hi all,

so, i purchased a 2018 IS 300 F-Sport rwd about a month ago and i'm relocating this summer from temecula wine country (for those in the southern california) to la jolla, san diego. i have an appointment to have ppf installed on the vehicle in early april but i'm wondering for those who live in san diego whether i should have ppf on the entire front end or just the bumper cover. i'll be mainly driving around san diego from la jolla to the city proper with the occasional trip up to wherever in southern california. the freeways in the area are okay. the ppf installer, of course, wants me to install on the entire front end, however, i don't know if that's necessary.

the vehicle is going to be my daily for the next several years and i do want it to remain looking nice, but i'm not terribly in love with it, so it's not like, my baby or anything - the s4 wins that title.

advice from anyone in the SD area on whether covering the bumper only will suffice or should i do bumper plus partial hood/fenders? i'm really not interested in covering the entire front end of the vehicle. the shop stated that the areas covered will age differently than the areas not covered, but as this isn't some show car nor a car that i'm gonna keep for the rest of my life, i feel like the aging of the paint for several years can't be drastic enough. thoughts?

thanks!

 

I had my whole front done. I've definitely had one or two pebbles hit the top of my hood. Most of my driving is between Carmel mountain and Kearny Mesa.

 

yeah, that's the thing - i've always had the entire front end of my vehicles covered but i've always bought new. this is my first used car that's not like perfect from the factory so there are some defects already there, albeit they are very minor for a 2018.

i'm leaning (?) toward bumper and partial hood/partial fenders.

 

What's the cost difference between Bumper, Bumper/Partial front/Full front?

$300/500/1000?

 

I would just do bumper and make sure to never tailgate


I had a leased car (Alfa Romeo, not sure how paint quality compares to Lexus) a while back for two years, no paint protection, I only had one chip on hood and a few on bumper.

 

In San Diego, your hood will get peppered with rock chips over time for sure even if you don't tailgate. Too many big trucks on the major highways. The full front PPF will cost about ~$1500. A bumper only about $1000. I say whats the point in doing just the bumper when the hood will look like crap also from the rock chips.

 

the bumper is 500, bumper + partial is 900, bumper + full hood is 900, and bumper + full front end is 1600.

the rocks are pretty horrible on the 15 through north county into temecula and i'll be driving back to temecula every now and again because my parents also live in wine country. given the prices above, i was thinking initially of doing the bumper plus partial hood/fenders but the car is nebula grey, so i feel like the lines would be super visible. so then i was thinking that i'd just do the bumper plus the full hood because it's the same price but the installer said that the paint may wear unevenly between the tops of the fenders and the covered portion. i mean it can't be that bad if i'm only keeping the car for about 3-4 years and then getting rid of it i'm assuming. i dunno.

also notable is that the car was purchased at lexus escondido and it's service history states it was maintained at lexus escondido and temecula valley toyota and it's in pretty good aesthetic shape for a 2018 with ~40k miles. there are very few rock chips on the front bumper and also very few on the hood. not that that's an indication of what's to come. i know lexus paint well enough to know it's not, only to give an impression of the condition of the paint right now. my appointment is set for the 7th of april with the ppf installation shop, but they asked that i give them a week's notice to prepare materials as to what i want covered/protected.

 

I would think the aging would be mostly driven by sunlight. Will the car be garaged when not in use?
I recall a CA driving trip a few years ago and was very under impressed with San Diego due to its lack of shade. I was telling my wife (who had initially expressed an interest in moving there, before we visited it), “there’s no fricken trees here, everything just bakes in the sun”. Needless to say, she no longer wants to move there.

 

the car will be parked on the UCSD campus in graduate/post-graduate parking structures, so i'm assuming it'll be covered most of the time, albeit i have no idea what those parking facilities look like.

i actually like san diego a lot. the city is gorgeous.