For the longest time now, I have always hated stone chips on my hood, fenders, etc, etc. It really takes away from the enjoyment of a clean car when there's paint imperfections that stand out easily to the casual glance. It hurts ever more on dark cars when you see the multitude of tiny little white dots everywhere or the beautiful color of rust since it's damn hard to fix some of the nasty chips right. To try and aviod this, I've tried the plastic deflector and various "car" bras...... but they have always struck me as damn ugly and a pain to maintain. Furthermore, these two attachments can also cause more damage to your vehicle then the protection they provide if not maintained properly (IMHO).

Not too long ago, I was at a Volkswagon show where I got to see a few cars with this 3M clear film applied to the front and other parts of the vehicle. The application was impressive and it was actually hard to notice the film was even there without really getting up close and looking hard.

So recently, we had the 3M film applied to the front of our new silver A4. The film is computer cut and the fit and finish is awesome (IMHO). The 3M kit covers about 4" to 5" across the front of the hood and down the side of the front quarter panels to where the wheel well bulges out. They also remove the grill so that the entire nose section that surrounds the grill can be covered. The section on the hood/nose surrounding the grill is all one piece with no seems. All edges are tucked around the corners as neatly as possible.

We also added pieces of this film under the door handles which are prone to a large amount of scratches from daily use of the door handles. This is an excellent idea that I didn't actually see at the Bug Show, but on a fellow Audi members S4. He had also added a strip just above the the top of the front windshield. However, we did not have installed the piece on top of the front windshield. There are likely other areas where this stuff can be applied.... more then what I've covered here. I guess it's all up to your imagination.

On lite colored paints, the film does not show at all. On darker paints, the film doesn't show either, but when you wax the darker paint, the film edge will show up easily, apparently. So you have to be careful in cleaning up the edges after waxing.

There is a good warrantee on this product from what I remember, but it slips my mind as I'm writing this. So far I'm extremely happy with this product. Hopefully that opinion will not change with time. Also, apparently it is easy to take the film off if you don't like it.....without any damage to the car.

I would recommend that if you are interested in this this film stuff, find someone who has it on their car with a similar paint color. As with all things, check it out first on some other sap's car and see if it will meet your expectations before you do it to your own pride and joy !!