Paintwork & headlight protection - Scotchguard or something else?

Lum

Lum

Lum

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2008
Posts
3,283
Location
South Wales
I've got a new-to-me car arriving from Japan in January, and one of the things that has me worried is that bodywork parts are going to be very hard to get hold of, and also that for a 1993 car the paintwork looks pretty much immaculate (and so it should, it's only done 18,000) miles. Obviously I would like to keep it that way, but I'll be doing more than 18,000 miles in the first year of ownership, the front end of my old Legacy looked like it had been attacked with a sandblaster which is probably due to the number of times I've ended up stuck behind a gritter on the motorway and eventually just decided I've had enough and driven past.

I'm reminded of this because my Volvo has picked up a nice stonechip in the headlight which has gone right through and is probably an MOT failure. For the Volvo I can get a scrapyard replacement for 20 quid, for a Cefiro I have no chance.

So basically what can I do to protect this. I hear 3M scotchguard is pretty good but that I'd need to have it professionally installed, especially since there wont be a pre-made kit for my car and this still doesn't solve the headlight problem. Someone on Scoobynet said that these guys have a good product, but I suspect that was just some chav who wanted gold headlights.

Any suggestions, also any suggestions for places in south-east Wales that can install it would be nice too.
 
I have a tvr t350c with similar film coatings applied to various body panels; have to admit it does actually stop stone chipping especially on the front nose cone as it very low.
It was done for me at the dealers at a cost of 1500.00 but I have since removed it as it tended to look ...well ***p.
If you go over to PHs in the tvr t350/ sagaris forum there was a lot of discussion about just this topic.
Will chase up who did mine for you in the mean time.
 
£1500. Holy crap I only paid £2000 for the car!

I was expecting this to be more like £100 given the film costs £35 to cover the bonnet and £7.99 for the wheelarches.
 
52 coats of wax!

Seriously though, some really decent wax applied to the car can help with stone chips and de-colouring from UV etc.
 
It's a 1993 Nissan Cefiro SE-4 currently has 18,000 miles (well, 28,000 kms) on the clock.

Also if a stone cracks my headlights it's probably going to become scrap :(
 
I doubt there is much you can do to prevent a stone 'cracking' your headlight.

Can I ask why you spent £1500 and went to the hassle of getting a Cefiro? Or are they much better than well a Mondeo.
 
Edit: ^^^^^ A31 (which I'm getting) Cefiros are a luxury version of the Skyline R32 . A32+ Cefiros are Maximas wearing a different badge.

Very cheap insurance for what they are (the one I'm getting is basically a luxury Skyline GTS4) as the insurance base it on the Nissan Maxima.

My insurance history isn't very great right now, with 3 rear enders (edit: that is I've been rear ended 3 times, all non-fault), 2 stolen cars and 1 own-fault single vehicle accident (the engine went pop on my Legacy at a very inopportune time and I lift-off-oversteered into a hedge writing it off)

So I'm getting a car that is cheap to insure and offers fairly good performance and rear-biassed AWD but more importantly I can swap in all the bits from the 200SX, 300ZX, Skyline and Stagea in a couple of years time when most of my insurance history has gone away.

That and the fact that my main tastes in cars are to have something that is relatively unknown and/or rare, rear biassed AWD and Japanese, ideally all in a nice sleeper. It also needs to be good on the stupidly long business tripe (edit: I meant trips, but I'm leaving that typo in because it's funny). I can't afford another Legacy B4 RSK (nor can I get insured on one) which during my last bout of car shopping was the only car that ticked all those boxes, this time the Cefiro is the only one that meets the requirements.

I would probably quit my job before I did a long distance trip in a 3 grand Mondeo. If that Mondeo has the heated front windscreen then I would definitely quit. There is no fun in having a job like mine if you don't like your car.
 
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Lamin-X is the company I was looking at. How long have you had it and how easy was it to apply? Has it gone all manky yellow yet or did you get one of the coloured ones?
 
Well yes, what I'm trying to say is body parts will be hard to get hold of, and a cracked headlight is an MOT failure.
 
Why not just get some plastic headlamp protectors, the ones that have sticky velcro tabs at the corners? What else are you making contingency plans for? Do you never reverse it incase you crack a rear lamp cluster, or never change gear incase the gearbox were to fail and you couldn't find another one? ;)
 
I'm confident in my ability to reverse without hitting anything (and even if I do a dented bumper isn't an MOT failure) and the gearbox is the same as in the Skyline, 200SX and Stagea :P

I'm not confident in my ability to avoid stone chips, look at the state of the front bumper of my Legacy, particularly along the bottom edge that bumper was new in January 2007 so has seen less than 2 years driving. I do actually want to look after this car since it's so unique and rare.
 
Lum said:
Lamin-X is the company I was looking at. How long have you had it and how easy was it to apply? Has it gone all manky yellow yet or did you get one of the coloured ones?
Click to expand...

Not that long to be honest, a few months. Easy peasy to apply, took 5 minutes. I got coloured ones, they've kept there colour and not peeled or anything so its all good:D
 
allllec said:
Not that long to be honest, a few months. Easy peasy to apply, took 5 minutes. I got coloured ones, they've kept there colour and not peeled or anything so its all good:D
Click to expand...

Did you apply it to any headlights that aren't mostly flat? I'm guessing you put it on a Mk2 Golf GTI based on your sig, how easy was it to go around the corners at the back?
 
ok, made a mistake about the 1500.00 for the sticky stuff.
It was actually 600.00 fitted, I checked the invoice and i had had a service done at the same time.
The stuff was armourfend.
http://www.armourfend.com/

check the site it has a drop list for all the vehicles. Maybe they would supply just the pieces you need, also the time it was on it didnt go that nasty colour yellow.
 
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