“I wanted to show you before we seal this car up with PPF… a few of the imperfections…two horizontal surfaces (the hood and trunk-lid) are a bit of a challenge due to thinning clear-coat from sun exposure,” began my email to our brand partner XPEL. You see, I was concerned that our Merlot Red 2014 Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet may have been in too bad of shape for our campaign, which requires a test vehicle with nice paint. This Crosscab, however, did not have nice paint, and I worried we’d now need to have the hood and trunklid repainted — a considerable expense.
“As our goal is to demonstrate the power of XPEL PPF, we’d ideally want as nice of paint as possible as a starting point so as to maximize the contrast between PPF and no-PPF once our testing is complete….I figured it might make sense to discuss if getting at least one panel — perhaps the hood — into truly perfect shape (i.e. a new panel with new paint) might be beneficial in telling the story of the power of XPEL,” my email continued.
Here’s a look at the photos I included in the note:
You can see that the clearcoat on the trunk had turned white, and the paint on the hood had actually been chewed through — you can see the rusty metal in the photo.
There were more problems with the Crosscab, which we’d purchased sight unseen, and I was worried we might have made a mistake given the whole point of the campaign is to have a car with nice paint to start, and then to put the vehicle through a series of challenges that would try scratching that paint (which would be protected on one half of the vehicle by XPEL PPF):
If we put XPEL PPF over paint this rough, it might not be obvious how well XPEL protected the car, as even the XPEL side would have flaws after our challenges.
Fast forward a day or so, and our friendly brand partner XPEL calls to tell me that they’re not worried about the paint, and that the campaign should work just fine given the challenges we have in store. What’s more, he reckons XPEL’s shop in Santa Ana — called Protective Film Solutions (PFS) — would be able to surprise us.
And boy did they.
How did PFS get this Crosscab looking this nice? All the huge obvious chips and scrapes are either blended in such that they’re now super subtle, or they’re just gone completely!
 
It’s so nice I’m almost going to feel bad scratching this thing up during our testing; almost!
From here, PFS is going to install XPEL Paint Protection Film (PPF) on just the passenger’s side of the car, at which point Jason Torchinsky and I plan to put the vehicle through some hilarious challenges. Expect to see some of those next week!
While I kinda look forward to what you’re going to do to this thing, it most likely won’t resemble anything my car will ever encounter. But I will stay tuned. Have fun!
And just a heads up… this site’s spelling checker calls stuff out but is no longer offering any suggestions. @Hardigree @Vierra
The grammar checker does, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense.
Tell your platform to get their act together or move to a different/better one.
Looking forward to some Matt’s Off Road recovery kind of content
Though I don’t know that I’m ever going to be able to bring myself to spend the cash on a purely cosmetic improvement, I’m making a note of your recommendation of Protective Film Solutions in Santa Ana for future reference David.
Yeah I’ve been looking for a good place to do some serious detail work here in OC. I’ll check them out.
How many articles here are actually advertisements?
(Asking for a friend.)
Also, I’d like to get my car wrapped or something. The whiteness is flaking off on the side that gets the sun all day Am I better off just getting a car cover? Also, thinking about the next car that will be sitting out in the sun…
No, there is no room for a second car in my three-car garage. Why you ask?
It literally says “partner post” in the banner image and I can’t figure out of you’re just being facetious.
There’s three series I can think of that are advertisement based… the taxi from copart, David’s white wrangler got ppf, and now this will test the ppf. Honestly, in terms of advertising, I think these are a cool way to both fund “fun with cars” ideas and get revenue for the site. They don’t seem too over the top either, meaning there’s no derogatory remarks to competitors in the fields (like 3M makes ppf as well) so I’m good with it.
Yeah they do a way better job here of clearly noting these kinds of ads. Lots of places don’t even mention it at all.
I get that. Will they be objective in their review, knowing that there is money on the table? Will they NOT test other ppf’s due to this money on the table? etc. That would mean not giving us, the loyal reader, the information we need to make smart decisions. Perhaps that is not their aim anymore.
Not every test (of anything) has to be a comparative test. In general.
In specific, these are clearly marked as sponsored posts.
They’re giving us some of the information needed to make smart decisions.
I don’t see any issue with this.
I’d rather see a partner post with something potentially interesting/useful than some random ad for old spice any day.
That Old Spice ad ain’t random or useless, pal. [ha]
I thought the same thing, but I had the decency not to post it out loud so everyone could read it.
