Clear Bra and Tint, my poor car
 

Hello All,

I would like to share an unfortunate story about my baby (Raven 6MT). Like many of you, I have been eagerly awaiting this car since it was rumored and just a twinkle in Mr. Toyoda's eye. I placed my deposit many moons ago and spent many sleepless nights waiting for my precious to hit the dealer.

Finally the day came on 5/28/12, Memorial day. I was so excited about picking it up that I even forgot to ask for my window sticker:(.

I'm keeping this car for the long hall so before anything could happen to this beautiful paint I decided it needed a clear bra, and tint to protect the interior. I wanted to make sure the car was in the right hands so I did some research and asked around, a place in Los Angeles was recommended by someone at Longo and the guys from Moto IQ took their cars there. I thought to myself "Hey, the guys at MotoIQ are gearheads, if they trust these guys I'm sure they're great!"

So I took the car in the next day (5/29/12)for a full tint job using 3M Crystalline and a full clear bra. The clear bra would cover the bumper, full hood, full fenders, A-pillars, mirrors, top of rear bumper and full hood. Total cost was $1850, well worth it in my eyes for full frontal protection and cabin heat rejection.

Understandably the job would take the whole day. The sun was down when the car was finally done. He gave me bad news, it seems their 60" 3M roll was bad and had visible lines. He told me that he would have to re-do the hood and install the roof at a later time, once the new roll comes in. Because it was dark I could not really see any defects or imperfections but I was happy he told me about the issue and would rectify it. At this point he also suggested that "something" was on my paint because he couldn't get the bra to properly stick in some spots. We set up an appointment for Tue 6/5/12.

In the following six days I discover a few things that rubbed me the wrong way. First off, when I got in the car the next day I noticed that there was dried solution everywhere, all over the interior door panels and outside. They did not bother to wipe the car down after installation. I took a closer look at the installation and there was indeed visible lifting on some edges on almost every panel. I thought "OK, maybe their 30" roll was bad as well" (the one used for the fenders and a-pillars). Not a problem since he will be redoing the hood, he can re-do the rest. The clear bra itself has what appears to be stretch marks of some sort that are visible in the sun which I was not happy about. Then I saw what appeared to be very light razor marks on some edges and sharp corners as well as a scratch on the passenger side headlight. I called him immediately and he told me that it was impossible since he didn't use razors. Hmm, really?!

I bring the car back on 6/5/12 so he can finish the roof and replace the parts with issues. He also replaced the windshield tint because an area about 8" in diameter by the passenger side with marks that looked like palm prints (they were not). When you take a closer look it is a lot of air bubbles tightly grouped that made it look like a rough surface.

I come back with some light left and he tells me that something is wrong with the windshield because he re-installed the tint and the marks are still there. He also tells me that there MUST be something on my paint because the wavy "stretch" marks are still there after the re-do. He then tells me jokingly to "Get the effing car out of here, I'm sick of looking at it", although they say there is always a partial truth in jokes. I point out the issues that are still there so he suggests to let it cure to see if it will help. Fair enough. I was tired myself and just wanted to get home.

THE DAMAGE

So the next day 6/6/12, I get a chance to really look over the car and now I'm completely HORRIFIED! I see razor marks on almost every panel that has a clear bra. Some so deep that they went straight to the undercoat! They are more apparent on the panels that were replaced since the new clear bra is not exactly where the old one was. On top of this, both the dash speaker grills were damaged, I assume when he was re-installing the windshield tint. The rubber window seal was cut and is starting to split apart.

I called him and told him what I saw and he found it hard to believe. He wants to see the car again but won't be in the office until Wed 6/13.

So this is where I am at the moment. I would like to take the car to Longo for a damage assessment, but since they probably would have to take the clear bra off I don't want to give SHOP X an easy out in terms of liability. I took some pictures and emailed it to SHOP X so if things go south at least I have a paper trail. This is a BRAND NEW car that is only a week and 3 days old. I want the car to be in the same condition as when I brought it in, hopefully he pays for the damages and refunds my money since I will NOT have him do a clear bra after this.

So thats the long version of my story. I post in hopes that I can prevent someone from going through this. I would also appreciate any advice you guys might have for me. I have not named the shop since he has not seen the car yet or made an offer on how to rectify the situation.

