Michifan12

iTrader: (2)

Well i'm gonna bite the bullet and get the xpel installed....however I had a few concerns.

1. What should I do to prep the bumper/hood before the install?
2. My car has 18,000 miles now (and yes it has plenty of rock chips) so should I repaint the bumper and front portion of the hood before I xpel? Anyone know the average cost of repainting a bumper on an IS300??

Thanks in advance guys!

Guitarman

If you repaint, you'll have to wait awhile for the paint to fully cure before you apply any clear film. Someone here (Deanski?..not positive on that though) had a situation with it after applying it too soon following a repaint. It would make sense to repaint though-no sense applying the film over a lot of chips & touch -ups.

I would guess a ballpark price on a bumper would run about $200-300, depending on if it's 2 step paint or 3 step (pearls etc.).

Hopefully the person I'm thinking of that had the issue will see this and give you the details. Good luck.

Michifan12

iTrader: (2)

Good point - i'm gonna have a professional body ship polish it and touch it up and see how it comes out first and if i still dont like it then i'll have it repainted.

I have another question - Can i just get the front portion of the hood painted/blended (the part the xpel will go over) or do i need to get the whole hood painted?

Guitarman

I'm gonna give you a "that depends" on that one. If it's tri-coat pearlescent, only top shops would try to blend that. You might just need to discuss that in depth with the shop you choose, and see what they think. There are a lot of factors involved in their final judgement on it, and they *usually* will want to respray the whole panel, especially on metallics and pearls, because the time it takes to blend them properly is sometimes a lot more (upping your cost) than just respraying the whole thing. It always comes down to time = $$$. If they think they can match the paint without blending into the adjacent panels, then they would probably respray it all, but if they feel they will have to blend into the fenders etc. anyway , to match the whole hood, well, then they're better off just blending the front of the hood as you say.

Every shop is different, find one that will give you a price on doing it as YOU want it done. The really good, experienced shops can do just about anything. ( for a price of course)