Fender Guards, Body Wraps & Making Brake Calipers Shiny Like New

Disclaimer: The content of this document relates to the Porsche 993 (911 1995 to1998) I am not a professional automotive technician and some of the opinions expressed in this document are just that, opinions, therefore, please feel free to use this document at your own risk. Many times a lot can be learned by simply watching qualified professionals work on your 993

Removing nasty old rear fender guards – 993 came with clear fender guards to protect the rear wheel arches. These guards develop stress fractures as they age. Putting new ones on is quite easy. Taking the old ones off, not so much due to the film has become brittle and the extremely uncooperative adhesive left behind.; see Appendix “F” Replacing the real wheel arch protective film will bring you to a useful discussion on removing them.

Lately having a car “wrapped” is all the rage in the media. Even Porsche offers this as a factory option on some of its extreme high-end vehicles.

The PCA member magazine Panorama even did a multi-page spread on this topic that seems to endorse having films applied to your car. With careful reading, the article states that the film has a few years of service life. In other sections, it states how the film is easy to remove. The issue not discussed is what happens if you leave the wrap on beyond its service life? Does the film become brittle? Does the adhesive become uncooperative to remove? Seeing how long it takes to remove old dried-out fender guards, is there a horror story in the making when trying to remove out-of-date film over large areas of your car’s body? Who knows? My view is we need to have a few more years of experience using this stuff before I would consider applying it to my car

• 6/2020: I just got off the phone with the owner of a pristine 993 who was upset when he had a professional remove the worn protective film from his front bumper cover and hood. It pulled off a layer of the clear coat finish leaving a series of scar-like textures to the paint on his car. He could not verify that the paint underneath was factory original or an overpaint where it could be a brittle acrylic aftermarket formula but the damage was done and he being very fastidious about his 993's look was heartbroken. 

Making those calipers shine like new – The black standard calipers on the 993 have a Porsche decal that is clear-coat sealed to the black base paint.

With age and temperature cycling the clear-coat detaches from the caliper black paint and looks nasty. Easy cleanup is to chip off the bigger pieces of the clear coat that have come loose and lightly overspray the outward-facing side of the caliper with a urethane clear coat purchased at a local DIY store. This can all be done without removing the caliper from the car and can be touched up again at any time in the future. The urethane wicks under the edges of the remaining original clear coat and provides a like-new finish to the caliper face all in one step!

If you found this page informative return to the main page and bookmark it for future 993-related servicing, repair, and upgrading guidance & information. If it saved you some aggravation, time or even some coin consider a donation through the button on the top left margin of this page.