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StonGard
Just caught up on some digest reading and saw all the mail about this
product. I have it on PeeKay. The guy who recommended it to me has a
Bunch of Ferraris adn Porsches and puts it on all of them. So I looked
at an RS America that had it on and thought it looked fine.
Turns out the place where I had it installed was The Stongard, ie
corporate headquarters (it's just this little room upstairs in this
office building back behind a hospital, no big deal). The guy at the
plotter is Ken or something, who is the guy who invented the process. He
used to do vinyl graphics for race cars but figured out how to cut out
this film with his plotter and voila! His major secret ingredient is a
custom method for digitizing the shapes of the pieces for each car.
Installation is muy importante. You have to know how to stretch it over
curves so it doesn't bubble. I know they are getting installers in other
places and who knows? Quality control can vary. Make sure if you have it
installed that they don't use a razor knife to cut away the excess. If
they do, make sure they didn't cut down into your paint.
Does it work? You bet. My old M3 was at the track plenty of times adn
started looking pretty ragged in the front end. It looked even more
ragged after it mated with the tire wall at turn 6 at SIR, and after
that repaint it didn't see any more track time. I didn't want PeeKay to
get so beat up, so I had it StonGarded after the first track event. If I
had it to do over I would have StonGarded it first. The only damage to
the paint was from that one time on the track, nada since then.
How does it look? Well, as I type this I'm looking up at a picture of my
Beloved on the corkboard over my desk and I'm darned if I can spot the
stuff. Most people don't notice it until they bend over the hood. It's
pretty hard to notice unless you're looking for it.
Alternatives? I had a bra on my 87 325i: what a pain. You're not
supposed to let them get wet, right? Well, it's never dry in this
Godforsaken climate, so I was forever taking the damn thing off. And you
can't leave it on when you wash the car. Then when the car was clean I
didn't want to put a dirty bra on it, so I'd wash it in the washing
machine. Huge pain.
Give me StonGard or give me death.
Well, sort of.
Cheers,
John Browne
BMW ACA Puget Sound Chapter
BMW CCA
95 ///M3 LTW (PeeKay)
91 iX (Spunky the Brave Little Car)
96 Suburban 2500 (Godzilla; thanks for all the suggestions!)