If you can find the edge, we redo the panel.
Clear paint protection film, ceramic coating and color-change wraps, fitted in a four-bay studio in Costa Mesa.
Free, 30 minutes, under our lights. (714) 555-0149
Film from $1,800 · Ceramic from $1,450 · Color from $4,900
Your factory paint is about 112 μm thick, roughly one and a half human hairs. Everything we do sits on top of it. Here it is from the outside in.
Water doesn’t get a grip.
A ceramic coating is a layer of hard resin about 1 μm thick, a hundredth of the film under it. It fills the pores in the clear coat, so water, road film and bird droppings sit on top instead of working their way in.
112°On a fresh coating, water sits up at about 112°. Bare clear coat is closer to 70°.
SheetsRun a hose over it and the drops pull each other off the panel, so they don’t dry in place and leave spots.
4 minMost of our owners dry the car with a leaf blower. That’s how long it takes.
Three ways to coat it
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Two layers
5-year coating
One-step polish, then two layers on paint and one on wheel faces and glass.
from $1,450 · 2 days
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Three layers
9-year coating
Two-step correction and three layers on paint. Wheels come off so we can coat the barrels and calipers.
from $2,400 · 3 days
-
One layer, on the film
Coating over new film
Seals fresh film so it beads like the rest of the car. Same visit, no extra day.
add $650
Kenji Sato
Correction and ceramic
Reads every panel twice: once before he polishes it and once after. Every coating goes on after correction, so swirls get taken out instead of sealed in. Once a year he inspects it and tops it up, free, for as long as the warranty runs.
Light scratches close up on their own.
Specimen: hood section, black metallic, gloss film, under a 6,500 K strip. Swirls 1–5 μm deep in a 10 μm topcoat. Healing shown about 20× faster than it happens.
The top 10 μm of the film is a soft, elastic coat. Swirls from a dirty towel or a brush wash are 1 to 5 μm deep, so they never reach the film body. Warm the coat up and it flows back flat. On a sunny day that takes a few minutes. Hot water does it in seconds.
It won’t heal a cut. A stone that goes through needs a new piece of film, which is why we keep every kit we’ve plotted on file.
It stretches to four times its length before it tears.
The body of the film is clear urethane. A stone at freeway speed dents it, the film springs back, and the clear coat under it never feels the hit. A big enough rock can still cut through. Then we replace that piece. We don’t repaint the panel.
A slice of a filmed and coated hood, drawn 60 times thicker than life.
Pulled apart, it’s nine layers. Five came from the factory.
The film we add is 216 μm. Your paint is 112 μm. The protection is almost twice as thick as what it protects.
Film 216 μm · Factory paint 112 μm · A human hair, about 70 μm
- Ceramic coating 1 μmSheds water. 9-year warranty.
- Topcoat 10 μmHeals swirls.
- Film body 152 μmTakes the chips. 10-year warranty from the film maker.
- Adhesive 54 μmHolds on, lets go clean. If an edge lifts in 12 months, we fix it free.
- Clear coat 46 μmFactory gloss.
- Base coat 18 μmYour color.
- Primer 28 μm
- E-coat 20 μmKeeps rust out.
- Steel 0.7 mm
Every kit is cut for your car before it touches the paint.
We don’t trim film on the car. A blade near paint leaves marks you’ll find later. Each piece is plotted from your car’s pattern, laid wet, then stretched around the panel edges by hand. The cut file is the price list: choose what you want and the plotter draws it.
Satin and color are full-body only, so the car doesn’t end up half done.
Drawing shows a coupe kit on a 1.5 m roll. SUVs and trucks use more film, and the price already accounts for it.
- Pieces
- 9
- Film
- 3.1 m² (33 ft²)
- Cut length
- 25 m
- In the bay
- 2 days
- From
- $1,800
- Gloss film. Add ceramic over it for $650.
Bumper, full hood, full fenders, mirrors and headlights. Covers most of the chips a car picks up on the freeway.
Prices are for paint in good shape. The fitting is where we read yours.
Book a fitting for this kit
Now try to find the edge.
Our promise
On every panel we cover in full, the edges are wrapped or tucked. If you find one in the first 30 days that isn’t, we re-film the panel. No charge.
Marco Ibarra
Owner, film
Cut film for a dealer group for nine years before opening Meridian in 2017. Does every fitting himself.
Film cut on the car usually stops a few inches up the hood. That leaves a line across the paint that collects wax and dirt, and you see it every time the light hits. We cover the whole panel and roll the edge around it, under the lip, where the adhesive holds it out of sight.
