Vinyl wrap

The Gotta Have It Green and some of the other colors Ford is putting on their Mustangs has given me hope that the trend of silver/black/white/burgandy cars we've been seeing for so long might take a break.

Mazda has also come out with some neat colors as well.

I realize that I'm probably in the minority in my love for loud colors on cars, and as much as I'd like to paint all of my cars in outrageous colors, I know that it kills the resale value if you can even get anybody to come look at your car in the first place. Which brings me to the topic of Vinyl wrap.

I think GRM covered this a while back, I think, but I can't find the issue anywhere.

I also found the thread here, but it didn't cover my question.

Is white a better color to start from for doing a total vinyl wrap, or is the vinyl opaque enough that you can pretty much re-color (and protect) any finish?

I think the GRM consensus goes to plasti-dip for simple, one, some times two, color jobs. Vinyl is better suited when graphics are involved.

I disagree with that consensus. Vinyl is much longer lived. A friend of mine has a wrapped Miata that was done about 6-7 years ago and looks great.

My coworker Brandon wrapped his fiancee's Miata in a matte metallic blue this summer. The end result is massively better, and it'll last at least five years. Total cost was about $300, I think.

The car in question was a real patchwork of colors. He got samples of a few vinyls, and chose one that would hide well.

That's the wrapped car in the background.

If you start with a neutral color, you won't have big contrast in the engine bay and door jambs. Black would work best there.

We wrap the Super late race car, in bright red and yellow. Its magic stuff- doesn't change color when you stretch it, if you stick it down and have a wrinkle, lift it up and stick it down again. Grab a fistfull of it and yank, then unstick it from itself. Gotta go around a sharp corner? Heat gun it and yank. Downside, it takes a while to figure out how to do it, and the only way we can buy the wrap is to purchase a full roll, which is enough to do at least 2 cars. On the race car, it looks wonderful. Scuff a panel, take a razor blade, cut the stuff thats bad and lay a new piece over top. I think if a guy were doing a showcar, it would be dissapointing. DD, adequate. Race car, brilliant.

Keith Tanner wrote: <img

In my experience, having the dogs around is a mistake. We have quite a selection of dog hair in the hood of the racecar.

Brandon says he's doing many things wrong in that picture

The vinyl with the air grooves in it makes life soooo much easier, like you said.

Although our Project Miata Turbo is white, the wrap was easily opaque enough to cover a darker color. Our wrap lasted about 7 years before it started to deteriorate. It was still presentable, but cracks, and crazing were beginning to spread.

A wrap is a good way to go, especially as it's fairly easily removable. Keep in mind that heat is your friend when removing the wrap. If it's too cold, the wrap will splinter into little tiny pieces, making removal a very time consuming process.

sounds like the vinyl is a pretty cheap way to go....where are you guys getting the material?

Call me ghetto if you must, but I want to wrap my SAAB c900 in chrome wrap with a blacked out section on the hood.

I worked in the sign business and designed wraps for years. High quality printed or color-cast vinyl is opaque enough to cover any color. I've been out of it for a couple years but it seems like the specialty (peal, metallic, matte) colors in colored cast vinyl ( that is vinyl that is made in the color and not digitally printed) are still kind of rare and pricier. If you have someone digitally print the graphics you can get some wild stuff, but not really metallic or pearl. If you do a printed wrap and plan to run it for longer than 6 months, make sure they overlaminate it, and make sure they are using the highest quality print and laminate films. The cheap stuff sucks. Also make sure the installer knows what they're doing. Poor install will look like crap and not stay attached.

Cost varies widely, most of our commercial wraps started at about $2k installed. But we priced high b/c we hated doing them.

HappyAndy wrote: Call me ghetto if you must, but I want to wrap my SAAB c900 in chrome wrap with a blacked out section on the hood.

A guy I know locally just got done doing his 300Z that way. It was in one of the feature booths at the last Nopi show in ATL, I think.

NOT my idea of a good look, but YMMV

Do people ever plasti-dip their jams when they do a wrap?

Don't cross the beams, Carbon!

Brandon totally should have rattlecanned the jambs when he wrapped that ugly little Miata. It's not like it looked good without the wrap.The red jambs do jar on that car.

How does plasti-dip deal with constant abrasion? That would be my concern on the sills, although I guess it's easy enough to touch up.

Brandon picked up his wrap from an online supply house, metrorestyline.com or something like that. It's Oracal film specifically for car wraps. He did check out a couple of colors, and the matte metallic green that was originally chosen was a bit thin to deal with the high-contrast cancerous paint on the car - you could see the borders between the white and the red.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

When I did some research on wrapping, 3M's Oracal was the recommended, go-to stuff.

I still prefer PlastiDip for several reasons even though color choices are more limited. It's much cheaper, much easier to apply (one person vs two), easy to remove, easy to repair sections, will last at least 2-3 years exposed to direct sunlight, works on wheels and it's much cheaper.

3M is what we use.

How much does it cost to plastidip a car?

I can wrap a car with one person and I can't see the plastidip being cheaper than decent automotive grade vinyl.

Keith Tanner wrote: How much does it cost to plastidip a car?

PlastiDip kits start at around $300. They include the dip, a Wagner sprayer and prep materials. The dip arrives in gallon can which are also sold separately for about $200/gallon, enough for at least the recommended 5-6 coats.

That's for the basic colors; different finishes and some colors are available for extra dollars.

A high-end matte metallic vinyl is about $300 with no special tools needed - that's what it cost to do the Miata above. Go with a more mundane color and it's less. I'm not seeing "much cheaper", especially since the vinyl will last twice as long. Repair is done panel by panel, but since it's not designed to peel off it's less likely you'll need to do any repair.

Plastidip is great if you want something very temporary and easy to do.

Keith, is that material only ? here the best quotes I can find are in the $2k range

wbjones wrote: Keith, is that material only ? here the best quotes I can find are in the $2k range

$2k is a printed installed price. He is talking DIY with over the counter stock colors.

I'm considering a wrap for my Ranger, but I think the sleeper beater truck will be so much smoother after the turbo swap. Two options. A company cuts the price because he sponsors the station, or a friend can print it for bare bones value.

wbjones wrote: Keith, is that material only ? here the best quotes I can find are in the $2k range

Yes, that's assuming DIY like in the example posted above. Same with the Plastidip numbers, they're also DIY. If you're going to pay for labor, you're going to pay more.

That Miata was done by two people who had never wrapped a car before. The car-specific stuff is different than your typical vinyl sticker, it's got air channels that make it easy to clear out bubbles and it can be repositioned.

The cool part about vinyl is that it's got a shiny aspect to it unlike plastidip which is always going to look matte.

Very interested in this for my Miata (or maybe even my ZX2)

Keith, do you know approx how much square feet Brandon used?

It looks like it is suggested to get a little extra so 45ft is usually what is advised.