I put a Xpel ClearBra on my car about 6 months of so ago. It already has a hole in it (can stop a 100mph rock my *ss). It seems as if a rock went thru the clear bra, and tagged the paint a bit. I spoke the the Xpel installers here and they say that it will cost me $250 to get the bumper clearbra replaced. Does this sound right to you guys? The warranty doesn't cover the clear bra at all? All they will pay for is if I want to get the bumper repainted (not sure if they would even cover all that)

After dropping a pretty penny already to get the front kit put on the car (bumper, hood, mirrors, etc).. and now having to drop another $250 to get the bumper piece replaced. it seems it'd be more cost effected to have never done the clear bra in the first place. Heck, before long it's going to be cheaper to just get the front of the car repainted.

 

Sorry to hear that but this is exactly the reason I did not get a clear bra. I think, over the long run, it would be cheaper to just have things repainted.

 

The xpel film is from Llumar and I guess it's pretty tough to penetrate. The rock must have hit you pretty hard. But I still think it's worth it. Also, try to alk to regional manager, you might get it replaced free.

 

I used a 3M clear bra product... haven't noticed anything going through the product... knock on wood.

 

I decided against the clear bras, for a number of reasons.

I did use 3M film on the headlights, and they have already been saved twice - at $150 a pop plus labor, I consider that a wise investment. I do not like the look of clear bras, or bras of any kind, and am willing to consider a re-paint of the front at 100k miles or so. I also wonder whether the paint will age differently - it certainly will look different when the film is removed. I wonder how it would fair at re-sale? I could see it bringing attention to an area where you might not want attention. Most buyers are clueless, and dealers do not care at all, as they figure the "whatever" condition into their quotes. They might even lower the offer because of mods. When i sold my 2002 Type S, it had Comptech springs and headers - later, the GM at the dealer could not sell it, and told me later that had she known it had mods, she would not have offered me what she did to buy it back. So some plusses can backfire on ya.

 

cblackburn,
Sorry to hear about your problems with the clear bra. I have the x-pel kit on my car (also about 6 months) and have not seen any problems. What are the details surrounding the hole? Do you know how it happened? Maybe you can get x-pel to cover it, or at least part of it.

I'm sure the bra has saved more than a few nicks in the paint. My car only has about 5k on it. As far as the bra damaging the paint, from all that I've read here and in other places this should not be a problem. I definitely would not want to have the nose repainted since that would cost far more than the bra ($500) and would likely cause more depreciation to the car's value. If any paint work is detected the value can drop significantly. No one will believe that you spent $1000+ to have the nose repainted just to cover a few nicks in the paint. It will be assumed the car was in an accident of some sort.

As far as the old-style bra, I wouldn't even consider them. Had one for my previous car and it was a pain in the ass to take it off all the time to wash the car. Sometimes I'd take it off to wash and wouldn't want to bother putting it back on. I can say for a fact that it does not protect the car when it's wadded up on the floor in the garage. My old car has chips and nicks all over the front of it.

Good luck