Damage from Bra?
 

What kind of damage can occur from using a regular bra? I don't know if going with a clear bra is worth the money? I don't have any chips yet, but they is a construction are on the highway I take to go to work and back... plus the fact that people can't drive and cut in front of you and lift all that s*@t off....

Will the clear bra prevent the dings from the rocks, I see how it will prevent the paing from scratching but what about the dents the debree leaves on the body?

if the rock/leaf/wood/steel/bug/bird/cat/dog/old lady is big enough to go through the clear coat to scratch/dent the body, theres nothing you can do. the clear coat protects as much as a car bra does. if it can go through the cleear coat, it'll go through a car bra and vice versa.

hmm. what about over time, will you notice a difference on the paint?

plus the clear bra doesnt swerl your paint like the car bra does. my dad had one of those bras on his car a long time ago, and when we took it off to sell the car, it was all messed up underneath. we had to polish the car for hours to get the paint to a more acceptable level, but then again were car guys. my dad has a clear bra on his current car and its awesome. no problems. we dont have to worry about paint fade, and it looks a trillion times better.

We had a bra on my wife's truck.
It ended up wearing a line in the clear coat. I had to compound and polish it out, (you can still see it in the right light).

HAving done this once, I imagine that it would eventually wear through the clear coat in the paint to the point that no polising will help.
(Remember that the polishing itself is removing clear coat).

My advice is to not use a regular bra, the clear bras work well from what I hear. Plus, the paint underneath weathers (fades) the same as the regular paint.

i prefer braless thank you

Me too... but these babies get heavy! :(

I was waiting to see if I got rock chips easily before I had the clear bra applied. So far none. I won't keep the car forever, so I think I'll forego the trouble.

Yep, the bra will cause a mark on your car. Unless you religiously remove it often to polish and wash under it, it will leave an area that is either a darker color than the rest of the car or a line of where the bra was.

It's sort of like those plastic covers on sofas.. what good are they if you never see what the sofa really looks like...

I mean sure they protect from rocks and stuff, but if you use them, you never see the front of your car.. Haha.. Personally I think they're ugly and will mess up the paint in the long run.

The clear bra on the other hand, shouldn't really be called a bra. But I guess that's the closest term for it. It's more like a skin protector.. hehe.. IMO, the clear bra is a pretty good idea if it's applied right, doesn't fade or ruin your shine, and can be removed with no problems in the future.

Re: Damage from Bra?
 

If you're going to get the clear bra, get it soon. I've got a lot of tiny rock chips near the front of my hood. Clear bra could have saved me. But once you reach a certain amount of chips, it's not worth the money. So do it now, before you get too many chips!

when u say religiously remove it... will once a week cover me? I tend to was my 8 once a week and wax it every 2 mos.

FALSE. It does not remove clear coat. It adheres to the clear coat and builds up on top of it.

A regular bra does in fact dull the clear coat over time. Even a once a week removal cleaning and polishing or waxing (wax is the devil) will not stop the dulling effect. No matter what you do, dust will get under and enhance the effect also.

Clear bras look like crap on dark colored cars.
I took mine off the day I took the car home.
I have the Mazda bra and I only put it on when I go on extended highway trips and then I take it right off.
Wokrs as advertised.

I like it when they're bra-less...

Oh, we're talking about cars? :)

Personally, I agree that on dark cars, clear bras look stupid. I don't particularly like colored bras either. The front end of your car was painted for a reason.

Well, thank you all for your input, but I have decided to go ahead and put it on, it will at least protect me for now. I will be moving to a new house in a few months, and I won't have to get the highway to get to work... I can't imagine the bra damaging my paint from using it only 1-2 mos tops. I will however take it off and clean it as much as possible, especially now that the rainy season is coming. Thanks.... :)

:confused: What kind of clear bra are you talking about? The 3M Scotchcal vinyl film, ~0.5mm thick that adheres to the paint? The kind that is invisible from more than 1 foot away? That would take hours to peel off and remove the adhesive - and you would have had to pay several hundred dollars to the dealer for it, kind of a waste to peel it off immediately!?!

Regards,
Gordon

It was 3M Paint Protection Film and I paid nothing additional for it. It was already on the car when I selected it (and the sticker, I might add), but I said it was a deal breaker and they deleted it.

I routinely get closer to my car than one foot, though it was clearly visible to me at any distance.

Clear bras add a slight milkyness to the paint and the luster is significantly different than the paint itself. Most people can accept this. I cannot. On a black car it looks like the nose of car was dipped in spit.

Removing it was like taking any other adhesive off of a painted surface - lots of heat and patience. Took about an hour.

BTW - I think you have a typo there. 5mm thick film would make a shelf that would catch rain and small children. The stuff is about 14 mills (.014 of an inch or .35mm).

;) Yup, I meant 0.5mm, not 5mm! Thanks.

That's the same stuff all right - I guess it comes to personal preferences.

Regards,
Gordon

talk about a bunch of overstatements...

dipped in spit?? haha

if it's true, it isn't clearbra...that's for sure.

There are a number of different manufacturers of "clear bra" material. I did a fair amount of research (thank you 3Rotor!) before getting a clear bra installed on my Nordic Green. I saw a black RX-8 with the 3M material installed and as MazdaManiac said, it looked like crap. You could really see a difference in the way that light reflected from the bra covered area. I'd have removed it too. But...

The product I had installed is 12 mil (actually 14mil with the adhesive) Venture tape. The name of the vendor is ClearBra and they do custom installs (not kits). I'm thrilled with the way that it looks on my dark colored car. There's absolutely no difference in the way that light reflects off the bra or the paint and there's no color difference. The clear bra looks amazing with Zaino too. See the picture below. The bra covers the nose, headlights, door mirrors, part of the hood and part of the front wheel arch. Unless you know what you're looking for you can't see that there's anything installed.

The installer who did the work (see my sig) did a thoroughly professional job and if you're in the NW I would highly recommend him.

So, do your research, not all clear bras are the same.

Nice job, but I still don't like the change in luster. The metallic helps hide the lines well.

It's hard to see the luster in this scaled down, compressed image. It really looks identical. To be completely fair, the film does have a very minimal orange peel texture to it but it's actually identical to the OEM paint finish. Black is always a tough color because it shows every minor imperfection, but I don't think it's fair to say that clear bras don't work on all dark colors. Still, for some, there's nothing better than being naked ;)

I really had no choice, my town likes to use the "throw rocks on tar" method of road repair which combined with a high proportion of rock throwing SUVs is a tough environment for cars.

Ive yet to see a bra on an 8

here u go