Last year my wife and I spent some time on the backroads of Big Bend Ranch State Park and our Jeep Cherokee got a good case of desert pin striping. It took a lot of effort to try and rub it out, and I couldn’t remove all of it. This year we were making a trip after Christmas and I wanted to find some way to protect the paint. I looked for some type of stick-on plastic or product like they put on new cars, but couldn’t find any. There is some plastic film available but it is very expensive and more permanent than I wanted. I did find a spray-on film on the internet but again it looked very expensive ($100+ for a car). I finally stumbled on a product at my local auto parts store from Duplicolor. It is called "Shield-Temporary Spray on Bra Protection" and comes in clear and black, and only cost $4.97 on sale for a 16 oz aerosol spray can. I think it’s normally about $8. I bought one can of the clear and thought I would give it a try. I believe it is intended to be more of a bug shield than a protection against thorny bushes, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Before leaving home for Big Bend I put a good coat of wax on my Jeep. When we got to the BBRSP entrance I sprayed both sides and front of my Jeep with the Shield. I was surprised that the one can covered all this and there was a little left over. We drove to Sauceda and then down to the Mexicano 1 campsite and got a lot of branch activity against the sides. The coating does collect a lot of dust; my green Cherokee looked like it was camo colored. This may have been avoided if I had sprayed it on ahead of time and allowed it to dry more, but I was worried that it might wash off in any rain. By the time we got to the campsite, there were a lot of scratches in the dust on the sides of the jeep from the branches. However, after driving back out under the same conditions and getting back to Houston, when I washed off the dust and coating, I found no new scratches. The coating is a little hard to wash off, but good hot soapy water did the trick. Even though the coating didn’t provide a hard protective surface, I think it acted somewhat like a lubricant and the branches and thorns just slid past and didn’t dig into the paint. I will use it again.
