PPF/Detail - New Car (GT3) - who to use?

[red997]

wow
some big prices here for detailing work.
I did my GT3 over the xmas break
Full machine polish, 100% scratch removal, refined finish & 2 layers of ceramic coating.
Luckily I have the skill & tools to do it.

I used EDP back in 2008 - very, very good.
I think they have OCD...
a full new car (997) paint correction took about 12 hours.

Also, I'd recommend Autoshine; Tony's been in the business longer than most, and produces excellent work without the youtube bullst

[blackmamba]

Cheib said:

blackmamba said:

Out of curiosity, what are people's views on ceramic coatings such as the Gtechniq Crystal Serum? Do they do what they say and provide long term protection and swirl resistance or is it all mumbo jumbo?

Never used this type of product before but was thinking of giving it a go. Reep charge about £1100 for the whole car (clean/polish, paint, wheels, glass).

Thanks (sorry if a bit OT but hopefully relevant)

I think £1100 is expensive for Gtech. I think pricing is circa £600, Gtech have a menu pricing system on their website all their approved detainers use. Clearly there’s prep on Top I suppose.

Thanks for the feedback. About £400 if that was for the decontamination/prep/machine polish so sounds about right for the Gtech?

[blackmamba]

I also called Depth of Shine. Nice chap but wasn’t happy travelling and working at the dealer if they didn’t have a “clean” room. Fully understandable as the environment is important for detailing and especially PPF.

[robgt3]

I would 100% recommend Topaz. They will ensure your paintwork is perfect before they apply the PPF . I was sent picures of the areas of swirling in the paint of my GT3, not until they had achieved perfect reflecion was the PPF then fitted. Why would you apply a ceramic coat to the paint first? The net result will be that the PPF won't adhere properly as in it will blow off! Plus if you suffer any paint damage it is a major job to remove it.

Topaz have now PPf'd 2 cars for me. When the RS was sold with 6000 miles on the clock no remedial paint was required. My new GT3 has 3300 miles and certainly requires no paint. They are a highly professional company that I totally endorse.

[robgt3]

Like this .

[Randomer123]

robgt3 said:

Like this .

Okay, but how much?

Also, no one has mentioned applying ceramic coating prior to PPF, but rather afterwards.

[Cheib]

Randomer123 said:

Okay, but how much?

Also, no one has mentioned applying ceramic coating prior to PPF, but rather afterwards.

I don't think from I have read it is worth/you should apply a Ceramic coating on top of PPF....it's a hard coating which will stop the PPF doing what it's supposed to do. We have a Ceramic coating on our Cayenne which Mrs Cheib managed to scrape bnoth front wings on....Bodyshop said it's a major pain in the arse to deal with! Apparently some bodyshops refuse cars that have it.

Max Protect do a lot of work for JZM (they're 2 mins form them) https://max-protect.co.uk/blog/nano-coating/

They have some kind of flexible coating which they put on top of PPF which gives is supposed to give it the "hydrophobic" properties that the Ceramic coatings give. All their products are own brand which makes me a bit suspicious to be honest (nobody else sells it to my knowledge)....but they do have a good reputation though but are similar pricing to Topaz.

[wellzee]

Taffy66 said:

Depth of Shine paint corrected and PPFd my new GT3 at Cardiff OPC to an extremely high standard.He PPFd full frontal,mirrors,side sills,doors and lower rear wing with XPEL Ultimate..He also applied Gyeon Quartz coating for full body and wheels.All in for £1800 with no VAT.
Cardiff OPC staff said the best they'd yet seen.

Hi Taffy, did you arrange that through the OPC or direct with DoS? Collecting mine in March and would be interested in getting that done.

[Cheib]

wellzee said:

Taffy66 said:

Depth of Shine paint corrected and PPFd my new GT3 at Cardiff OPC to an extremely high standard.He PPFd full frontal,mirrors,side sills,doors and lower rear wing with XPEL Ultimate..He also applied Gyeon Quartz coating for full body and wheels.All in for £1800 with no VAT.
Cardiff OPC staff said the best they'd yet seen.

