Installing PPF on Headlights

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear about the condition of your hood. I hope you get the best painter in CA to work on it. I have a feeling that when it's all done, it's gonna be better than great!
 
Yeah, those body shop guys with "blending into adjacent panels", and then they wheel the whole car and take down the clear on the part that there was nothing wrong with. I had a fender fixed and got the "we'll have to blend it into the door and re-clear the front bumper. Then a couple years later after the clear started to fail on a plastic door handle on the other side of the car, I couldn't figure it out...then I realized they must have wheeled the whole car as a standard thing to detail up the rest of the car to match the new paint--except of course my car didn't need that. It didn't occur to me to say "please don't polish the rest of the car" (cue nightmares of a kid with a dirty wool pad on a rotary). Fortunately at the time I had some Opti-Lens and since it doesn't work on headlights, I decided to put it on the door handle that was looking funky, and it seemed to have worked on that to save it.
 
Bill D said:
Gosh, I'm sorry to hear about the condition of your hood. I hope you get the best painter in CA to work on it. I have a feeling that when it's all done, it's gonna be better than great!
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That might not be a simple task. Because when it comes to my inner El Cheapo, nothing brings it out more than PDR guys and the guys who paint cars. They seem to think they have the right to overcharge and I’m of the thought they’re undeserving to begin with.lol.

That’s a big reason why I’m in no rush.
 
Theres few things I dislike more than being overcharged. If it were to happen I’d never go to that shop again. I guess you’ll have to choose one wisely!
 
Bill D said:
Theres few things I dislike more than being overcharged. If it were to happen I’d never go to that shop again. I guess you’ll have to choose one wisely!
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My next door neighbor is in the body shop industry. Im not exactly sure what his position is but he’s a manager of some sort. So I actually do have a hookup when the time comes. But even he says they’ll have to also paint my fenders. We shall see.

That same guy once told me he can get me a discount on any polisher if I ever need to buy one.
 
That’s so great you have a hookup! I guess it wouldn’t matter then if your fenders started to show signs of clear failure. Sounds like you might be able to get a polisher a bit cheaper than any of the online sources sells them for!
 
Bill D said:
That’s so great you have a hookup! I guess it wouldn’t matter then if your fenders started to show signs of clear failure. Sounds like you might be able to get a polisher a bit cheaper than any of the online sources sells them for!
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Full disclosure: My fenders have also been repainted. My neighbor is actually the 1 who confirmed it long ago just from having a quick look at my paint. I had suspected it may have been but I was in denial at the time. But just like we can spot swirls he can spot a repaint a mile away.

I’ve been able to learn a thing or two from him and my re paint eye is much better nowadays thanks to him.

As far as my car, I’ve been able to connect the dots to where my best guess as to what probably happened is the previous owner likely drove the car into a guard rail or lightly bumped into a wall 1 day.

It probably wasn’t too bad because that explains why only my drivers side headlight is a newer replacement while the passenger side light is still original. So he replaced 1 headlight and they repainted the bumper, hood, and both fenders. The paintjob on the bumper and fenders turned out alot better than hood in the long run.
 
That sounds like the paint job on my old Maxima that got hit in the rear. The trunk lid was decent but the bottom of the bumper failed after a few years. I guess it’s luck of the draw
 
I fixed the Lamin-X. Directions are all explained in their how to videos. All I have to do now is cut the tabs off. Tomorrow I’ll do the drivers side headlight.

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Can you give us a quick summary as to what you did to remove the creases/folds? Is there anything you can do during application to prevent it from happening in the first place?

I seriously starting to consider this for my BRZ and any lessons-learned would be helpful.
 
Desertnate said:
Can you give us a quick summary as to what you did to remove the creases/folds? Is there anything you can do during application to prevent it from happening in the first place?

I seriously starting to consider this for my BRZ and any lessons-learned would be helpful.
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Yes. What you do per the directions is, spray your fingers with water [distilled for obvious reasons] and then lift up the film at the crease and then sort of fan it or massage it into a wider area about 3-4 times as wide as the crease alone but not too much because you don’t want to physically alter/permanently stretch the film. Once you’ve massaged it into a wider area you quicky hit it with a heat gun or blow dryer [I used heat gun] and then simply take the included squeegee and lay down the film and sure enough it conforms into the desired shape around corners.

I did it on 3 of the 4 corners of this light the bottom was very minor but man it felt good to see it work out just like he says in the video. I wasn’t completely sure it would work because they advise you to do this before driving anywhere because you don’t want to risk getting any dirt underneath the film and I had to drive the previous night but it still worked out.

The reason you wet your fingers is to lubricate and also helps prevent you from marring the film while handing it. There’s a bit of a learning curve but you get the hang of it quick. Only thing is you learn while also realizing that you kinda only get 1 shot at it so part of me felt like I had screwed up and wanted to quit, but the other half said no way I can nail it and I pretty much did.

For the 2nd headlight I’ve got the pre cut film laying underneath a box overnight in order to flatten it out. The way it arrives it wants to roll up into a tube shape and that makes it very challenging to try and line up around a curved headlight while the adhesive is bare naked as you can imagine. I’m hoping the now flat film will be much easier to apply because that was the hardest challenge. But regardless, you can remove and reapply as many times as you need to during initial installation. Everything that dude says in their videos rings true. I give them credit for that because I like when a company knows what the heck their product does.
 
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