The adhesive is made to let go. In ten years the film peels off without lifting factory paint. Repainted panels are another story, which is why we check for them at the fitting.
Why we’re called Meridian.
In the bay we judge every panel by one straight line: the reflection of a strip light running across it. Where film ends badly or paint has been redone, the line bends or breaks. We named the shop after that line.
We measure your paint before we touch it.
A fitting takes 30 minutes under 6,500 K inspection lights. We read the paint depth on every panel, mark every chip and look for repaint. If we find something later that we didn’t measure, we call you before we touch it.
Correction takes 2 to 4 μm off the clear coat to remove swirls. If a panel reads under 90 μm in total, we polish it by hand or leave it alone.
| Panel | Reading |
|---|---|
| Front bumper | 141 (plastic) |
| Hood | 118 |
| Fender, left | 121 |
| Fender, right | 119 |
| Mirror, left | 98 |
| Mirror, right | 104 |
| Door, left | 116 |
| Door, right | 114 |
| Roof | 112 |
| Rear quarter, left | 108 |
| Rear quarter, right | 111 |
| Rear lid | 109 |
| Rear bumper | 138 (plastic) |
| Windshield | glass |
| Rear glass | glass |
Paint depth in μm. *Plastic, read with an ultrasonic gauge.
Two chips on the hood’s leading edge, 1 mm and 2 mm. Touch up before film.
Light wash swirls on both doors. One-step polish.
No repaint found. Thinnest panel: left mirror cap, 98 μm.
Track pack, gloss film $3,200 · Ceramic over the film $650 · Chip touch-up included · Fixed price $3,850, and that’s what you pay
It’s free, and there’s no deposit.
Change the color without touching this layer.
Satin olive over chalk paint, door jambs included. Six days in Bay 3. A full color change starts at $4,900, and the jambs add $1,100 and a day.
This is the color the factory sprayed. A wrap leaves it alone. Cast vinyl, about 90 μm thick, goes over the clear coat, the hardware comes off so the edges tuck behind it, and when you sell the car it peels off. The paint underneath is the paint you bought.
Three ways to change it
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Cast vinyl, about 90 μm
Full color change
Satin, gloss or matte, over every painted panel. Hardware comes off so the edges tuck behind it.
from $4,900 · 6 days
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Direction matched on every panel
Color-shift
Violet head-on, teal and bronze as the panel turns away. Every piece is cut the same way round, so the shift runs across the seams unbroken.
from $6,200 · 7 days
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One panel at a time
Roof, mirrors or chrome delete
Gloss black roof, mirror caps, or the window trim in satin. Done while you wait.
from $650 · same day
Lena Haddad
Wraps
Pulls every edge back by hand and tucks it behind the trim, so no seam lands where you would see it.
Under all of it is your car. It stays here.
Bay 2 at the end of the day. Every car spends the night under a fitted cover.
Meridian is a 1974 tilt-up on Lumen Court that used to grind lenses for an optics company. We kept the clerestory windows on the north wall, because north light doesn’t throw hot spots on paint. The bays hold 21 to 24 °C and 40 to 50% humidity, because film and coatings cure badly in a cold or damp room, and the air is filtered eight times an hour. There are four bays, three installers and no subcontractors. Your car stays inside from drop-off to pickup.
In the bays this week
Week of Sep 28
Bay 1 2024 BMW M3 Touring
Full body, satin film · Day 4 of 6
Bay 2 2024 Porsche 911 Carrera T
Track pack, ceramic over the film · Day 2 of 3
Bay 3 2023 Toyota GR Corolla
Front end, gloss film · Day 1 of 2
Bay 4 2025 Rivian R1S
Full color change, satin forest green · Day 5 of 6
Shaded: covered so far. Hatched is clear film, solid is vinyl.
4.9 from 173 reviews
“Another shop had filmed my hood, and I’d stopped seeing the line across it. Under their lights Marco found it in about four seconds. They took it off, plotted a new front end and rolled it under the lip. I went over the hood with a flashlight at pickup. There’s nothing to find.”
Ines Vardanyan · Front end, wrapped edges · GR Corolla · March 2026
Thirty minutes under our lights.
Pick a time and we start your sheet. You leave the fitting with a reading on every panel and a list of what we found. It’s free, and there’s no deposit.
Every box gets a reading at the fitting. Also at Meridian: ceramic window tint from $480, and paint correction on its own from $650.
1420 Lumen Ct, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 · Tue–Fri 8–6, Sat 9–3 · (714) 555-0149 · Directions · Pay at pickup: card, Zelle or check. Warranties are registered to your VIN and move to the next owner for $50.