Xpel/clear bra/PPF costs

[licknab]

Since I've never purchased a brand new truck before, and plan to keep this truck long term, and it's night edition with painted bumpers, I decided to take it to a few detail shops to get prices for clear bra and ceramic coat. I knew it wasn't cheap, but was not prepared for the estimates I received! Especially after just leaving the tag office and paying for sales tax (I purchased in a neighboring state) and title fees to the tune of $4500.. Anyway, one shop sent me line item breakdowns for each option enabling me to piece together whatever PPF coverage I wanted. He had the most options, but is the most expensive. There is a "clear bra" shop near my work that uses Xpel Ultimate. They quoted me for front bumper, grill, headlights, fog lights, full hood, full fenders $1950. Additional $850 for rockers, up to bodyline just below ram badge on doors, all the way back and a larger coverage area on the dually fenders. They give a 10% discount to people at my work (lots of car guys), but still total for just xpel and no ceramic is $2750! That is a lot of $$. I want to protect the paint and all, but man.. nearly 3grand..!?! I could dump the rockers/doors and just do front end for a little under 2k, but again - lots of $$. I go back and forth telling myself it's not a show truck, it's just gonna haul the camper. But it also cost as much as a sports car.. I can get 5yr ceramic, no PPF, for $1100 - which will make it shiny and all but will not protect from rock chips. I mostly pull our camper to off road parks hauling rzrs. I could buy a lot of rzr parts for 2700!

 

[Smittydog27]

Yeah, I asked about it locally, and they don’t do it because it is so expensive. It would be cheaper to repaint the bumper than the coatings. Oh well...

 

[diode_ee]

Ever think about doing it yourself? Maybe start with a flatter part and see how it goes. That's what I plan on doing. Material isn't too bad and you can always look at 3M as well.



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[licknab]

I don't have the time or patience to try and do it myself. And based on what I've read online, if you don't know what you are doing, it will look like crap. Like a poorly applied screen saver.

 

[Squatch]

I got bumper to bumper bottom of rockers up about 12 inches to the body line to protect from crap my tires are throwing. It was about $500.

 

[licknab]

I'm just gonna stop thinking about it and schedule it. I'll be ticked off the first rock chip if I don't. I do plan to keep this truck upwards of 200k, and it's not driven daily.

 

[obijuan]

I'm thinking about buying a precut PPF kit for my 2022 Ram 2500 Laramie. I believe this should be the same kit as the 2019 - 2021 model years. Can someone confirm this for me?

 

[Ratman6161]

I live in MN where we have sand, small gravel and salt slurry dumped all over our roads for 3 to 5 months of the year. I've had cars get dinged up from this which is why we got the film on my wife's Infiniti. But I've never had any of my trucks get dinged up on the road...parking lots are another story/problem. I drove my old Nissan Frontier 113,000 over six years (had an 84 mile round trip to work) and never got a single dinged from road crap.

I think this may be because trucks sit higher? Of course the Nissan had chrome bumpers, not painter. But, I did have a GMC Canyon with no chrome on the front for two winters and not a single ding on it. Finally, I'm sure tha a local body shop I use would paint a bumper for less than I've seen some people quoting for protective films.

All that said, I went with the RAM 2500 with the chrome overload front this time around