I'm having my clear bra installed next week and it'll be a full hood clear bra over the bonnet stripes. I wanted to find out if anyone had any issues having a full hood bra over their stripes? Is it better to have it under the stripes or cut the clear bra around the stripes? Thanks for your input/feedback.

 

I am not sure, but the dealer installer cut it around my stripes.

 

I did my stripes over the clear bra - this way if I ever wanted to change them out it's no big deal. But I think people have done it all three ways - just depends on your preference and what you think you might do as far as stripes, etc, in the future.

 

Covering the stripes is no problem.

Why cover the full hood?? Mine goes back about 12-18", and that should be plenty of protection.

 

My question too. IMO covering the whole bonnet is overkill. Only the front by the scoop, about what Kev said, is enough. If U have to cover the whole of everything, do the front clip.

 

Then you won't see the line. Which might be a big deal on a darker color car. Wax and all.

 

You should really answer this question based on cost.

Stripes $50 + $80 install
Clear Bra $600+ installed

Never have the stripes underneath the clear bra. Stripes last 3 - 5years max. Clear bra lasts 10 years or more.

I'd much rather pay to have new stripes every year vs having clear bra reinstalled every 3 years.

vinyl is cheap, clear bra is not. Have your stripes removed and detail the hood before clear bra install. Then have stripes installed a week or so after that install.

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

 

Baah. I've had clear bra on a couple of dark cars, including my current 2nd car. Here are 2 pics of the hood. See the line? Me neither. Can you see it if you look really closely from about 2 feet away? Sure. But virtually nobody will notice, unless they go looking for it.

 

HOLY COW!!
Nice car. I jdon't see no line.

 

 

I did mine under full bra. It looks great and everything is holding up great. Just need to maintain bra with some wax otherwise it might start to yellow over time.

 

^^This. Agree 100%

 

I got mine clear bra'ed last week, full hooded and it looks fantastic! Got my bonnet stripes today. But the dealership made a boo boo on one of the stripes so I'm due back there again next week for a replacement.

 

I did a full bonnet clear bra with stripes UNDER because:

-The stripes start to discolor unless you keep them waxed very well
-When the clear bra goes over the stripe, it creates a gap between the
bonnet and stripe where dirt/debris can collect (I'm OCD about
cleanliness)
- Made waxing the bonnet easier, you don't have to clean the excess wax
collected on the edges of the stripes. (for me anyway)

 

I'm lost....

Here's why.

You still would have to "wax" the stripes because the bra doesn't cover the entire hood so you're not curing the discoloration problem. (well, only half)

Now I'm really lost.... placing a clear bra OVER the stripes WILL allow an air pocket between the edges of the stripes and where the bra meet. At least putting stripes over the bra will allow it to seal completely.

Again, since the bra over covers half the hood, you still would have to clean the stripes.

I'm not dissin' your method, it's your car and whatever works for you but I just don't see the logic.

Having been in the bodyshop business for over 25 years, I have to agree with Twister.

In fact, when I redid my stripes and bra, I folowed Twister's idea and put the bra on first.

At least this way should I decide to either remove the stripes or change them, I'm not trashing 500-600 clear bra.

But as long as your happy.



Mark

 

A 1/2" strip of painter's tape prevents this nicely.

 

The bra only needs to go as high up as the top of the headlights. Above that is mainly profit for the dude. Unless you park it under a gravel shute that is.

 

No way man, if it were up to me, I'd put the clear bra on the entire hood.

On my last mini, I had a clear bra put on (the normal length) and the very next day I had a rock fly up and scratch my hood.

One of the companies in town installs full length hood bras but it's not 3M and is much thinner than the 3M.

Mark

 

Got my clear bra installed: Hood, headlights, foglights, bumper, and the two side mirrors. Irony is that I already have rock chip on my black mirror cap when the bra was already in place, damn!

 

Sorry to bump up such an old thread, but my OEM stripes look like hell. Just bought a 09 used and the stripes don't look so good (swirled and random white spots). I really like the look of the stripes and I will be installing a clear bra, so the recommended set up is to have the stripes removed, then clear bra then install new stripes right?

My question for those of you with full hood bras. I would like to do the full hood cause i'm really **** about that damn line when only the front is done, but my question is about how much did you guys pay for the full hood, bumper, mirrors (the whole shebang)? I'm looking into some venture tape at the moment.

Thanks

 

Benny,

Here's the deal... the best "bra" out there at the moment IMO is the 3M clear bra. Both my bodyshops have several companies we use to put clear bras on and always go back to the 3M brand.