UPDATE

I took the car in to the shop yesterday (6/11/12) and met with a person who was not the installer/owner. I was a little weary about this. He asked me to point out all of the damage I saw. I was relieved when he said that the damage would be repaired as I wasn't sure if they would try to deny everything.

Although I'm happy they will be paying for the repairs and refunding my money, there were a few things he said that did not sit well with me. First off he never once apologized for the damage done. He then tells me that a clear bra is "not for a person like me", "if you're going to look at everything with a magnifying glass you will never be happy with anyones work". Thats just bull$hit! Minor imperfections with the install is one thing but badly damaging the very paint you are trying to protect just doesn't make sense! He then tries to convince me that its probably just going to need a detail job even though most of these cuts are deep enough my thumb nail falls into the groove, and you can see the undercoat, not to mention the damaged internal cosmetic panels.

We agreed the car will be repaired at Longo, they have a great collision repair center. He wants to send one of his guys to remove the clear bra and tint, understandable. Now I have to wait to "see when one of his guys are available", he also has to talk to "his guy" at Longo, not sure what thats about.

Update II

On Tue 6/12/12 I take my car to Longo to check for a dash rattle, I'm told the car needs to be there for a few days. I still haven't heard anything from the tint shop so I call to see whats going on. The guy tells me that if I keep calling he won't pay for the repairs! These guys are definitely something else. Whenever I talk to the guy I never get straight answers and just get ridiculed or talked down to in some way. Very worrying. He finally tells me to meet his guy at Longo the next day. Turns out his guy is a salesperson. I don't understand how a sales person can give a repair estimate.

I head down there on Wed 6/13/12 to meet with Sales Person at 10:30am and show him the damage on the car (it is currently checked in for warranty service). He suggests we detail the car to see which scratches are light and which ones need paint. I tell him I do not want to remove any clear coat. For some reason he assumes I want to keep the clear bra, to which I tell him it needs to come off to see what other surprises these incompetent superstars have left underneath their beautifully applied clear bra(sarcasm). Besides, I'm getting a refund on this crap. He tells me that Shop X needs to send someone to remove it. Hmm, so why did I come today? What a complete waste of time!

I am pretty frustrated by now as I have already taken two days off work to deal with this. Sales Person seems to understand, he tells me we can get it done in the afternoon by one of the PDI guys from Longo. This is great, I make it clear that I do not want SHOP X to touch my car, especially if I am not there. They have already shown a huge lack of respect to me and my property. I tell him I need to be present so that I can take pictures and make sure no more damage is done. He says OK, I will call you so you can be here. So 3pm comes around, I call, no answer, leave a message. 4pm, leave a message. 5pm, I call his coworker to call him for me, no dice. Leave another message and send a text, nothing.

Next day 6/14/12 I call my service writer to see if the rattle was fixed. He tells me that Sales Person told him to tell me that the tint and clear bra has been removed! This infuriated me! He had the time to tell my service writer about this but not contact me?

I head over to Longo as soon as I can to take more pictures. When I meet with Sales Person he then tells me it was worked on by Shop X, WHAT THE F#%K! This is unacceptable! As far as I know, no work can be done on a customers car without their consent, and I DID NOT CONSENT to have these a$$holes come and work on my car unsupervised! I make this clear to Sales Person.

It turns out the center console is now scratched along with the C-Pillar interior panel, rear view mirror and shifter boot. Unbelievable!

Up to this point Sales Person really had nothing to do with this except for recommending Shop X to begin with, but now that he allowed them to work on my car without my consent he is right in the middle of it. I feel he was just trying to help out in any way he could but made some seriously poor choices. Or he was told by Shop X to not let me know when they would be there.

I really had no words for him at that point so I take the car to the Longo Collision Repair Center for an estimate. A lot of these parts are not in the system yet so the estimator has to manually write this one out. I will be finding out what the cost repair is Monday.

I forgot to mention, I called Shop X about my refund. I tell them that it has not been issued yet and since the tint and clear bra have been removed it should have been processed. The first words out of his mouth were "HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION!" OK, yelling is a great way to sort things out I guess. He tells me that before he can refund the money he needs to find out how much the repairs are going to cost him. I tell him repair costs have nothing to do with my refund, clear bra and tint has been removed, I need my money. He then says "I told you it will be done next week". No, no you didn't. So now I have a date, by 6/22.

