3M protection film issue with Polarized sunglasses

[Subforever]

Anyone have this problem with their 3M protective film on a SWP car ?

The installer need to talk to his 3M rep because he really dont know whats causing that. With out polarized sunglasses its unnoticeable...

What do you think ? Nothing have been heated or whatever (it was my first thought) He's a tint guy and he really know his stuff.

Maybe a result from the tri-coat paint job ?

BTW i took pictures with the sunglasses lense in front of my camera.

[mkiisupra]

The film is also polarized. Most plastics/vinyls are. (Check out lucite with polarized sunglasses on as you bend it)

Simple science class demos, now seen on your car!

By rotating your head with sunnies on, you should be able to see a 'spectrum' effect as the lines of polarization rotate inbetween full pass and full block (if possible). Most likely enhanced by the tri-colors underneath (which may add to the polarization effect).

Please be careful removing the film when it starts to age, it will lift the clearcoat if not done properly (seen recently on rx8, ).

Eric G

[TennisHsu]

I noticed this on my clear bra as well. Could be the way the solution evaporated from underneath the film, cause the patterns doesn't look consistent and streaky.

[TennisHsu]

Originally Posted by mkiisupra

The film is also polarized. Most plastics/vinyls are. (Check out lucite with polarized sunglasses on as you bend it)

Simple science class demos, now seen on your car!

By rotating your head with sunnies on, you should be able to see a 'spectrum' effect as the lines of polarization rotate inbetween full pass and full block (if possible). Most likely enhanced by the tri-colors underneath (which may add to the polarization effect).

Please be careful removing the film when it starts to age, it will lift the clearcoat if not done properly (seen recently on rx8, ).

Eric G

Maybe that's a better answer

[FRiSson]

That plastic stuff is really a scam. I mean, it's just a thin coating of vastly overpriced plastic sheeting. It's not the miracle-of-science protective coating they want you to believe, and we so badly want. It's just plastic. It is inferior to paint in gloss, in reflectivity and in the way it handles moisture. It doesn't look that good, it gets old, and it will do nothing to protect your car from anything more serious than a small twig or tiny pebble.

Save your money and get the car detailed more often, and any chips or scrapes repaired as soon as you can. In ten years, this plastic coating stuff will be history, like Rusty Jones, Ziebart and all the other snake oil junk foisted on innocent car owners who just want to protect their possessions.

These marketing guys are masters at psuedo-science. They'll drop any term they can to sell their stuff - ultra-nano-barrier, neuro-active coating, black hole resistancy, meteorological quality, grand cru, biocidal, torsionally suspensive matter transfer, hormone-mimicking honeycomb multilaminate substructures. Its a big joke for them.

[cnk]

Originally Posted by FRiSson

That plastic stuff is really a scam. I mean, it's just a thin coating of vastly overpriced plastic sheeting. It's not the miracle-of-science protective coating they want you to believe, and we so badly want. It's just plastic. It is inferior to paint in gloss, in reflectivity and in the way it handles moisture. It doesn't look that good, it gets old, and it will do nothing to protect your car from anything more serious than a small twig or tiny pebble.

Save your money and get the car detailed more often, and any chips or scrapes repaired as soon as you can. In ten years, this plastic coating stuff will be history, like Rusty Jones, Ziebart and all the other snake oil junk foisted on innocent car owners who just want to protect their possessions.

These marketing guys are masters at psuedo-science. They'll drop any term they can to sell their stuff - ultra-nano-barrier, neuro-active coating, black hole resistancy, meteorological quality, grand cru, biocidal, torsionally suspensive matter transfer, hormone-mimicking honeycomb multilaminate substructures. Its a big joke for them.

Have you tried the film? I had it on my WRX for over 8 years and it saved my hood from a lot of damage. I just sold the car a few weeks ago and the buyer decided to take it off and the hood looks brand new underneath. As for just being a film, try Xpel Ultimate. It has self healing properties that are beyond just regular film.

