This one's been on my mind for a while and in around a month I plan to give my 3.0R some clay/polish/wax lovin' so I should figure out what I want to do before that.
Currently she's wearing 3M paint protection film on the front bumper (with a bit of a gash on one side), 20% front portion of bonnet, front side panels, A pillars and mirrors. Judging by the state of the stuff, it's probably been on there since the vehicle was new in early '05. That has probably stopped a few stone chips (didn't stop some higher up on the bonnet) and saved my right mirror from an overpass egg attack one night (nice circular stress lines in the film) but the fact the stuff is in between my paint and anything I apply to the surface is bugging me... I'm highly tempted to take it all off and leave it that way. (everyone else seems to survive without it)
Same thing with the headlight protectors. The rubber holders are grey and the clear stoppers between the protectors and headlight have discoloured to a brown colour (sure I could just replace those) but at the end of the day they're also a bit dull with some polish residue on them and I think the car would just look better (and headlights probably be more effective) without them. In fact I'm not even sure I've seen any Liberties on this forum with headlight protectors.
So... would you strip off this skimpy outer layer so you can touch her properly, or work around it and live with it?