The question: How many new scratches, dings or divots are on my car from hitting piles of snow, banging it with a shovel or hitting objects hidden by the snow. Some car wax company will get rich from me alone.

 

I understand your frustration. This winter has been particularly hard on my car, and I live in sunny CA. I've noticed a few new scratches on the front bumper that are trivial but still noticable. There is also a deep gouge on the satin silver hood trim from a piece of errant road debris. Then yesterday, a bottom-dump rock hauler threw up a huge stone about the size of my thumb and f'ed up my windshield with two bounces. Chip repair did seem to fix most of it, but there is a good chance the windshield will need to be replaced further on down the road since some of the spider cracks could not be completely filled in. So, I guess I'm fortunate that my headlights are still in one piece (knock on wood).

 

I can only imagine that my TL has a pretty large amount also. I inspected the car yesterday after cleaning it up, and it still only has one door ding. Pretty impressed for a car that's 5 years old.

My front bumper/hood has a ton of chips on it. Makes me sad. And my dumb ass put some new scratches around the headlights this winter...courtesy of being careless with the ice scraper.

 

Sorry to hear this...but scratches, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, are always present.

 

Yea, the nose of my Type S has taken a beating. And it was just repainted before the Winter too.

 

Any of you guys install the clear bra? Does it make a big difference? I'm trying to decide if it's worth paying several hundred dollars to install on my Type-S.

 

 

Bro, from my experience it's not worth it IMO. The stuff it will protect against will be stuff that you can get out with a little buffing and the proper product. It's not going to be able to protect against the big stuff that you'll need to be repainted, which will cost several hundred anyways. Big waste of money IMO. Thats why I love having cars as my hobby. You can literally fix everything with the proper tools and proper knowledge.

That being said, if you have a 07+ model car I would consider the 3m car bra because as of 2007, the EPA regulated all cars that will be on US roads to use a paint mix that is "green". Leaving the paint incredibly thin. Thats the only reason I would invest in the 3m car bra.

 

Thoughtful advice. Thanks, man!

 

My paint was a mess, but thats a givin with WDP lol, it was really nice out this weekend so I gave the car a good wash yesterday, clay bared it today and waxed it, looks 100 times better, only a few rock chips in it but i dont take it out much in snow