Just some follow ups to questions. Might be long winded but will answer a lot.
This is basically PPF in itself, so I wouldn’t recommend adding an additional layer of PPF. But you can ceramic coat it, wax it, buff/polish/cut just like paint, and being that the foundation is a spray on rubbery application before the clear coat, its a pretty strong PPF itself, most small rocks that cause chips in the front tend to bounce off. But should you get a small rock tear, because its liquid, you just apply the dip from a little applicator, and it bleeds into and fills the hole, add it until it fills the little hole smoothly. Bigger areas, say a door ding or like on my last X5, I had the hatch open and opened the garage without thinking, it put a nice scratch in the dip, but the paint underneath was unharmed. That area was just peeled and resprayed. So it really depends on the level of damage, its like any coating, its not impenetrable, put it does save your factory paint. As for self healing, it wont self heal rock chips as stated above (its not magic) but it will allow you to use the carwash and any micro abrasions cause by a touch wash will actually self heal in the heat of the sun. The top coat is its strength, its a 2k OEM style clear coat that is pretty strong, and will the added cushion of the addition layers underneath, it combines as a cool color change and great (less expensive) PPF coating.
This is my 4th Autoflex Orange vehicle (color matched to BMW Fire Orange), so I actually buy black vehicles, knowing I will dip over it and I personally don’t care to do door jams so for most colors its not bad especially mine with bright orange exterior and black jams, as shown in the pics. These newer X5’s have so much plastic in the engine bay, its hard to tell the factory color from the dip color since very little metal is exposed under the bonnet. Its different on older models, but again, not horrible if you are dipping over a dark vehicle. Was harder when I did my white M4, actually had to do the jams since it looked like a creamsicle when the doors were open.
Because a tack coat is applied and usually a base coat light color, there isn’t any color blending in the original paint if its a lighter color after many years on.
As for not having to remove anything, its liquid, so it fills gaps, breaks clean at tape lines etc so the prep labor is just cleaning and taping, and nothing needs to be removed and only takes 2 days to complete vs 7 days most wrap companies want to disassemble the whole vehicle. Emblems and badge removal are up to the owner, but I left mine on and it was just taped and you cant tell they were even left on.
You do not need to be a professional to remove Autoflex. Its extremely easy, and peels so clean, no residue left behind like PPF or vinyl, and if applied correctly comes off in big even pieces. I’ve attached a peeling video below. And it will peel the same tomorrow as well in 5-6 years.
I think someone asked about leasing - doesn’t matter since its not permanate - my X5M is currently a lease, but my M4 and X5 50i leases were both Autoflex Fire Orange and the dealership I returned them to to get the next vehicle, this X5M being the Latest actually did not want the wrap removed. I see my Orange M4 still roaming the streets here, still shining like new 4 years after application.
One thing I get is “people, stop plastidiping your cars”. This is not plastidip, not close to plastidip, not even the same level as plastidip. While plastidip should peel easy if its applied correctly, Autoflex is on another level and actually feels like paint. With a nice wax and buff, its as smooth as liquid glass. Again for those talking about orange peel, if you analyze it in photos, it can look excessive in the lighting and reflections and under the same lights you can see peel on factory paints - some jobs show more than others, as one poster posted photos, not including the fact that the cars in those photos had horrible paint jobs and were 20+ years old (I’ve attached the full car photo here of the zoomed in shot and a before shot) to show its not as bad as it looks, but its really not noticeable in real life and in most well taken photos. And if it is bothersome to someone, you can cut/polish to get a mirror finish, and even do a flow coat top coat for an extra level of mirror finish. For my flashy orange, flow coat wasn’t needed, but for metallic colors, it really makes them pop in the sun.
Finally the last big question. Why don’t you just paint it, or order individual paint. I didn’t want permanent, I wanted the option to change colors, its a fraction of the price to repaint, and so so so much less work on a brand new vehicle. For individual, you can’t get Fire Orange on the X5M in the individual colors for $5k and addtional build time, for $10K you can get any BMW color from the individual team, no thanks... this works just fine and most people cant even tell.
Hope that answered a bunch of questions.
Watch the peeling video here:
peeling autoflex