The 3M is thicker (I don't remember the exact mils), pretty damn clear and the patterns they use to cut out the bra covers EVERYTHING... When I say everything, I mean bumpers, hood, fenders, headlights, mirrors, fog lamps, upper grille, etc, etc...

Unless they've changed, I don't think the other companies cover as many items.

Now, here's the catch... 3M only does half the hood, there are other companies that do the entire hood but there always seems to be a catch.

They're either not as thick a material, they're too yellow or don't cover as many items. Many of these qualities aren't important now but a year or two down the line when the sun has beat on them, you'll see why the 3M is more expensive.

Last year I put a clear bra on my '08 MCS. I drove it an entire week before I had a freakin' rock fly up and catch the hood about 6" past where the clear bra stopped.

I've got the same clear bra on my '09 and after 27K miles, well, I'm not going to say anything, I don't want to jinx myself but it's working correctly...let's just say that.

HTH's,

Mark

 

Orange, Thanks for the reply that does indeed help a bit. Now from my understanding I have spoken to a few people who were using Venture tape and they swear by how strong it is against rock chips, but how nice it is to be thin so the lines are much harder to find..

I'll have to look into 3M a bit more with the guy who's doing the bra for me. I'd really like to do the whole hood, to eliminate the line and also not have the bonnet stripes have that little dip from the bra. I'm really interested in looking in the cost difference though because I really can't justify paying significantly more for the whole vs part of the hood. Just trying to get a gauge on what others are paying for their Mini.

Thanks again!

 

Do you see the line?


How to properly tape off clearbra while working


Can you still see the line? (look just above the emblem)


How about here?


Or here?


Though these pictures show that the line when cared for properly isn't a huge distraction, what it doesn't show is the amount of orange peel from the clear bra and dulling look which can be distracting on a highly polished black car (especially non metallics).

Clear Bra does makes detailing easier. I had a customer with a black Porsche Cayenne and the entire hood and front bumper was clear bra'd, and so was the rear bumpers, and front quarter panels. Literally the whole car was wrapped, left me only the doors and roof to polish. Unfortunately, I made the paint look spectacular but the clearbra made the rest of the car look mediocre. He immediately pulled the clearbra off after seeing my work.

Clearbra has it's uses. I'm not a fan of it. It's expensive to put on, and minor damages..little impacts whether be a rock or another car in a parking lot creates a visible white crease that cannot be easily fixed without replacement. Things that could easily be fixed by polishing cannot be done with clearbra. Since they spent $1,000 to put it on, they aren't going to get it redone to fix any damage.

Besides look at the cost of clearbraing a front bumper and compare it to a high quality respray. I have a painter that will respray an entire front bumper..sand it down, primer it, spray it with PPG paints, offer a lifetime warranty all for $300, and he does it at my shop.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Benny,

Just so we're on the same page, I was suggesting 3M. 3M is not the cure-all, best thing since sliced bread. I'm sure there are other brands that work as well or perhaps even better.

I guess my point was if you are going to go with a clear bra, get a good quality one. I have no experience with Venture tape and it may be even better... I was just trying to make sure that you didn't buy a $20 bra off ebay...lol.

Like Octane said, you don't have to put a bra on there, you can keep paying to have your bumper repainted, your hood, headlights or whatever else gets damaged.

I personally would rather put a clear bra on and replace it in 3-5 years than deal with keep repainting parts. (and to think I'm in the bodyshop business )

Whatever your choice, I'm sure you'll be happy with it. An ounce of preventitive maintenance whether it be good coat of wax, clear bra or driving your car when no one else is on the road are great ways to save your paint.



Octane,

As much as I respect what you do and the quality of work you do, I can't believe as a professional in the detailing industry you would rather suggest to someone to have a bumper repainted than put a clear bra.

No disrespect but of all people, you know all too well what happens if you don't get a good respray.

And as far as your buddy spraying a front bumper for 300 bucks, he's either a) desperate, b) using cheap materials or c) doing a crappy job or d) doing the parking lot painter thing and painting the bumper on the car.

And if it's (d), I wouldn't let someone like that paint a fence for me, let alone my bumper.

Writing up an estimate for removing, detrimming and refinishing a bumper is about 400 bucks. Now, they have to repair any damage to it, it's extra. Based on that, figuring if you spend 2-3 hours removing chips or some sort of damage, you'd easily have 500 bucks repairing and refinishing a bumper.

Compare 500 bucks, ah, hell, compare it to the 300 he charges, I can get a clear bra put on for less than that.

Like I said, no disrespect to you, I'm just surprised.



Mark