AARP_981_GT4

So what exactly happens if you use XPEL on the headlights? My wife has a 2015 Boxster GTS and had the lights covered (this was before I read about the headlight issue) with XPEL. My SA had the headlights of his 2015 Cayman GTS covered as well. I brought this up to his attention and he said since he doesn't keep his cars very long, he wasn't worried about any delamination issues. As for my wife's car, I probably should not have had XPEL applied to the headlight. Since we're going to keep her car, I guess can't remove the film if it yellows or gets damaged, right? I am taking delivery of a Cayman GT4 shortly and plan to have it XPEL'd but will not have the headlights covered since I don't want to have any potential issues.

Jenner

If the shop installing the XPEL headlight film also offers Ceramic Pro 9H have them put Ceramic Pro on the headlight and cure it before installing the XPEL headlight film. This way if you have to remove/replace the XPEL film the film is stuck to the Ceramic Pro, which is protecting the UV coating.

Crazy Eddie

The first thing I would do is get 3M vs xpel 😉
Second it's mostly to do with who is doing the removal and how are they doing it ie method
I did it on my GT 4 and the installer was confident that there would be no problem. If you don't mind your headlights looking like a galaxy then leave the uncovered
Congrats on getting a GT 4

IrishAndy

If you put film on and 6 years later they delaminate when you take it off you can have them re-coated. It's not ideal, but it is a solution.

If you don't get them coated and they get pitted from stone chips, well, its a new set of lights (or living with a set of lights that will never look 'A' grade again)

I don't track my car and stay well back from morons, so I have minimal risk and haven't covered them. If I tracked it I would absolutely have them covered.

gmaki

My car has one scuff (not quite a chip) on the left headlight. I have not tracked my car yet, but I do spend sometime in the canyons where there are plenty of little rocks to get tossed up.

However that is not where the "chip" came from. It literally happened while driving through my neighborhood, in first gear, at probably less than 10 mph. To add insult to injury it was literally while taking my car home for the first time from the Xpel installer, after just opting NOT to cover my headlights.

Worse yet there was literally no other moving cars, or even pedestrians within my field of view when it happened. A pebble seemed to have literally just come flying out of nowhere and hit my car. Maybe a bird dropped it from great height or something? I seriously don't know. But I saw it and heard it come at me at a pretty decent speed.

Point is, I wish I had covered my headlights, and I now recommend that anyone does. I didn't cover them out of concern for blemishing them 5 years from now when the film was removed. Instead they are ALREADY blemished.

My best hope is that when I do cover them, it hides that little scuff.

jphughan

If you got them covered and didn't experience any delamination from the installer having to peel back the film to reapply it, then you lucked out on those cars, and you're now in the clear -- but yes, you probably shouldn't remove it unless you're prepared to have the headlamps recoated or replaced. With the GT4, I was firmly (though disappointedly) set on not having my headlamps coated despite being a track junkie because of the potential delamination issue during installation and also because Porsche's manual specifically says not to cover the headlamps because they might cause damage by trapping heat, and I didn't want to deal with not only losing warranty coverage for headlamps for issues unrelated to the film but also risk the film CAUSING a problem with the headlamps. However, upon talking with my installer, he said that the heat issue was left over from an era when film was much thicker and that he'd done tons of 981s and never messed up during the installation, so on installation day I changed my mind and had them covered, purely because my installer earned my trust. My headlamps do not have any delamination on them, and I doubt I'll ever replace the film on them later.

As others have already said here and in other clear bra threads, you're really buying the installer, not the product. Find someone who earns your trust and consider their input when deciding what to do here. But note that some installers will not cover 991 or 981 headlamps as a matter of policy since they don't want to be on the hook for replacing expensive headlamps.

AARP_981_GT4

Thanks all for your feedback. I was planning to do a ceramic coat so Jenner's comment was timely. I'll ask the installer about this approach since it sounds like the headlights get beat up whether tracked or just during normal everyday driving. When I get home this evening, I'm going to carefully inspect the headlights of all my cars since I've never noticed any chips or damage! That's what happens when you've got a blog site with such passionate members!

jphughan

I deliberately don't inspect my cars under a microscope because I've seen what it does to some of the people on car forums.... Never understood the benefit of making myself aware of every little purely cosmetic flaw in my possessions, especially in the case of cars where sometimes the necessary repair path (e.g. repainting) might be less preferable than just living with the flaw. Of course some people just can't stop themselves from doing this, but if you can, you should.

zmon

I was in the camp to not cover, but just put some yellow film on them from racelite designs. can see on IG zmon2086.

My reasoning was that in the case i want to remove the film to re apply or just have clear lights again and it peels some of the factory coating i can just buff the rest of the coating off and cover them in clear or yellow again. they will therefore always be protected......

jphughan

The factory coating is anti-UV. Clear bra is deliberately UV-transparent so as not to interfere with natural paint fading, otherwise after a few years a car with clear bra on only some of its panels would have a two-tone look, so a clear film is NOT a replacement for the factory coating that you would be removing.

GrantG

Many track guys just use blue painter's tape at the track (won't delaminate anything when removing - very mild adhesive).

IrishAndy

That is quite bizarre.

It sounds like it was Murphy and his law that attacked you. Before I got PPF installed rocks would literally bounce from the other side of the highway and ping off of my car. After I had it covered I could pretty much tailgate a dumpster without getting anything on my car. Weird world.

I am all for people covering headlights as I explained, but I'll personally take the risk for now.

BTW your scuff is almost certainly treatable by a good detailer. Does it temporarily 'disappear' if you cover it in water? It's likely just a blemish in the coating.

Abby Normal

I'm a shop owner and Xpel installer.

We do the 981/991 headlights on a regular basis without issue. One technique we use to make sure De-lamination doesn't occur, is to lightly heat the film with a steamer while we are installing it on headlights and even more so if we are removing the film from a headlight. We've never had any issues.

We had a customer with a 991 that removed some Lamin-X film that pealed the coating off, so we wet sanded the rest off, polished them out and installed the Xpel. They looked like new afterwards.
There really shouldn't be a problem doing the headlights in Xpel, and with a little steam removing the film is not a problem either.

Abby Normal

The blue tape isn't able to absorb and disperse the energy from impact, so damage still occurs. Not to mention the tape comes unstuck, accumulates dirt and then scratches whilst flapping at 100mph. Not a very comprehensive solution.

Crazy Eddie

LOVE your user name !!!
I'm a Big fan of Young Frankenstein !!