Hertfordshire Area

One thing that detracts from the appearance and value of any car is stone chips, and the Elise, being a low car with a large frontal area, is more prone to them than most. My car, with 4500 miles of driving on varied roads, has its fair share, particularly on the front spoiler above the 'winglets'. Also, the fact that Lotus uses a grey primer doesn't help, because the chips are more apparent against a dark colour, Nautilus in my case. Having said that, the paint does seem to be hard and brittle, and chips ridiculously easily. I reported this to my dealer, London Lotus Centre, who inspected the paint and were sympathetic but ultimately said: "you're bound to get them".

I decided to repair the stone chips and fit some paint protection film to the car. An email from the factory said that Lotus themselves were developing a set of clear shaped films. Knowing how long they took to develop the hardtop, this would be too late for me and not worth waiting for.

I therefore turned to a company called Armourfend, based in Nazeing, Essex for the protective film, made by 3M. This film incorporates an ultra-violet light inhibitor that prevents yellowing, unlike the 'Helicopter tape' fitted as standard to the leading edge of the rear wheel arches. They can supply pieces for all the vulnerable parts of the body, as listed below (prices as of Aug 1998):

The install guide indicates the ease of fitting for a particular area, from 1/10 (easy) to 10/10 (difficult). I don't think the film is really necessary for the filler cap and roof pins, because with a bit of care you can prevent damage in these areas. You have no control over flying stones though! It is very expensive stuff, but I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with it.

As a trial run, I ordered some Armourfend 'Light' film for the driving lamps at £14.95+VAT a pair. Orders under £20 incur an additional £2 P & P charge, though ArmourFend could have reduced this by sending the items in a strong envelope instead of the cardboard tube they used. This is still a bargain though, since a replacement light costs £88+VAT+fitting at a Lotus dealer. Another Elise owner, Adam Buckley, has written a DIY procedure, including photos, for this job. This can be downloaded from the Problem page link at http://www.peterparker.demon.co.uk/eliseframes.htm

The 'Light' film is about 1mm thick and pre-cut to the exact size of the lamp. Fitting is simple: prepare the glass by washing it and then cleaning with methylated spirit, make the film malleable by heating gently with a hair dryer (this is probably not necessary in warm conditions), remove the protective backing and press firmly on to the lamp.

Satisfied with this, I then ordered films for the bonnet, front spoiler, bonnet scoop inserts and headlights. The fitting charge was quoted as £70+VAT, though I was planning to fit them myself. In readiness for this I repaired the stone-chips using Lotus touch-up paint, Halfords clear lacquer and a very fine artist's brush. This was quite tricky because most chips were the size of a pin head and it was difficult to avoid the existing paint!

The films arrived a week later, together with a special liquid solution that is used to key the film to the body. The body film is much thinner than the 'Light' variant and the backing paper is marked '3M'. The bonnet film is a single piece that starts with a narrow strip below each headlight (avoiding the headlight cover area), over the indicator aperture and covers the bonnet from about 4'' above the badge to ½", above the top of the grille. The film for the spoiler is in two pieces, and covers from just inside the grille, over and below the 'winglet' and within 1 inch of the bottom of the headlight.

I positioned the films on the car to check the fit, and noticed two faults: one of the bonnet scoop pieces had a 1cm cut on the edge and the bonnet film was not symmetrical and the hole for one indicator was about 2mm larger than the other. When I pointed this out they said it was because the films are hand cut, and would replace both pieces. I also asked again about fitting, and this time it was £50+VAT, probably because they were sympathetic to my complaint! At that price it was not worth fitting them myself and risk messing things up; the bonnet piece seemed to be particularly difficult to align and the chances of getting it wrong were far greater than fitting it correctly first time! I therefore asked them to fit all the film and booked an appointment at their premises for that day. BTW if you're going there via the M25, leave at junction 25 or 26 in order to take the 'interesting' B194 road from Waltham Abbey to Lower Nazeing; watch out for slow moving dumper trucks though!

Fitting, in their garage, took about an hour, including cleaning the paint with meths and rubbing down the raised surface of one of my stone chip repairs. They didn't let me watch because they said the public weren't insured against the dangerous chemicals lying around. They said it would take about a week for any water residue underneath the film to evaporate, and for the few remaining air bubbles to disappear.

Conclusion. I'm very satisfied with the results, and although there are gaps in the coverage, the chance of getting chipped is vastly reduced now. Also, I haven't noticed any detrimental effect on the light intensity for night driving.

Contacts

Alan Hulley, the author of this article, may be contacted by email:

Alan Hulley: acf@dial.pipex.com

Armourfend
Unit 33 Hillgrove Business Park
Nazeing Road
Lower Nazeing
Essex
EN9 2HB

Tel. 01992 892896
Fax 01992 893896

Links

ArmourFend Web Site

Map (Armourfend are located in the 'Works' on Nazeing Road)