In terms of looks, here's a shot of my hood/bumper. The entire hood, bumper, fenders, and headlights in this picture are covered in Xpel Ultimate. The car still has that deep gloss and shine to it, so I really don't know what you've been looking at.

[TennisHsu]

^ This. Yes clear bra film is a form of plastic, and so is the clear coat of modern day vehicles. A variety of additives are added to change the structural matrix of the "plastic" to obtain desirable properties. So yes FRiSon, we are paying a lot for a thin sheet of plastic, but lets not forget, Clear bras are engineered and formulated to prevent objects from penetrating the film, thus protecting the factory paint from unwanted chips and scratches.

[FRiSson]

Come on TennisHsu, you are buying into the hype. All plastics are engineered. My point isn't that plastic doesn't offer some kind of protection - of course it does. Just that it is way, way out of line with what the sellers of the plastic say it does, and it is way overpriced.


CNK, your car looks fantastic, but that says a lot more about your careful maintenance, than about the plastic. A good owner makes 90% of the difference.

Seriously, if these plastics were so great, the luxury car makers would be all over it. Nasa would have put it on the space shuttle. The Coast Guard would coat buoys with it. It would be all over aircraft. The truth is the stuff is just not that great, and that's why it is sold to the consumer market. Because consumers tend not to be engineers, and tend not to have fleets and laboratories where they can test the stuff and determine that it just isn't that effective.

[cnk]

The luxury car makers are all over it. The person I had install my Xpel Ultimate has done all manner of luxury cars and exotics as well. While I was there getting the work done, he was called to install Xpel on a Ferrari 360 Modena. I suggest that before you make judgements on a product that you truly seem to not know much about that you go read up on it on some car detailing sites such as autopia.org.

You can take care of the paint all you want, but no amount of wax will stop a rock or sand from being an abrasive to your bumper or hood. You cannot tell me that having to use touch up paint for every chip is going to maintain a good looking car because it won't. The amount of time it takes to properly use the touch-up paint would pay for the PPF (Paint Protection Film) very quickly.

My car looks fantastic because I know how to detail my cars and I also know how to protect it, which is why it gets Xpel on the front. I also posted the pic to contradict your statement that PPF would be "inferior to paint in gloss, in reflectivity and in the way it handles moisture." As you can see in the pic, the gloss and reflectivity is still there and the way it handles moisture is the same as regular paint. You can wax the PPF just as you would the paint or better yet, you can apply Opti-Coat to it if you want. It will then sheet moisture and water in the same manner as waxed paint.

Again, my 10 year old WRX is proof that the PPF works. Any area that did not have it was chipped to hell while the areas that were protected were perfectly fine. Not sure how else to prove it to you that it does indeed work as advertised. If your hang up is the cost, then that's fine. Not everyone wants to pay the price for the film for one reason or another, but for those of us that have used it, there have been no complaints.

Your argument that luxury car makers are not "all over it" carries no weight. It is an option at almost every dealership that I've been to. If we go along with your argument, then why put different intakes and exhausts on cars? Dyno charts prove more often than not that there is a gain in performance in doing so, but the manufacturer doesn't put it on. Does that mean that they just aren't effective? No. It just means that the manufacturer is trying to make the greatest profit with the least amount of expense possible within the regulations put forth on them by government regulations.

[michaelahess]

Originally Posted by cnk

The luxury car makers are all over it. The person I had install my Xpel Ultimate has done all manner of luxury cars and exotics as well.

I think you missed what he meant by "all over it" rich people do tend to be duped easier...

I won't say the clear bra's are worth it or not. I can't see spending that much though, been considering it real hard, but just can bring myself to do it. I know it would protect, but I also do know how insanely overpriced it is.

