Urethane Film For The Panels That Cop Stones

What film is for

Paint protection film is a clear thermoplastic urethane, typically 150 to 200 microns thick, laid over paint with adhesive and conformed with heat. That thickness is the whole point. Where a ceramic coating is measured in single-digit microns and resists chemistry, film is thick enough to absorb the kinetic energy of a stone and deform instead of letting the paint chip.

If you drive the Monash, the Western Ring Road or the Hume with any regularity, your bonnet leading edge and front bumper are taking constant small hits. Melbourne's freeway network runs a lot of trucks, and the aggregate they drop is what stipples dark bonnets with white specks by year three. Film is the only answer to that problem.

Where it goes

Coverage is a budget decision, and the sensible ladder looks like this.

• Partial front. Bonnet leading edge, front bumper, mirror caps, headlights. Cheapest, covers most chip strikes, leaves a visible line across the bonnet.
• Full front. Entire bonnet, both front guards, bumper, mirrors, A-pillars and headlights. No line across your eyeline, materially more film and labour.
• High-impact plus. Full front with rocker panels, rear wheel arch leading edges and the boot loading lip added, which covers the stone throw from your own front wheels.
• Full body. Every painted panel. Expensive, and mostly bought for cars that are stored and driven hard on weekends.

Door cup handles and the boot lip are cheap add-ons and they are where most people get their first fingernail scratches, so they are usually worth doing regardless of package.

The honest downsides

Film is not invisible. There is an edge line on any partial coverage, there is a very slight texture difference you can feel with a fingertip, and on cars with complex bumpers there will be relief cuts. It costs several times what a coating costs on the same panels. It needs to go onto clean, straight paint, which usually means paint correction first — film magnifies whatever is under it rather than hiding it. And it has a service life; good film is warranted for around a decade, not forever.

It also does nothing for the panels it is not on. A stone that hits your rear quarter still chips the paint. That is why most people running film also run a coating over the whole car, so the unfilmed panels get the chemical and UV protection and the filmed panels get both.

Film plus coating

A coating applied over cured film gives you one consistent surface to wash, adds slickness so the film releases dirt, and adds UV load onto a sacrificial layer rather than onto the urethane itself. It is the combination we recommend for dark metallics that live outdoors in places like Doncaster and Glen Waverley, where the car bakes in an open driveway all day and still does freeway kilometres.

Pricing depends almost entirely on coverage and how complex the panels are to template and conform. The cost guide explains the drivers, our service areas page lists where we travel, and you can book an inspection to get it in writing.