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Clear film near rear wheel?

6K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  JohnS 
#1 ·
So this finally occured to me while cleaning the car today, there's this clear like film near the rear wheel.....is that just a protective film? I don't care for the way it looks and was considering removing it, just wanted to see what the consensus is on exactly what it's there for.

Horrible photo showing the line
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#4 ·
Its a stone guard product, name says it all :lol: it also can be applied to front bumper and front of bonnet. Should be pretty crystal clear.
 
#5 ·
I can't remember the last vehicle I had that didn't have that film. I think leaving them in place is better than the stone chips. If you keep the Jeep long enough it will need removing or replacing. But by that time you might not care.


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#7 ·
I would strongly suggest not removing it, if you do not have to. I know mine after a month of driving was starting to get dinged up. I removed it and had my xpel installer put another, bigger piece on there. I rarely drive any gravel roads but I think the large front tires throw up so much minor road debris that it will get dinged up.
 
#8 ·
I removed the factory film from the rear doors & replaced it with larger (longer & wider) pieces of clear 3M protective chip guard. The larger pieces worked well last winter protecting the doors from paint chips.

One caution associated with removing the factory film. On my Jeep, the factory film appears to have been applied to the rear doors before the fender flares were added. This makes it impossible to remove part of the film under the flares without removing the flares.
 
#9 ·
Anyone ever had an installer have any trouble removing this film in favor of putting new (XPEL, etc.) film in the same area with better coverage? I'm concerned about paint damage on removal of the factory film, and he made it pretty clear he's not liable as it was my call if I wanted it removed.

Also, I noted that the one piece does go under the fender flare, he said he could cut it right at the seam carefully so that he didn't have to take the flare off to completely remove it but would still be able to apply the XPEL and have it look clean.
 
#10 ·
When I removed the factory film on the rear doors, I carefully heated & stretched the film out from under the flares & carefully cut it with an X-acto knife with a new blade. The remaining film shrunk back under the flare when it cooled. I was able to install a new pieces of film just under the front lip of the flares so it wouldn't look any different than the factory film (only bigger). I just had to be very careful stretching the film to not damage the flare/flare adhesion and when cutting the film to not damage the door paint.

Here's a pic of the completed install. The top edge of the film is just visible.

 
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