Matte conversions are gaining in popularity for our customers in the Inland Empire. Today we received a white Tesla Model Y for PPF. But not just any PPF, this is a matte finish..
What is PPF?
Paint Protection Film (PPF) is a transparent polymer-based material that is designed to protect the vehicle’s paint while being transparent. Modern-day PPF now also has a top coat that is hydrophobic and has self-healing properties. All of our PPF at Zero2Sixty Autolab is backed by a seven-year warranty.
PPF is used to protect the car’s paint/clear coat from small rock chips, bird droppings and other environmental debris. This is a great way to maintain the value of the car and its appearance. PPF can be applied and easily removed without damaging the vehicle’s paint.
What is Matte PPF?
Unlike gloss PPF, matte PPF changes the gloss finish (shiny) to a smooth satin look. Matte PPF still has all of the benefits of PPF. This is a great way to make your car’s finish look unique.
Removing old PPF
The car initially had the full front end PPF done in gloss. This protected the front end and even though the car had over 30,000 miles, when we removed the PPF, the front of the car was in great shape. We did notice that the PPF did do its job and protected the paint. The car encountered some heavy chips as it tore part of the PPF off but when we removed the PPF, the paint was not affected.
Full decontamination:
Since the car previously had PPF, we had to fully decontaminate the car to ensure that there was no residue left on the paint. We used a mixture of adhesive remover and steam to make sure that the exterior was ready for PPF.
After we fully removed all adhesives left behind from the PPF, we started our prep of the Tesla. This includes a wash, clay and prep. We made sure all the edges are fully cleaned as we will be installing PPF on all the painted surfaces of the vehicle.
PPF Pre-cuts
Since we are converting the Tesla Model Y to matte, we started plotting the matte PPF with Core. CORE is a software designed for plotting PPF. Plotting is a term to cut the PPF into shapes of the panels we needed. This allows us to more accurately install the PPF with minimal wastage and maximum PPF coverage. There are a variety of plotting software on the market but we decided to use CORE as it is an industry leader and backed by EASTMAN.
While the precuts are great from the software, we customize every piece on the software to ensure maximum coverage.
Bulking PPF
Bulking if a term used in this space to mean not using Pre-cuts, bulking is the method of laying film on the car and using a blade to cut the film. This has its advantages and disadvantages. A skilled PPFer can accurately cut the film to shape and allows for potentially more coverage and fewer seams. The disadvantage is that the installer can potentially cut into the paint.
The second disadvantage of bulking is when there is damage to the film. For example, when bulking the front bumper, while aesthetically it looks more pleasing as it is only one piece of PPF film, the issue comes when replacing a damaged piece. We would have to remove the entire bumper to replace the PPF. Påut bumpers generally come to two to three pieces. This modular process gives us the opportunity to remove just the damage section and not the entire bumper which is a cost savings to the customer.
Here at Zero2Sixty AutoLab, we use both Pre-Cuts and Bulking. We believe that this balance allows us to do the best job we can when installing the PPF on the Tesla Model Y.
Maximum Coverage
Our goal is to maximize the PPF coverage on the car’s paint. To achieve this, we removed the front and rear moldings on the Tesla so the PPF looks almost invisible and is tucked under the fender’s wheel well. We also removed all of Tesla’s badges and will reapply them after the PPF has been installed. While this does take longer, we believe that the installation is much cleaner and less visible to the naked eye.
Summary
We are very pleased to have converted this Tesla Model Y white gloss to a matte finish.