Update III-The Repair costs
6/19/12

The Longo estimator finally got back to me yesterday. It took him three days because none of these parts are in the system so he had to manually pull each part number and price. On top of that a few of the parts did not even have a price so he had to wait for Toyota to give him that info.

Due to the fact that every panel they touched has at least a couple of very deep scratches, everything has to be re-sprayed then blended. Hood, fenders, front & rear bumpers, all glass including windshield and all molding will all be removed for a proper re-spray. The majority of the repair estimate is labor alone (about %60). Quite a few interior and exterior parts need to be replaced including pass headlight, both reflectors, window strips, antenna base, quite a few interior panels and some others, too many to list.

Total comes out to...........$11,589.72



Here are some pics:
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Sad thing to see.

We do full front end clear bras on all of our cars here at AE. Some cars are fully cleared and other clear bra installers ask if we need our cars to be clear bra'ed until they get really really close and then :confused0068:. You're welcome to stop by our shop and check out the work our guy does.

Its very hard to apply 3M clear bra on a new car that doesnt have a template. They have to literally trim the clear bra while its partially adhered to your paint. You WILL have scratches in atleast the clearcoat from this practice. NEVER EVER EVER get clear bra without the installer having a template, so that the bra is printed and cut before being applied to your car.

I am so sorry you had to learn this the hard way, and with the amount of money you paid I hope you bitch up a storm until they fix every single little detail.

I've seen custom fitted clear bras (not template, but actual roll and cut to specs) without any scratches on it from the blades. This is usually quite a bit more expensive than having template ones put on because it requires more time and labor. So, this installer just sucks, and I hope you didn't pay too much for it/get it all sorted out soon.

All of our cars are done custom without scratches.

WTF!!!

The tiny air bubbles are not that bad and they most of the time will go away after a couple of days once the tint fully dries.


The clear bra on the other hand would put me in a rage. Did they just apply it and trim? Doesn't the 3M clear bras already precut for each specific car model?

+1, and the way it should be done. Glad to see there is a skilled install on this board.

I believe you can buy rolls of it instead of buying pre cut ones.

That's why I suggest going to places that use plotters to cut the patterns instead of a knife :( Sorry to hear man. A good custom one can fit better but unless you can see reference work it's too large a risk for me.

Go to Starshield in OC for the clear bra. I had my car completely covered on a 10K paint job with zero issues. You can't even tell the bra is there unless you get within 2-3 inches. Having a plotter is a must to get a clean installation.

The tint bubbles are from trapped dust so that will not go away unless you redo it. I'm thinking the place you took the car is shady. There are too many imperfections.

dude said he paid nearly $2000 for this install and it looks like shit. Id be on the verge of firebombing this shop if they did that to my car for $2k.

Actually, the shop I went to did it completely by hand, custom cut, and I can't find a single cut anywhere. As I watched him doing the beginning, he measured, partially adhered, and then cut while it was in the air. Every line is almost perfect, as well. The clearcoat is, thankfully, untouched.

This was at Advance Auto Engineering in Cerritos, CA. I really recommend their work.

If that were my car, I probably would have vaulted over the counter when I saw the damage.

If done manually, you won't see any cuts in the paint finish til you've removed the clear bra. Human error cannot be 100% avoided on a manual job, regardless of skill. I'd rather drive around with blue painters tape protecting my front end from day 1 til a pre-cut pattern becomes available.

I've dug around and found the pattern designers for Xpel (working in San Antonio, TX) and their competitor 3M Scotchgard/VentureShield (working in LA and Boston). I've been pushing them this week thru email/phone to get BRZ patterns done.

3M has ample access to BRZs but an issue with their laptop containing the pattern files is blocking progress. If they fix their laptop, the pattern for both 3M Scotchgard and 3M VentureShield (there's a difference) will be available early next week for 3M distributors/installers nationwide.

Xpel cannot find any BRZs in nearby dealerships. I've scouted an owner on this forum in San Antonio willing to volunteer his BRZ for Xpel's lead pattern designer to work on tomorrow (seems he will get a free clear bra out of it). So Xpel distributors/installers should also have their pattern out very soon.