The display on my 2012 E70 CPO w/ only 13K miles was looking pretty shabby--like many of you have experienced, the anti-glare coating was worn away, probably from an attempt to clean the display. I thought about taking it to the dealer and arguing for replacement of the $2K display, but then I thought it would likely happen again over time because the anti-glare coating is so fragile. So I decided to take the advice of some of you in this forum and apply a screen protector. In my case, I chose to remove the remaining anti-glare coating because it would likely do more harm than good if left in place.
I decided that doing a proper job would be too difficult to do with the screen in the car, so I elected to remove my display. It wasn't very difficult. I found a YouTube video with instructions that were quite helpful:
. Basically, I removed the center vent unit by grabbing it gently under its bottom lip and coaxing it out of the dash. It came away very easily, and I just let it hang by the wires attached to the various switches in the unit. Once the vent unit was removed, the two screws securing the display were easily visible, one in each lower corner. I used a magnetic screwdriver to remove each screw so as not to drop them into the bowels of my dash, and then the display came away by pulling it up and out from the bottom. I then rotated it around and removed the two connectors attaching it to the car. One was a coaxial-looking cable that was slightly difficult to remove. I pushed in on the small plastic release and then inserted my finger nail in the hairline slot between the connector and the fitting attached to the display. A little wiggling, and it easily came off. The second connector was quite simple to remove--I simply squeezed the release levers on each side and it slid right out. I could then remove the display and take it inside my home.
I bought the Novus Plastic polish kit recommend here on this forum from Amazon, and began by cleaning the display with bottle #1, "Plastic Clean & Shine." That didn't remove the blotchy anti-glare coating, so I used bottle #2, "Fine Scratch Remover," and that worked great. I followed the instructions and used a circular motion with the included wipes, and it cleaned up the display quite nicely. Basically, it looked new. I also used a Q-Tip to get around the edges and in the corners. Once that was done, I polished the display again with the "Plastic Clean & Shine."
Next, it was time to apply the screen protector. I decided to buy a protector from Nushield (
www.nushield.com) because I saw that others that had purchased the Lexerd protector had to trim it down. Nushield didn't list a protector for my 2012 E70, but customer service was very helpful and the 2011 protector turned out to be the correct size. I purchased some of Nushield's Step 1 wet wipes with my protector, and I cleaned the screen with that and then dried and polished the screen with their included cloth. I then blew off any residual dust particles with some "canned air," available at any office supply store.
Following Nushield's instructions, I removed side 1 of the protective film covering, and laid the film down on one side of my display and started smoothing it on with my fingers. It was an exact fit--in fact, so exact, that I had to finish the job be putting my finger nail under the plastic bezel to get the film to go under the plastic by, perhaps, less than half a millimeter (I did that after removing side 2 of the protective film covering). I smoothed out the film and then pushed it into place in the corners with a toothpick. It went on very nicely, and all the air bubbles were easily pressed out. As I was laying my film down I noticed one speck of dust, so I followed Nushield's instructions and lifted it off with a piece of Scotch tape. I ended up with an absolutely dust-free installation with no bubbles.
Once the film was on, I reinstalled my display in the car. First I connected the flat plastic plug, and then the coaxial cable. I tucked the coaxial cable into the "keepers" cast into the back of the display, flipped the whole thing around and slid it back into place. And then I used my magnetic screw driver to carefully reinstall the screws. Finally, I gently pushed the vent unit back into place, and I was done.
The quality of the film seems to be very high, and the screen now looks great--really, better than new. I turned on the car, and the display looked wonderful! Extremely sharp and glare-free, and free of the ugly blotchiness that was so bothersome. And now I can clean my display worry free because it has no fragile coating.