Hi Taffy, did you arrange that through the OPC or direct with DoS? Collecting mine in March and would be interested in getting that done.

Another question Taffy. Can they arrnage for transport to their premises or do they work at the OPC ? I assume given PPF it has to be at their premised ?

Also is there a difference in how the paintwork looks where PPF'd and not ?!

[lowndes]

Taffy66 said:

Randomer123 said:

Depth of Shine's actual paint correction work looks great, it's just specifically the PPF work that I'm worried about.

Depth of Shine paint corrected and PPFd my new GT3 at Cardiff OPC to an extremely high standard.He PPFd full frontal,mirrors,side sills,doors and lower rear wing with XPEL Ultimate..He also applied Gyeon Quartz coating for full body and wheels.All in for £1800 with no VAT.
Cardiff OPC staff said the best they'd yet seen.

Depth of Shine did the same work on my car as was done on Taffy's. My OPC too reported meticulous attention to detail (pun hard to avoid) . Very pleased with the result and 2k miles in all looks as new. At the end of the day it's the person doing the work that will make the difference and Drew the owner does all the work himself, or at least he did on my car.

[lowndes]

Cheib said:

Another question Taffy. Can they arrnage for transport to their premises or do they work at the OPC ? I assume given PPF it has to be at their premised ?

Also is there a difference in how the paintwork looks where PPF'd and not ?!

I have had two cars done by Depth of Shine (one paint correction, one PPF) , on both occasions at OPC Tewkesbury. I dealt direct with both parties in setting up but then left it to them to coordinate convenient times etc between themselves. DoS have the Xpel PPF plotter/cutter on their premises and take the cut pieces to OPC, but do have premises of their own.

I have to look closely at the edges of panels to even notice PPF is on the car. As only the front half has PPF I can say that standing back I don't notice a difference between treated and untreated sections.

[MartinRS2K]

Randomer123 said:

MartinRS2K said:

I’m getting the following done to the GT3

PPF :

Full Front end
Wing mirrors
A pillars and roof top
Side Sills and rear arches

GTechniq Crystal Serum Ultra

Complete car including the wheels (insides and outer of the rims) and callipers and the interior protected by GTechniq Total Protection Kit to protect the leather, door panels and trims, glass and carpets. Then EXO Hydrophobic sealant applies to the outside to keep the shine and beading on the car.

Under £3k for all the work by Reep Group

Do you know what PPF they use? I did check their site out after your suggestion, but couldn't find any mention of XPEL, which seems to be the industry standard as the best PPF?

It's the Llumar Platinum Self Healing film with 10 year product guarantee

[MartinRS2K]

blackmamba said:

Out of curiosity, what are people's views on ceramic coatings such as the Gtechniq Crystal Serum? Do they do what they say and provide long term protection and swirl resistance or is it all mumbo jumbo?

Never used this type of product before but was thinking of giving it a go. Reep charge about £1100 for the whole car (clean/polish, paint, wheels, glass).

Thanks (sorry if a bit OT but hopefully relevant)

The £1100 includes full preparation of the car including machine polish where required. After the car has travelled from Germany to the UK and sat in a compound I was surprised on the amount of contaminants the car had on it

The Ceramic Coating is not applied onto the PPF as others have said as this stops the PPF working. The PPF gets coated with EXO v3 which is a hydrophobic coating to give a far better water repellence and bead effect.

[GT3-RS]

Cheib said:

Randomer123 said:

Okay, but how much?

Also, no one has mentioned applying ceramic coating prior to PPF, but rather afterwards.

I don't think from I have read it is worth/you should apply a Ceramic coating on top of PPF....it's a hard coating which will stop the PPF doing what it's supposed to do. We have a Ceramic coating on our Cayenne which Mrs Cheib managed to scrape bnoth front wings on....Bodyshop said it's a major pain in the arse to deal with! Apparently some bodyshops refuse cars that have it.

