Bubbles due to 'divots'?

doc81 · June 25, 2017

Hi all,

Did auto detailing ages ago; never did PPF, but I've had two cars done up with XPEL and it looked decent. Read some good reviews on SunTek, and decided to try it after seeing it on a couple of cars. Had mine done at a local respected installer (attaching picture links), and I'm not sure whether I should be ticked-off or not, but I think so. They were installing on a 2010 Camaro SS, which has a large bumper that is perhaps somewhat harder to install on. They left a few 'loose' edges, a four-inch-long 'lip' near the license plates, and quite a few small air bubbles. The installed tells me these will disappear, but my XPEL never had any - not this many. The installer says it's likely because the paint has 'divots' - indents where rocks/etc. had hit the bumper before, and the protection film is bubbling over the small indent. I was told it will 'suck in'.

The car is in really good shape; the paint is not 'concourse', but if anything, it looks worse now than before the installation, as it looks like a miniature shotgun laid into the bumper in places. A couple of these divots are absolutely rock chips that pre-existed installation, but the other bubbles/divots purely seem to be there because of... well, no reason at all that I know of. Dirty surface during installation? Other? Me seeing things?

I'm heading back to the installer Monday, but I want to know in all honesty how much I should be 'backing off' if this is relatively normal (the bubbles), or how much I should be ticked-off. It looks like a rushed job to me right now.

Thanks for any help and advice in advance! Here's some photos:

Bubbles due to 'divots'/rock-chips (according to installer).

Bubbles and 'lip':

alberts316 · June 25, 2017

Part of it is the bumper is not new and does have some chips/divits/etc. that will show and that is mainly what you're seeing. The extra film hanging on pic two is the installers fault. He can't fix your bumper but he can trim that excess film away.

minty · June 25, 2017

:yeah

A 2010 bumper is going to have loads of dinks in it that really do not show until the film is applied. The film will not sink in and unfortunately they are there to stay. The joys of installing film on a used vehicle... I always inform customers of used vehicles of this issue. As Alberts says though the loose film is an installer issue, easily remedied though.

Steve

doc81 · June 25, 2017

Thanks, guys; as I mentioned, I know the bumper isn't concourse-level, but it looked better with nothing on top of it, and I've had bumpers coated before (with XPEL) that didn't seem to 'show' anything. A couple of those chips are absolutely chips (specifically the ones where it's clear that there's a tidbit of missing paint), but I'd heard the others could be due to dust/dirt under the film.

The thing that really made me think that most of these visual imperfections was more on the installer is the 'lip' in the one photo - with such a major error (major in my eyes), it made me think that most other defects would have been their fault as well.

Here's a pic of my old 3-series; it didn't have new paint by any means either, and I know it had some 'divots' too, but there was almost no visible imperfections in the PPF (this is after the XPEL was put on), and the seams seemed a lot tighter.

DynamicATL · June 25, 2017

The bigger question is why not have the bad areas repainted prior to adding PPF? Doesn't make sense to spend the money on PPF to be placed on top of surface that has damage.

doc81 · June 25, 2017

39 minutes ago, DynamicAppearance said:

The bigger question is why not have the bad areas repainted prior to adding PPF? Doesn't make sense to spend the money on PPF to be placed on top of surface that has damage.

The honest answer is it didn't look that bad. There were a couple of minor chips. I could not see the 'divots' at all, and the company said any major chips they would 'fill in' previous to PPF application. They didn't fill them in, and now these 'divots' are there, when you could not see them before.

Not to sound cheap, but I just bought the car (apart from the paint divots the car is immaculate and low mileage), and I didn't think the bumper needed painting to be honest.

Here's another shot; there's no chips in this area of the bumper, but the edges are curling already, and it looks like there's a chunk missing there as you can see, where it's just paint and no cover.

minty · June 25, 2017

To be honest I really don't like installing on older cars as I have lost count of the number of times I have lifted the film to remove a speck of dust only to find its a mark in the paint. Every time you lift the film you also run the risk of introducing more contaminants as well. Having said that the above picture doesn't look too good at all. I would go back to the original installer with a list of issues and see where that leads you.

Steve

doc81 · June 25, 2017

8 minutes ago, minty said:

To be honest I really don't like installing on older cars as I have lost count of the number of times I have lifted the film to remove a speck of dust only to find its a mark in the paint. Every time you lift the film you also run the risk of introducing more contaminants as well. Having said that the above picture doesn't look too good at all. I would go back to the original installer with a list of issues and see where that leads you.

Steve

Thanks, yeah; I can understand not wanting to install PPF on older cars, but this car has only been on the road for six years, was garaged its whole life, and only has 51,000km (not miles) on it. It's practically mint, apart from the bumper, which looked a *lot* better before PPF was put on it. If the paint had truly looked 'bad' to begin with, I'd never have had the PPF done at all and would have just saved up to get the bumper re-painted at a top-quality shop.

I'm heading to the installer tomorrow, who I already spoke to briefly yesterday. I intend to tell him that this is pretty unacceptable, and that the 'lip' he left near the license plate (second pic of my first post) gives me the impression he really rushed the job and/or didn't clean the bumper properly first. I mean, these clearly aren't all 'paint dings', right? And there's far more than I've seen on previous PPF jobs I've had done on other cars of mine.

If you have any tips on how to approach the guy (I want to be firm but not offensive), they're welcome.

minty · June 25, 2017

Sorry fella but a 51000km (30+k miles) sports car is never going to have 'mint' paintwork (in ppf terms) in my experience. Also you have all the muck and bullets to contend with that the car has collected in it's lifetime to clean out of the nooks and crannies before installing the film, total minefield and never an enjoyable job. But having said that as I said previously it doesn't look the best of installs. What did you have covered and how much was it if you don't mind me asking.

Steve

doc81 · June 25, 2017

Mint was a quick word choice; the car itself is, for the most part - flawless mechanically, immaculate interior, and really, much of the paintwork does look very good. I'm likely drawing attention to its few flaws. I'll throw a full-profile shot of it on below; granted it's not zoomed enough to see the paint up-close. Again, it looked better *before* the film went on, which is the weird thing to me.

Knowing it likely wasn't installed well is what I wanted to know; I don't know PPF all that well, I'm a home-detailer at best. That said, given that my other PPF coatings on other older cars did not look like this, I wanted to see if I was being anal, or if this was a bad job.

Including taxes, I paid $700 CAD (Canadian) for covering the bumper, twenty-four inches of hood, the same length of fenders, and the A-pillars. That's about par for the course over here, actually - the price is decidedly average, but the installer was recommended. Seeing that you're from the UK (I used to live in Glasgow), that's around 420£ by my estimate.