Has anyone got the special coating

[iconpyro]

I was at California Tint during the week to get my fortwo passion tinted. Peter over there said that because the car is so flat (versus sleek) that I should buy a clearcoat layer sticker for the front of my fortwo. I think this was available at the dealer but man was it expensive. Did anyone purchase it and if so does it show up clean. I think the dealer that he mentioned was called aerotek in la verne.

Any socal smart enthusiasts please reply as I am looking to do this along with my radio swap. I just purchase a single din facet and I am getting my Kenwood P-NAV512 to put into my car.

After that it will be my rims and tires that go next.

[msjohnson1974]

I have it on another car and its fairly invisible. You could probably do all of the smart for what it cost me for the Z4. However, its not like a stone chip is going to cause rust on the smart's plastic "hood" and it also going to be harder to get a chip since the panels give some.

[SmartAzz]

Oh, by coating you mean clearbra (clear vinyl) - I wasn't sure what you meant. Nah, I'm not getting it for the Smart, I've had it on other cars and probably will do it again for future painted vehicles, but I have a through and through color and thus am not concerned about chips (and if they get really messed up we can simply replace the panels). I might cover the headlamps at some point, but this isn't a car I'm using on the freeway a whole lot so it even that is not a big concern.

[MR Claudia]

We have the Clear covering on the Front and the Rocker panel of our Passion. It is very hard to tell if it is there or not. It was dealer installed and they had to show us the edege for us to see it was present.

On the rocker panels you can not tell it is there since it covers the entire panel and there are no edges, we have color matched rockers that is why we have the clear covering.

No sure on how long it will look good and how to take care of it at this time.

[smaht]

Clearbra will cost you more than the cost of replacing the panels on the front of the car if they get tired after a lot of miles. If you have black yellow or white, the stone chips aren;t going to show much anyway. Finally, if you damage the front, you need to replace the clearbra.

I have clearbra on two other cars, for good reason and worth it. But I did not do for smart because of the above reasoning.

[Frankenstein_Casanova]

I've got it on my Lotus, and honestly, I'm not sure I'd spring for it again.. It might help with tiny bits of sand or bugs, but anything that hit the car hard enough for you to hear would just f*&k-up the film as well as the paint below.

Besides, it's so easy to remove the panels and paint the car, why worry about chips? (For proof see http://zenspeed.com/smartpaint1.html )

Cheers-

Johnny

[SnakeFarm]

The dealership (Ancira in San Antonio) put it on my car and it is really ugly at first with all the bubbles. It has been on for a week now and it is still really ugly with a lot of bubbles but I am told that those go away eventually. Sucks in the meantime because everybody who sees it says someting like "Hey, there is someting wrong with your paint on the front..."

BUT! I think the clearbra stuff might have screwd up the paint or the paint was defective when they put it on because I got a big hole in the paint UNDER the clearbra and now It looks like I may have to eat it because nobody is stepping up to the plate to take responsibility.

At this point, I'd advise against the stuff. If there is a chance it could actually CAUSE problems, why risk it?

[xcrew229x]

They put it on, they fix it.........

[Dunerunner]

Originally Posted by xcrew229x

They put it on, they fix it.........

AGREED!!! Unless the dealer can show an impact caused the damage, they have to make good on the fix. This reluctance in a dealer to resolve an issue with the finnish is distressing! :

[Fredvon4]

dealer has an orphan
dealer buys traveling salesman clearbra product for $xxx.99
traveling salesman applies the stuff
dealer sells the orphan with #xxx.99 stuff for $xxx.99 + $250
orphan owner has a problem
dealer claims it is traveling salesman problem

OH well... this game is better then paying $599 for a $50 dollar document fee but not by much

snake knows of what I speak... way back when there was some curiosity if, or if not, San Antonio would really get a smartCenter... we eventually discovered it would be Ancira...snake and I both know this group of typical used car and RV dealers ....it was sounding like (from the posts here) that the smart side of their business model would be different...

we will see how they proceed to fix snake's problem.... my bet is they punt in onto the clear-bra traveling salesman