Mercedes Benz E Class convertible 4-Matic – Front end Paint Protection Film (PPF)

One of our customers recently took ownership of what is a great example of a low mileage, pre-owned Mercedes. The car had been left standing by the previous owner for a few months, which meant the car had some hood discolouration and marking on the bodywork from tree sap.

When the car arrived with us, we did the standard thorough full decontamination of the exterior and convertible hood. This multi-stage process includes every body panel receiving clay bar treatment to remove etched in contaminants from paintwork. Following this, paintwork is then inspected again which showed signs of a smart repair on multiple locations on the car, as well as the expected age-related defects in the paint.

Knowing this, we implemented a two-stage machine polish – a cutting compound and cutting pad followed by a refining pad and refining polish. Once all machine work has been carried out, we moved on to the PPF to the front end of the vehicle. This installation took a few days to complete. Panels are fitted by adding a lubrication to the bodywork, PPF is then placed on top of the panel, moved and finalised in place, and then smoothed over to remove residue from underneath the film.  Once film has dried, edges are folded under and cut accordingly to ensure an exact fit.

Ideally, a ceramic coating treatment would then be applied over the PPF and the body work, which we did in this case with the car being pre-owned and the customer wanting to get longevity from the work.

PPF protects paintwork from damage, acting as a shield from things such as scratches, stone chips and bird etching. Visually PPF helps retain the gloss of the paint surface too. There are a number of different brands such as Xpel Ultimate plus PPF and SunTek PPF.