[h_bakken]

Originally Posted by pgreen822

Thanks... now this brings about a new question...

What's the visual difference between Frozen Black paint covered up with Xpel Stealth vs Black Metallic paint covered up with Xpel Stealth? Will they both appear with matte finish? If so, why would I spend the $3600 on the frozen paint upgrade?

I would say the answer to this is that it is significantly cheaper to PPF only the at-risk parts than it is to do the whole car.

My understanding is that you can do the front facing stuff for around 2k (welcome any corrections here) where the whole car is more like 6K. And unless you are careless about washing, I can't see how PPF over stuff that is not at risk for stone chips etc is really needed.

So if you are going for matte look, may be a wash in terms of price between forward facing PPF over Frozen, vs whole car PPF over gloss, but you are PPF'ing stuff that maybe doesn't need to be protected.

Originally Posted by CCM11285

I can't really say as I haven't seen the difference in person but just on a cost basis

Stealth film would cost more than the frozen up charge

If you did opt for frozen at $3600, there are much cheaper ceramic coatings specifically for frozen/matte/satin finish paint that offer a lot of protection from the elements and add ease of maintenance

These coatings do not offer protection against abrasion and rock chips like a PPF would

Others in this thread can probably attest to the visual difference between bare frozen and xpel stealth applied over frozen paint

So I have a Frozen Dark Grey Metallic M4 GTS which had XPEL Stealth over the forward facing stuff (hood front quarters, mirror housings) as well as XPEL gloss over the CF bits (roof, splitter, high wing). This was done by the previous owner.

The lower rocker panels are not protected and of course they are pretty dinged up due to road stones getting tossed up by the Michelin Cup 2 and the fact that there is no deflector at the back of the wheel well. But PPF would not really help here unless you had it done every other week IMO. But you can't see them unless you lie on the ground a look up...

Having the PPF panels and uncovered Frozen panels right next to each other there is a slight difference with the PPF having more of a satin look, the naked Frozen paint is just ever so slightly less reflective and slightly more aggressive looking, but really, you have to be looking very closely under indirect light to notice the difference, even when looking at an unprotected panel right next to the PPF.

I am glad to have the PPF, I can see several stone dings which would have been in the paint if the PPF wasn't there. When it gets too chewed up I will have it re-done, but really it will just be stuff that is damaged, so will be cheaper than the original job by quite a bit. Looking at the PPF you realize why its so expensive, each piece is cut exactly to fit and there are a lot of complex shapes and curves on the F8x front end to be sure. There is even a round piece on the tow hook cover, and little gloss pieces at the bottom of the side view mirror housings where the painted part meets the glossy black plastic bits.