Should I polish before a clear bra?

[jimmillion]

Been playing with the idea of having a full front end clear bra done.

Question is, should I have / I do a full polish done before hand? The car is under a month old and I've given it a good wax the week I got it. atm I don't see any swirls even under direct light, but I've read that the clear bra process involves stripping the wax off.. potentially brining out all the swirls and imperfections.

once the bra is on it's on right? heck can I even apply wax and sealant on top of a bra?

damn u soft paint! lol.

[504]

You'd definitely want to polish the paint before adding a clear bra on the car, almost any contact with the paint will cause swirls or some form of marring. The wax currently on the car is most likely hiding some of the imperfections.

Ideally This is what you would want to do:
*wash the car with dawn dish soap to Strip the wax off and to remove dust
*Clay bar the car
*Inspect paint for any imperfections. (at this stage you have CLEAN paint, uncorrected)
*Polish
*Wash again to remove polishing oils and do an IPA wipedown on entire surface to be covered. (CLEAN corrected paint)
*Now you can install the clear bra

Prep work is the key to a good job. If the paint underneath isnt perfect, you cant expect the final result to be perfect.

[PSORngr]

You are getting this done by a shop right? I had Xpel Ultimate applied to the front end of my FR-S (as well as the side view mirrors and luggage area). Looking at Xpel's website it cost me slightly less to have him order, cut, and apply everything than it would have been for me to buy the film kits myself (paid $600 for the hood, fender and mirror kit and the bumper and luggage area kit). The guy cleaned up the car before doing any clear bra application. I would imagine that any shop that wants repeat customers or good word of mouth would do the same. Plus, the car will just get dirty again on the drive over.

If you are doing this yourself, definitely clean up the car real well immediately before application. Anything under the film when you apply it will stay there... Same reasoning for doing all of this indoors.

Yes, you can wax the clear bra.

[jimmillion]

@PSORngr I'm gonna have a shop do the PPF. But wanted to know if it would be advisable to do paint corrections on my own before hand. Logically I know I should, but I've never done it before and don't see paying someone 200+ for some simple marring corrections as worth it.

I've read and watched enough videos that I'm pretty confident I'll be fine, but taking a spinning disc to a 2 week old car sounds like asking for trouble. haha.

Even tho I'm still not sold on opticoat, maybe I'll go for the 350 dollar opti coat which includes a light polishing, then have it bra'd. That should justify the cost at least to have it done by a professional.

[504]

Originally Posted by PSORngr

I had Xpel Ultimate applied to the front end of my FR-S (as well as the side view mirrors and luggage area). Looking at Xpel's website it cost me slightly less to have him order, cut, and apply everything than it would have been for me to buy the film kits myself (paid $600 for the hood, fender and mirror kit and the bumper and luggage area kit).

Pretty good deal considering it includes installation. I found a site (44tools.com) that will sell 60" x 30' rolls of xpel ultimate for $871 which should easily be enough to cover the whole car. Just imagine not having to worry about getting keyed again

[jimmillion]

now this is interesting. for the cost of having my bumper and hood done by a PPF shop. I could buy the entire front end section wholesale and do it all myself. plus it's coming from three cities over!

http://www.nochip.ca/collections/sub...ction-film-kit