Max Protect do a lot of work for JZM (they're 2 mins form them) https://max-protect.co.uk/blog/nano-coating/

They have some kind of flexible coating which they put on top of PPF which gives is supposed to give it the "hydrophobic" properties that the Ceramic coatings give. All their products are own brand which makes me a bit suspicious to be honest (nobody else sells it to my knowledge)....but they do have a good reputation though but are similar pricing to Topaz.

that's funny I said this on another thread about having your car coated in this krap and that if you have a scrape bodyshops will charge X amount more for the repair if they'll do it all...but of course in the best tradition of PH this got flamed by someone....I had it done and it's made me nothing but unhappy as shiney as it is it's nasty stuff steer clear

[Cheib]

GT3-RS said:

that's funny I said this on another thread about having your car coated in this krap and that if you have a scrape bodyshops will charge X amount more for the repair if they'll do it all...but of course in the best tradition of PH this got flamed by someone....I had it done and it's made me nothing but unhappy as shiney as it is it's nasty stuff steer clear

Sorry I wasn't able to support your story re issues with bodyshops! That said I think the Ceramic coating has done a good job on our Cayenne. Our kids school has a long drive lined with bushes which is about 1 1/.2 cars wide so you can imagine the scenes sometimes with school run cars parked up close/scraping vegetation to allow other cars to pass. Despite Mrs Cheib's best efforts I am convinced the ceramic coating has done a very good job of protecting the paint.

[GT3-RS]

Cheib said:

GT3-RS said:

that's funny I said this on another thread about having your car coated in this krap and that if you have a scrape bodyshops will charge X amount more for the repair if they'll do it all...but of course in the best tradition of PH this got flamed by someone....I had it done and it's made me nothing but unhappy as shiney as it is it's nasty stuff steer clear

Sorry I wasn't able to support your story re issues with bodyshops! That said I think the Ceramic coating has done a good job on our Cayenne. Our kids school has a long drive lined with bushes which is about 1 1/.2 cars wide so you can imagine the scenes sometimes with school run cars parked up close/scraping vegetation to allow other cars to pass. Despite Mrs Cheib's best efforts I am convinced the ceramic coating has done a very good job of protecting the paint.

no worries if your happy its worked for you ........my new GT3 when / if it arrives in March will be having front end PPF but only if the price is right otherwise we will be going 'Au natural' as my RS is as it appears the cost of PPF is now starting to outweigh the cost of a front end PU repaint

Happy Polishing

[GT3-RS]

lowndes said:

Taffy66 said:

Randomer123 said:

Depth of Shine's actual paint correction work looks great, it's just specifically the PPF work that I'm worried about.

Depth of Shine paint corrected and PPFd my new GT3 at Cardiff OPC to an extremely high standard.He PPFd full frontal,mirrors,side sills,doors and lower rear wing with XPEL Ultimate..He also applied Gyeon Quartz coating for full body and wheels.All in for £1800 with no VAT.
Cardiff OPC staff said the best they'd yet seen.

Depth of Shine did the same work on my car as was done on Taffy's. My OPC too reported meticulous attention to detail (pun hard to avoid) . Very pleased with the result and 2k miles in all looks as new. At the end of the day it's the person doing the work that will make the difference and Drew the owner does all the work himself, or at least he did on my car.

lovely car in GTSM looks good which is just as well as that's what I ordered in fact we're pretty much identical Spec....apart from wheels and a few more black bits

[colin1976]

Some nice pics of white paint correction and G-Techniq here.
https://autocurators.com/porsche-997-gt3-rs-4-0-co...
I've been pleased with Auto Curators detail (about £1100) and Paintshield (about £5000 for full coverage on a 911).

Got backs of the seats PPF'd by Paintshield in a 997 to protect them from luggage

[noodle151]

Topaz. Just got my new TTS back from them and it is a really good job they’ve done. I used a different company on my RS and have had a lot of issues. If you go with someone cheap you will likely have to get the job re-done like I have on the RS.

[Cheib]

noodle151 said:

Topaz. Just got my new TTS back from them and it is a really good job they’ve done. I used a different company on my RS and have had a lot of issues. If you go with someone cheap you will likely have to get the job re-done like I have on the RS.

Never mind the PPF...what a great looking Turbo S! Is that Fashion Grey ?