Fat Sound

I've had clear bras installed on three cars now and this is, by far, the cleanest job yet.
Check out these two pics and tell me if you can even make out the lines.
In person you can see them, but only if you kind of refocus on the hood.

alohalc

i think i can see it. not the line but the slight color different from the hood .

Arby 545

ur car should be manly.... it shouldnt need to wear a bra!!!!!!

CoolTones

Nice Job indeed!
I have the same stuff on my '98 328i and it STILL has not yellowed. Not sure if it is the "XPel" brand, but I do know it's 3M. Stongard. I understand that the XPel product is actually a new, improved version.

The only thing I was able to spot was the area around the Park Distance Control sensors.

Very nice job. Would you mind telling us where you had it installed, and for how much?

Cheers,
-Tony

EBMCS03

I thought X-Pel is the design Cut... whatever the installer use for the film is up to them.

I have 3M film on the MINI and Avery Film on the E60 and both are "X-PEL" thats the cut design.

StonGuard would be another cut design.

Fat Sound

The local Xpel installer is mobile so he came to my house. They had a great set up. They had me pull the car out of the garage and they drove it up on ramps, totally enclosed the front half of the car in a tent and used a large bullet heater to get the tent's interior temp up to about 90 degrees so the film would "lay down" better and adhease properly. I guess it took them about 4 hours, but they didn't work straight from the Xpel pattern. I had them go a bit further up the hood so that the line intersects with the tops of the headlamps. rather than use the thicker mil materil for the lamps which makes it look noticeable I had them use the same material for the headlamps as for the painted areas. This makes the headlamp protection invisible, but eliminates pitting from road sand.
The total price including mirrors was $695.00.
I think you can have it done for less in more competitive areas, but the number of *qualified* installers in this area is pretty small.

Fat Sound

This is basically correct. Xpel is a company that provides pre-cut kits to DIY installers or patterns to pro installers who own their own plotting machine/cutter.
The guys that did my install said that Xpel now requires the use of 3M's latest film in order for the warranty to be valid.
My other car has armor glove material, which has a bit less orange peel than the 3M, but because it is more optically clear it shows every little imperfection of the install.

JDN

There is a slight diference in light reflection, but definitely a good job. Much harder to see the bra line than a passel of rock marks and bug pocks.