Caterham Seven Build!: PBC and Paint Protection

Following the car's collection it was scheduled for the PBC. I can report that Caterham will try to charge you for additional work. They attempted to charge me £1200 for 15 hours work - dominated by tasks such as "tidying up wiring" even in areas I was certain the wiring was fine. Other areas they were keen to charge for, is where work had not been completed due to missing items (that Caterham had not delivered), a bit of a nerve! Some negotiation was required to bring this amount down to something more reasonable. There was part of me that was initially outraged, but in reality this work, done by people who work with these cars every day, should give me a better car at the end of the day.

The big concern going to the PBC was the non-fitting nose cone. I have had a brief chat with Caterham about this and apparently they removed some material where the nose goes over the ARB, to allow more space to bend the nose into shape. From the pictures I've seen it looks pretty good.

I had considered fitting paint protection film myself, but after a bit of research and a few horror stories I was convinced otherwise, especially as I struggle to make the screen protectors for a phone sit flat! The compound curves of the nose cone and the rear arches, filled me with dread, so I left this one to the experts. Premier Paint Guard fitted new Suntek PPF C film to the car, which you can hardly see. This is supposedly a new technology and supersedes the 3M film, all I know is it looks pretty good - I will report back later on the job it does protecting stone chips etc.