Clear Bra

To ensure a safe and hazard-free winter season, below are four helpful tips geared to prepare the exterior of your vehicle for the road conditions and cold Aspen winter weather:

Headlamp polish/restoration if your headlamps are fading and it is difficult to see.
Wash and wax the exterior of the vehicle to protect the paint of your vehicle.
Aquapel application to your windshield to help improve winter driving visibility.
Clear bra application to help protect your vehicles paint job.

These four steps are geared to keep your vehicle protected from the elements and keep you safe on the road:

1) Headlamp Polishing

Get your headlights polished for safe winter driving — Polished headlamps will significantly increase the light intensity and provide you with a safe driving experience.

Among the most influential safety factors during winter is having visibility. Increasing visibility will help you see the road situation and react faster and safer in terms of breaking or avoiding collision. Headlights fade and lose luminosity because the protective plastic lens gets damaged and the transparency decreases. In fact, it is not glass but plastic that is not immune to the Ultra Violet (UV) radiation from the sun, temperature extremes, de-icers, sand and gravel put on the road.

2) Wax your vehicle to protect your paint

Driving up and down the Roaring Fork Valley on Highway 82, our vehicles are exposed to environmental factors as well as debris on the road. Washing the undercarriage of your vehicle is important to remove build up of ice, mud, rocks, salt and other debris. These items sometimes get caught in the nooks and crannies of bumpers, brackets, wheel wells and splash guards. When this build up of ice, mud, rocks and salt (Magnesium chloride) sit and stay moist they have a tendency to start the corrosion process on anything containing metal and aluminum. This is why it is so important to clean both the undercarriage as well as the exterior of your vehicle frequently throughout the winter season. Having High Tone Auto Body apply a quality wax to your paint helps minimize the amount of time the corrosive mixture can stay on your paint and do damage.
Wax all painted panels and get any body or paint repairs done before winter hits!
The Aspen area is famous for heavy snowfalls and long winters. This means that for several months our vehicles are exposed to moisture that can result in paint peeling and rust. This is especially true if you keep your vehicle out side and it regularly gets plenty of snow on its roof. The roof of your vehicle is always exposed to the elements, and often times the paint peels and the metal is exposed. Given enough time, this exposed metal rusts and causes even more paint peeling.

In order to prepare your vehicle for the winter, it is best to take the time and repair any paint cracking and peeling before the winter starts. When done on time, these repairs are only cosmetic and are therefore significantly cheaper than if rust appears and the repair turns into an auto body repair.

Clear coat and paint peeling gradually grows from invisible specs to large chunks of paint falling off. Preventing this process is the smartest and cheapest way to go.

The image above shows how the layers of clear coat and paint starting as invisible specs, and over time they grow in size and entire patches of paint will delaminate. In order to avoid such defects, it is smart to visit High Tone Auto Body and fix any paint problems before winter comes.

To find out how car paint damages appear, visit this page.

3) Have a Hydrophobic coating applied to your windshield

Aquapel is a coating that can be applied to your windshield to help repel rain, sleet and snow. The water will bead up and race across the windshield out of your viewing area.

It is also beneficial to get new wiper blades installed for the winter season. Clear your windshield free of ice and snow before using your wipers. This will help improve the longevity of your wiper blades.

4) Clear Bra Installation Prevents Rock Chips Damage

With snowfall our roads are regularly treated with sand and salt. During winter the roads really become littered with debris that causes significant paint damage and regularly plays an important role in windshield damage as well. After the snow melts, driving behind a truck becomes as annoying as flying through an asteroid field. Eventually your vehicle will become damaged from sand and rock chips. Bumpers made of steel can rust where rocks and other debris has impacted the painted or chrome bumper, while plastic bumper covers do not rust but they do chip and become pitted and will need to be repaired and repainted. Once the bumper is either replaced or repaired a clear bra installation will help prevent rusting and chipping of the paint.

This is why it is very smart to invest in clear bra installation that will protect your vehicle hood, bumpers, fender tips, etc from rock chips.

The cheapest and smartest way to protect your hood from paint damage and rust spots is to install a clear bra before winter begins. — The cheapest and smartest way to protect your hood from paint damage and rust spots is to install a clear bra before winter.

Proactively investing some time and money to install a clear bra will go a long way in protecting your vehicle. The image above shows how a detailed and proper clear bra installation is done. With such a protective layer, your car hood will be safe from rock chip damage.

Get your car ready for winter today! Please don’t hesitate to call us to schedule your complimentary estimate at (970) 927-4351.

With four seasons in Colorado your vehicle is exposed to the elements year-round. Clear bra protection films can help prevent rock chips and scratches to your paint. It will also minimize any rust from starting on you hood due to rock chips and help prevent tree sap from staining your paint. Clear bra’s do not prevent dents.

Do I Really Need Clear Bra?

If you are a car driver for at least a year in the Aspen-Basalt area, you know that our roads are the best and most reliable source of rock chips and dents. Not that anybody would want them, but it’s quite inevitable: you drive behind a car and keep your distance, but somehow, those small sharp-edged rocks end up scratching your front bumper and hood. No matter how careful a driver you are, it doesn’t take much to get that perfect paint job ruined.

So if you ever wonder if you really need clear bra protection film installation on your car, here are just a handful of benefits, see if you’d want any of them:

Rock Chip Protection, keep your front bumper and hood scratch-free
Sun Protection, protect your hood from sun discolorations
Stains Protection, save your car from tar and sap stains
Scratches and Dents protection
UV Protection

If you find yourself wanting protection from at least one of the listed car hazards, your car needs clear bra installation.

Clear Bra, Clear Benefits

Clear bra is a Polyurethane durable plastic film that is mechanically very tough and completely transparent, so you won’t even see it. This is the best of two worlds: the best rock chip protection AND untainted (literally) car beauty:

Fastest and Easiest way to protect your car paint
Invisible, does not hide the car’s great looks
Long lasting and rugged protection

Why Use Professional Clear Bra Installation

There are many clear bra kits on the market that you can buy and install yourself. However, work experience is crucial for a successful and aesthetically pleasing car project of any kind. Experienced and trained technicians assure that your vehicle will get the best treatment possible in the Roaring Fork Valley:

Professional clear bra installation for perfect looks
Warranty on the Clear Bra installation
Same-day clear bra installation

Here’s one of the clear bra installation projects we did on a vehicle that required special attention (front bumper had to be removed for proper clear bra installation):

Prepare Your Vehicle for Winter