Q: Hello,

Does anyone have any tips or techniques that eliminate ALL adhession disturbances on black cars with really round mirrors? I did a black M3 today - and could not do the mirrors without at least a tiny bit of adhession disturbance. Specifically, slight disturbance where the tacked area that I anchored at ends. I tried increasing the concentration of my slip, but didn't help.

Anyone doing spotless stretches on black M3 or similar mirrors?

Cheers

A: mirrors are always more tricky due to the small size and the curvature of them.

I have installed the M3 mirrors and you do have to stretch them ALOT to the fingers to go down. I use a combo of slip and tack to get them into place. Tack at the part on the inside closest to the glass, spray both slip right close to the last tack point, stretch another 1/2" and retack. This seems to have worked for me in the past. Hope this makes sense

A: Two ways you can do the Brand X M3 mirrors. (This also works on the Porsche Mirrors as well...)

1.) Start with alcohol/water mixture, and set the inside edge closest to the mirror. Now when I say set, use your fingers and gently rub a thin area of the inside portion, DO NOT SQUEEGEE THE INSIDE EDGE. Lift and spray the soap/water solution under the material and on the surface, apply a small amount of the alcohol/water solution at the outer edge of the paint on the mirror. Place your hand and quickly/gently (do not apply too much pressure on the material when stretching) stretch the material to the alcohol portion and rub your hand off the material. Then squeegee everything. Now this takes some practice (I did this over a hundred times when I used to teach that class) and once you get it down, it's easy.

2.) Lay the material positioning it on the outer portion of the mirror, not the inside edge. Again, using the alcohol solution, rub the outside edge, lift the material and spray the alcohol solution in the middle, quickly grab the top and bottom of the material and stretch over and outward until all fingers are pulled taught. Gently lay the material on the surface and rub your fingers outward to create adhesion. Quickly squeegee everything out!

Both methods require you to move very fast in order to achieve the desired appearance you are looking for.

I have tried to attach a picture of a Cayenne mirror which will show you where to start (on this type of mirror) if you apply by method 2.

Q: I was tackling a serious mirror yesterday and found that anchoring at one end and pull stretching across to the other side worked well... however, since I fashioned the pattern myself I believe I was optimistic in the amount of coverage needed for the mirror. I eventually trimmed back the pattern size. This really improved my chance of success installing on this rounded mirror.

Of course trimming back was not performed on the paint... being such a small piece of material it was easy to just cut a new one. However, it brings to question this:

Is trimming the pattern size down 'slightly' around the total circumference an answer or option when dealing with either purchased pre-cuts or self cut pattern when struggling to succeed with seriously rounded mirrors? Will a 1/2 inch less in diameter size truly make an impact on overall impact protection (pun intended)? Mirrors seem like such a small target and can easily fall into the category of overkill in PPF coverage?

A: My answer would be yes.

I get asked lots of times why is only part of the mirror covered. I tell the customer that on some cars, there is more curve in a 5 inch mirror than in a 6 foot bumper, and with less film to work with, it is almost impossible to do without some kind of distortion to the film.

A steamer will work wonders on a mirror as far as getting fingers to lay down, and it also causes less distortion than a heat gun. However, some of the edges will still get that awful rough looking distortion and in those cases I usually trim off the effected area or make my own offering less coverage.

Those rough looking edges seem to attract more dirt in the little ridges and will be much more obvious to the customer down the road. In lots of cases, less is better where mirrors are concerned. A small bit of smooth coverage will always be less noticable.

One of the problems I had with the other film is its soo easy to stretch that sometimes I pulled it too far and the ends would lift up days later. Going back to the customer and trimming the area, many times the film would lift in the exact same place after a few days even though that part was still stuck before I trimmed away the edge that lifted originally.