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Wait…
shiny new bathtub
What’s happened to you? There was a time I would have expected the headline to read: “I Took Our 100,000 Mile Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet To” MOAB.
Edit. You’re still going to do that, right?
Mama wants a purdy car…
How much would this clean-up have cost for “us regular folk”?
Thousands. I’ve seen people spend up to $5k to get their entire car PPF.
FFS
For a “can’t even tell it’s there” install on a Spyder RS, with full paint correction before hand, I was in it for $7,000 to cover everything.
Yet you shouldn’t do that for anything you’re not keeping long term, nor if it’s not anything special. Want to prevent chips? Do the “nose” (front fascia, hood, fenders) and maybe the windshield frame and side mirrors.
If it’s a new car? Fully correct the paint before the PPF comes on. Water-based paints always have some orange peel. Get it perfect.
— —–
But boy howdy, does your installer matter more than anything else.
I just bought a used “daily” where the prior owner had done a fair bit of PPF (Suntek, not XPEL Ultimate like my Spyder RS) and it was installed by an absolute clown. Obvious seams everywhere, obvious gaps, etc. In another year or two it’s probably all coming off since it’ll be getting on the old side, and will correct everything and re-do it all properly.
Bad PPF jobs are why you’ll hear people criticize PPF at times. When it’s not done well, boy does it look like a mess. Pay for a good installer with lots of referrals and whose work you’ve seen firsthand.
Done right, it looks amazing. Had it on my dual daily/7x year track BRZ and it was sooo good at cleaning after all the track gunk. With paint decon and hand wash, it was ~$2.5k. So much satisfaction showing up with a beautiful car to me.
The cleanup part alone was probably just a well-done detailing. The ppf afterward is the $$$ part.
It depends on how bad the paint is. If you know people you can get it done $300-500 for the detailing and a couple hundred more for just PPF the front.
I really like the Crosscab and am dreading what is coming for it. You couldn’t have picked a less rare car to torture test?
I weirdly like these. It’s the closest us yanks got to a Renault Avantime.
They’re both the answer to a question nobody asked… and I say that as someone who would proudly rock an Avantime.
I might murder someone slightly I don’t like for a nice Avantime.
What’s that saying about “polishing a turd”?
Mythbusters proved you actually can though.
It was funny, but they kind of lost me doing stuff like that. I mean, it’s a FOS, not something anyone was actually challenging anyone to do.
Luckily, they never tried to prove that it’s possible to beat a dead horse.
Same! It wasn’t myths, or even compelling turns of phrase. It was just… some stuff.
Kari Byron, though, goodness me. I may have kept watching past my specific scientific interest.
So true. She really carried the show towards the end.
They seemed to run out of actual myths, urban legends, and Hollywood clichés after a certain number of seasons. Or, at least ones they could easily do on basic cable – for some reason, they never did “does drinking A-Treat reduce libido”
You can’t. But you can roll it in glitter.
I’ve been a car owner for nearly 30-years and I’ve never had a car detailed.
I think part of it is that I’ve only had beaters that would benefit more from maintenance or repair rather than cleaning.
Some years ago my Bentley was invited to posh car do, It got detailed, a bit’. I did not recognize the thing, it has taken decades of not detailing it to make it right again.
It might by fun to allow XPEL to do their stuff, the paint is as old as the car, probably held on by ninety years of gawd knows what polish, some of it is applied to aluminium, some to steel and some to fabric, the shiny bits are either nickel or brass or chrome plated something.
I had a 10 year old Corolla which had been street parked its whole life detailed when we had to have a fender repaired and repainted because of a drunk driver and said street parking.
I was shocked when I showed up to pick it up – it really looked almost new. It didn’t convince me of the need though because that was 15 years (and several nicer cars) ago and I haven’t had anything detailed since…
Why no close ups of before and after of the same places? I betcha you just had it repainted and don’t wanna tell us that
Will there be a potato cannon involved in this testing?
Possibly!
So you’re telling me there’s a chance… 😉
OOOOOOO BABY!!!!
They left some Murano on there.
Hmmm, the last time Torch and David tested something (Scion xB), it ended up a biohazard site.
To be fair, the same can be said for most things David laid hands on in his feral days.
What’snothername seems to have civilized the poor boy considerably.
At least this thing hasn’t rolled down a hill and smashed into a tree. So that’s going well.
The bar for project vehicle success really has been lowered.
Did we ever get the full story one why that one actually had a biohazard sticker on it?
Yet. There’s still time
I for one cant wait for Two Face Cross Cab