on my daily driver and it has tons of rock chips in the front bumper and hood from the Mass highways. In hind site, I should have ppf wrapped the car which does rock protection, and then ceramic on top of the ppf for water beading & chemical protection.

When I'm done with the MkIV, I plan to do a full wrap with Xpel ppf to protect the paint from road/rock debris, then yearly apply a hydrophobic coating on top (personal choice of wax vs ceramic).

Second this. Seems a very common misconception that ceramic coating protects from chips. Really it only protects from the environment. As most of our cars live in garages and dont see much rain it is questionable whether a ceramic coating is worth spending the money on. With that being said I do have a ceramic coating on mine but that was more because I wanted to try it out before putting it on my more expensive car than the fact I felt the Cobra needed it. If your primary concern is rock chips you need PPF. Most PPF installers work off pre cut patterns for production cars. Those dont exist for FFR Cobras. I asked a couple guys and they were timid to try it and it was going to be pretty pricey. They seemed to be concerned about the lack of flat spaces on the car and the difficulty of installing it. I ended up not adding any other than some I did myself on the nose near the oil cooler opening and by the rear wheels. The wheel rear arches take a beating.

[Jim Doak]

I highly recommend applying the film, but not just on the front of the rear fenders but also on the nose of the car and on the top side of the doors.

I had my car repainted three years ago after 10+ years and 30K+ miles and had accumulated a lot of rock chips on the nose of the car. Around 10K miles later and the paint still looks great.

[Bobby Doug]

I highly recommend applying the film, but not just on the front of the rear fenders but also on the nose of the car and on the top side of the doors.

I had my car repainted three years ago after 10+ years and 30K+ miles and had accumulated a lot of rock chips on the nose of the car. Around 10K miles later and the paint still looks great.

I had the same done to mine too. Make sure they do the film to about the same height as your doors on the rear fenders. Mine was was a couple inches lower and I got a rock chip just above the film. I even had the leading edge of the hood scoop done too.

[AdamIsAdam]

For those who have applied PPF to the entire nose of the car, where are the seams? I'm told the rolls of film are only 60" wide, so I assume you have to do the fenders separately from the nose area.

[Bobby Doug]

For those who have applied PPF to the entire nose of the car, where are the seams? I'm told the rolls of film are only 60" wide, so I assume you have to do the fenders separately from the nose area.

The seams on mine are down by the turn signals. Not really noticeable unless you get down low to look for them. Looking back on it I probably should have taken the headlights and turn signal lights off. It may have saved a seam or two.

[AdamIsAdam]

Did you do the entire nose of the car? Windshield forward? If so, where are those seams?

[Peeker]

Bought the precut kit for my MKIV from autotrimdesign.net and had it applied this morning. Looks great.
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[GTBradley]

Bought the precut kit for my MKIV from autotrimdesign.net and had it applied this morning. Looks great.
Good choice, you are going to benefit from that more than you will ever know. I can't believe how many things hit the nose of the roadster. It looks to me like the roadster kit is about $500 from Auto Trim Design, is that right?

[Sdonnel]

The full kit from auto trim design is about $500. I bought both pieces for the nose and a 6” x 84” piece off Amazon
For $23. Made some templates for the door tops, front of rear fenders, behind the rear wheels, and the corner where the door meets the body. It’s that one place we all put our hand on to get out of the car.

[Peeker]

Good choice, you are going to benefit from that more than you will ever know. I can't believe how many things hit the nose of the roadster. It looks to me like the roadster kit is about $500 from Auto Trim Design, is that right?

Brad,

I think it was a total for just the nose of $490. I did the top of the doors, rear spats and area behind rear wheels myself with some 3m PPF I bought off amazon. Tint place here in KC charges $380 to do the nose.

Ed

[kobra01]

I had ppf installed in the same areas as Peeker and the total cost was $825. I can see a couple of seam lines but I think for the protection you get it’s worth it.