mb_can

Friends, any point of view or actual experience of having stone guard (3M plastic film) on the hood, front and rear bumper? I like the protection against stone chips but does it discolor/fade after few years - i dread to see two shades of of color on the car... thanks,

ron104

I have had it on my entire front end, side mirrors and door handle recesses since 2003 on several cars. I now have it on all 3 of my current Mercedes. I think it is great and have never had any paint discoloration. I always have it installed before delivery and then followed by entire car ceramic coated. The coating goes over the plastic. I have never used it on the rear bumper. Others will differ, however this is my 17 years experience with this product. As a result I have never had a paint chip on any covered surface.

ksalno

If you get it on the hood, have them cover the entire hood. I’ve seen some designs where they only go half way up the hood and where the vinyl stops on the hood looks bad, especially on dark colors. It’s is also a wax trap if you regularly wax the car. Impossible not to get wax caught on the edge of the vinyl.

Don Nguyen

Part of it comes down to how much you drive the car and how long you plan on owning it.

wolds

I second this. I have my entire SS wrapped in SunTek Ultra, but it's a garage queen and I've only put ~1,700 miles on it in 2.5 years. The film has a 10 year warranty and I trust that my installer will honor it if it yellows. Even considering this, I'm not sure I would ever do a full clear wrap on a vehicle that was a daily driver. I parked my car for an hour once at a restaurant with no trees above it and I come out to see a metric ton of bird crap on the rear windshield and trunk lid. I cleaned it about 30 minutes later, but there was still hazing visible that I used nano skin to correct. After that I started putting spray sealant on after washes. The wrap is hydrophobic, but I guess even this has its limits.

The plan for my GLS is to do ceramic coating on the entire vehicle and wheels, then clear film for the front bumper, mirror caps, door cups and the loading sill on the rear bumper. The idea is to protect common impact areas for foreign objects with film and to have a more permanent coating in the other areas to make washing easier and have a bit of protection against swirl marks.

ksalno

The guy I use for detailing and ceramic coating advises me to have the vinyl wrap done first, then he will cover everything with the ceramic coat. He says the vinyl won't stick to ceramic coat and the ceramic coat will actually help protect the vinyl from exactly what you've experienced with your SS. I am going to wrap the areas you mentioned but also doing full hood. My previous GL picked up a lot of stone chips on the leading edge of the hood. It was so bad I ended up getting the hood and front bumper resprayed.

wolds

That makes sense actually. I'm vaguely remembering reading on forums about guys choosing different application ordering for ceramic and vinyl and even a guy who did ceramic / vinyl / ceramic. It was a long thread with differing opinions and second hand info from different installers, so it was difficult to weed out who was speaking from experience versus those just kicking the idea around getting quotes. Basically, nothing to draw any hard conclusions from. My installer has only started to do ceramic in the last couple years, whereas they have been doing wraps forever. I haven't discussed the exact details of the install for the GLS with them, only mentioned the time frame it should arrive while I was getting some window tint done.

I like your installer's recommendation of vinyl then ceramic though, since it allows me to reconsider having the hood and fenders covered as well. The other reason I had decided not to have these covered was based on the height of the area being an SUV and all, I figured it would get less chips than my G8 that I had the bumper sprayed twice and hood once in 7.5 years. My wife's GLA looks fine after 40k+ miles in 2.5 years, but now I'm going to double check how it looks when I get home tonight.

ksalno

I think it also depends where you drive. Our GL saw a lot of highway and Interstate miles, where the chance for stone chips is greatest due to the speed and the big trucks. My hood and bumper look like they had been hit with a sand blaster after 7-8 years. My wife's A4 is used almost exclusively for around town driving in 40 mph and lower speeds. Her car is wrapped for the front end only (not full hood) and isn't showing any marks.

Delta5275

I had xpel on my s63. I don’t have it on my gls 63 and you can see the difference in chips ect. I would spend the money on xpel if you can. Make sure you have a good person to install it.

Pachole

I’m going for the Xpel stealth whole car when it arrives later this spring.

Mojave silver, Hope it will look good!

marchgroupinc

I can't find anything for the GLS 580 paint protection film. The front end is unique to this model. If anyone knows which suppliers ( Xpel 3M etc.) have the program to cut the film please post it here.

Pachole

Xpel:
Last I checked they had all but the trunk measurements. It was in November.

aorbeta

Had our GLS450 color corrected, ceramic coated, and XPEL on front bumper, headlights, front fenders, hood, door cups, door edges, and tailgate.

Also had a majority of the chrome trim covered in gloss black around the windows, side view mirrors, and satin black on the front and rear mud chrome guards and the chrome accents on the front and rear bumpers

marchgroupinc

Can you post some pics?

aorbeta

Sorry, don’t have the greatest pics on my phone. I’ll get better ones this weekend to post, but it looks 100x better with the chrome deleted. I wish I would’ve done the roof and roof racks as well.