[TheRipler]

Originally Posted by cnk

The luxury car makers are all over it. The person I had install my Xpel Ultimate has done all manner of luxury cars and exotics as well. While I was there getting the work done, he was called to install Xpel on a Ferrari 360 Modena. I suggest that before you make judgements on a product that you truly seem to not know much about that you go read up on it on some car detailing sites such as autopia.org.

That's not exactly what I would call luxury car makers being all over it, unless you're detailer's name is Ferrari, and he flies over from Italy to wash your car.

That said, my Tundra has that ugly plastic crap applied around the wheels, probably because the truck tires are more likely to throw rocks in and up around that area. Every time I see the plastic, I think how hideous it looks, but I don't rip it off because it probably does protect the paint there.

With a sports car, my opinion is different. If you had a supermodel, would you want her coated in plastic? If she was coated in plastic, wouldn't you want to tear it off as soon as possible? :happy0180:

To me, clear bras are an abomination to otherwise beautiful automobiles, not unlike grandma keeping her furniture nice under plastic while making it uncomfortable to sit on.

[FRiSson]

Originally Posted by TheRipler

That's not exactly what I would call luxury car makers being all over it, unless you're detailer's name is Ferrari, and he flies over from Italy to wash your car.

That said, my Tundra has that ugly plastic crap applied around the wheels, probably because the truck tires are more likely to throw rocks in and up around that area. Every time I see the plastic, I think how hideous it looks, but I don't rip it off because it probably does protect the paint there.

With a sports car, my opinion is different. If you had a supermodel, would you want her coated in plastic? If she was coated in plastic, wouldn't you want to tear it off as soon as possible? :happy0180:

To me, clear bras are an abomination to otherwise beautiful automobiles, not unlike grandma keeping her furniture nice under plastic while making it uncomfortable to sit on.

Well said. And very funny.

[cnk]

Originally Posted by TheRipler

That's not exactly what I would call luxury car makers being all over it, unless you're detailer's name is Ferrari, and he flies over from Italy to wash your car.

That said, my Tundra has that ugly plastic crap applied around the wheels, probably because the truck tires are more likely to throw rocks in and up around that area. Every time I see the plastic, I think how hideous it looks, but I don't rip it off because it probably does protect the paint there.

With a sports car, my opinion is different. If you had a supermodel, would you want her coated in plastic? If she was coated in plastic, wouldn't you want to tear it off as soon as possible? :happy0180:

To me, clear bras are an abomination to otherwise beautiful automobiles, not unlike grandma keeping her furniture nice under plastic while making it uncomfortable to sit on.

That ugly plastic crap around your Tundra is most likely not the same product that I'm talking about so I can't speak to it's effectiveness nor appearance. Clear bras are only an abomination if they are applied incorrectly, which unfortunately is the case as there are a lot of installers that are trying to make a quick buck. Same thing as tint. There are those that do it right and those that are hack jobs.

I'll leave 2 pics below. 1 is right after the car was detailed and Opti-Coated. The other is right after the car had the PPF applied to the hood, bumper, fenders, door cups, headlights, fog lights, and rear bumper applique. You cannot discern a difference. The lighting is different due to the time of day and the amount of sun that was out when I took the pictures.

As for most supermodels, the plastic isn't on the outside.

[Subforever]

Are we debating if the protection worth it or not ? Geez i just want to know if im the only one in this situation and if its normal thats it !

Originally Posted by mkiisupra

The film is also polarized. Most plastics/vinyls are. (Check out lucite with polarized sunglasses on as you bend it)

Simple science class demos, now seen on your car!

By rotating your head with sunnies on, you should be able to see a 'spectrum' effect as the lines of polarization rotate inbetween full pass and full block (if possible). Most likely enhanced by the tri-colors underneath (which may add to the polarization effect).

Please be careful removing the film when it starts to age, it will lift the clearcoat if not done properly (seen recently on rx8, ).

Eric G

Thanks Eric ! Yeah i see a lot of weirdness with polarized lense. I just dont understand why this effect only appear on some parts of the body panel .