Already Got a Rock Strike

Just picked the car back up from getting XPEL and OptiCoat this morning and already managed to pickup a rock strike.



Looks to me like the first hard hit is in the middle and then it bounced off the upper left spot. That's a picture of the passenger front fender.

golfski said:

I was the same way. I was wiping off bugs multiple times a day, worried that any car in front of me was going to kick up rocks, etc. Then I got hit by a baseball sized rock and it gouged a couple of tiny marks, I realized its just a car and there is no way to stop this, especially were I live.

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Yeah I know what you mean. I was just hoping to make it a few weeks or a month more without this sort of thing. My old car had a ton of pits on the hood from this sort of thing. Which is why I did the XPEL and Opticoat, to try and prevent as many of them as possible.

breser - I see you are in North Bend, I am a few exits west of you on I-90, so I'm familiar with the area and potential for this type of damage. In my experience, anything West of Issaquah on I-90 is a minefield for rocks big and small, I'm sure this won't be the last ding you'll find but good move on the XPEL and OptiCoat, I'm driving around bareback :frown:

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I'm guessing you mean East of Issaquah. Pretty sure I got it heading Westbound towards Issaquah to go to Costco yesterday.

Took it by my paint protection installer today. They think it did not penetrate the XPEL. Regarding the self healing nature of this. XPEL is only self healing if it doesn't penetrate too many layers of the film, this did. We're going to remove the film next Friday on that panel and see what the situation is. Hopefully, I got paint protection just in time.

jstepy said:

Good luck Breser next Friday... please let us know how it goes.

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Dropped the car off a bit ago. The XPEL Ultimate did its job. There was a rather large section taken out of it but it didn't get to the paint. I've have it back this evening all nice and smooth again.



For reference the mar in the top middle of this photo is the same one that's circled at the top in my first photo. The area that's just barely peeled back is where the much larger "chip" was.

ACDriveMotor said:

@breser who did your install, I've been considering this since I took delivery.

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Accutint Bellevue

CHGolferJim said:

How much did the repair cost?

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$251.85 with taxes.

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caps04 said:

What would've been the consequences if you didn't have XPEL? Chips like these on bare metal.. can they be buffed out and/or fixed with a touch up paint? I don't have Xpel and my DS said it's not worth it as the minor chips that wraps prevent are easily fixable and the more serious ones penetrate them and there's additional cost or re-wrapping, etc anyway. Not sure what to believe.

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If it doesn't penetrate the clear coat then you can buff them out and put a new coating on. If it does then you have to use touch up paint. The touch up can be done so it's very hard to find but if you know it's there you're going to be able to find it.

I only put XPEL on the front of the car. I live in a fairly rural area with a gravel mine near by and there are a lot of rocks on the roads. I also keep cars for a long period of time, the Lexus I had before was with me for 15 years. I was disappointed with the rock chip damage to the car and am hoping this will help limit the damage.

I don't really expect to pull the film off for every chip. The situation discussed in this thread happened to the S85 that I had very briefly before I replaced it with the 85D (a very unexpected situation for me). The 85D already has some more minor hits that damaged the film slightly. I expect to leave the film on for ~5 years and then look at pulling it, correcting whatever problems penetrated and then replacing the film.

That's just my thinking. If you're a low mileage driver or don't plan to keep the car for a long time, I'm sure you may feel it's not worth it.