"Clear Plate" Advice Needed
 

Picking up my new Boxster next week. Can anyone offer advice on whether to get the Clear Plate coating? Dealer says it's applied to the front end of the car to protect the paint from chips due to rocks, sand, insect acid, etc. Thx

I don't specifically know about the Porsche brand clear protectant, but I can tell you that I'm going to definitely put some 3m "Clear Bra" on my new Rx-8 after seeing it on a couple of peoples' cars.. It REALLY protected the front end well of those cars, even after 4 or more years you couldn't see any rock chips or anything.

I've heard that the painted variety works just as well, but I haven't witnessed it first hand.

As mentioned above, I have no experience with the Porsche specific one, but it may be worth calling around to local shops to see about the 3m clear bra to do a comparison.

Cheers!

We've had the 3M clear bra on one of our daiy drivers for about 3 years now, and couldn't be happier.

Its on a '05 Cadillac STS that just turned over 30K miles. No chips or scratches yet, and still looks great, even on a white car.

Cheers, Dan

I've had the Clear Bra on my Honda Accord for a little over 3 years now and it's held up well. I have a spray-on protection on my Boxster called ArmorCoat that I had put on in June and it's holding up well so far. Clear Bra is inconspicuous, but the ArmorCoat is even harder to spot. The coating itself is invisible, and you need to look at it in the right light from the right angle to see the edges.

One minor drawback of the Clear Bra is, since it's not sprayed on, there are more edges that are visible. One minor drawback of the ArmorCoat is it doesn't protect the headlights. Hope this helps.

The only thing to consider before getting a clear bra is what will happen when you remove it. I have heard of people pulling the 3M off, and their car never appeared to be chipped. But a bunch of paint chips came off stuck to the bra, because they had chipped but had been held in place by the bra, and the owner never new it.