Vinyl Car Wrapping

• Completely new look, can be quite a drastic change!
• Personalisation of your vehicle.
• Advertising opportunities.
• Paint protection from the vinyl wrap, better resale value when you trade-in the vehicle after removing a wrap.
• Cost of a wrapping vs. painting. Wrapping is often much cheaper.
• Cost to accessorise a car, real carbon fibre hood (huge cost) vs. carbon fibre look wrap, that most won’t be able to tell the difference.
• Further customisation, racing stripes, accent stripes.
• Easy to remove and simple to repair.
• Well applied wraps easily last 3 to 5 years depending on environment.
• Resale value of the vehicle, total repaint devalues your car. A wrap can simply be removed and original paint is again visible and protected from road debris.

It’s really difficult to find any real cons to getting your vehicle wrapped. The only real cons we can think of would be:

• Upfront cost.
• Replacement or repair cost due to car accident.
• Wear and tear over time.

Vinyl has to be produced specific for this application to have flexibility for curves in body panels. It also has to withstand extreme weather, road debris, UV rays, and the constant wind from simply driving the car. The adhesive if done properly at installation will allow for re positioning before you properly adhere it to the panels. It is completely safe on clean painted surfaces and will fit like a glove.

What makes this an interesting process as well is the application of ink-jet printed designs to the vinyl. Imagine the printer that runs this process. Moreover, the limitless imagination of what can actually be put on the vinyl.

Unlike a paint job, vinyl wraps can come in a wide variety of material finishes different thickness, tinsel strength for different applications, without the extreme price tags.

Pearl, Carbon Fibre (3D textured), metallic, chrome, metallic chrome, matte, matte chrome…the list goes on and that’s without discussing the huge palette of vinyl wrapping colours which cover the full spectrum.

A  wrap can be removed with ease and without any damage being caused to the paintwork underneath, and it can be redone as many times as you like. This makes wrapping a much cheaper than a new paint job and they give the option to revert and restyle your car as many times as you like.

Wraps can be used for really an infinite amount of applications. The most obvious of these really is twofold, Commercial & Personal.

• Advertising.
• Racing applications, Motorsport sponsorship display.
• Colour conformity within a fleet.
• Paint protection for later resale.

Commercial signs and graphics applications:

Advertising for a business. If a particular business uses delivery vehicles for instance, having the company’s logo, product bullet points, web site and local phone numbers. If done with some flair and style this can be an invaluable image for any business. An immeasurable ROI. Using a clear vinyl laminate over an advertising peace will help preserve the beauty of the wrap for longer periods of time, increasing the life and ROI of your wrap. Companies that choose to have vehicles or delivery vans a particular colour.

Paint protection. With a level of protection from the vinyl itself, when a vehicle reaches the end of its service how valuable will it be to remove a wrap to find virtually brand new paint job underneath. Resale values will be improved by the preservation of the paint job. These fleet service vehicles may have miles but cosmetically they are in excellent shape.

Car wrapping is also used for race wraps, the application livery designs in the worlds best Motorsport vehicles like WTCC cars and MotoGP. For race teams this gives you the freedom to add sponsor logos to your car and trailer.

Personal car customisation applications:

For those that love customisation, how fun will it be to give your car a total face lift? You can change the colour of your car from something simple to the extreme. Most people go for one colour option, but you can be creative, 2 colours can look great too.

Vinyl wrapping is also not just for cars, with many vans, trailers and boats also being wrapping, and motorbikes are becoming very popular to wrap. A motorbikes wrap is a very cheap way of modifying your bike, with such a small amount of surface area of bodywork on motorbikes, the material and labour costs are much lower than a car wrap.

• Cars
• Motorbikes
• Vans
• Trucks
• Cabs
• Trailers
• Boats
• Taxis
• Caravans
• Crash Helmets

If it’s metal and moves, you can wrap it.

Full wraps are simply that. The whole vehicles outer surfaces. Front to back, top to bottom. A full wrap for those using any sort of design give the graphic designers much greater freedom to create something jaw-dropping when finished. Full wraps as we discussed earlier protect the paint underneath.

Your does not have to be fully wrapped, as many partial car wraps are now popular, these include:

• Car Bonnet Wraps
• Car Roof Wraps
• Car Wing mirror wraps
• Car grill wraps

Using partial wraps to protect car panels from road debris in areas of the car where direct impact from same is a problem. Panels, bonnets, and front bumper areas that take the brunt of harsh road conditions or daily work use. Partial wraps are a good choice for budget minded projects. Or for those that might simply want to advertise on a back window or bonnet.

To get the best from your vinyl car wrap, always use an authorised or accredited vinyl installer for one of the major vinyl suppliers. We specifically recommend 3M® accredited installers, who work with the highest quality 3M® vinyl and are trained to the highest level of car wrapping. If you wish to have your wrap removed, we also recommend you use a professional to ensure that it is done with care and that your paint will be well protected throughout the process.

Depending on your specific application this is really very simple.

• Design
• Production and Printing
• Installation

Most shops will have an in-house graphics person that can help you design exactly what you’re looking for. If you can think it up, it can be translated onto vinyl.

Production of your wrap consists of printing pre-measured pieces in the proper order to achieve your design elements.

Installation by a professional installer. Here are the first steps in that process:

1.        Begin with a clean panel. Give one final wipe down.
2.        Measure the surface area to be covered. Cut your film accordingly.
3.        Position the film on the panel.
4.        Peel back the adhesive from the top down.
5.        Apply the film squarely and evenly.
6.        Ounce set continue applying all material to the surface
7.        If correctly positioned, squeegee at an angel and remove all trapped air.

Many vinyl wrappers now wrap the inside of the door wells, the area you see when the door is open. This usually comes as an optional extra but be sure to discuss this with your wrapper prior to the job taking place.

Usually after a wrap it is recommended that the car is not washed for up to 48 hours, just to allow all the edges to complete their bonding process, but this is also far less than after a car has been painted.

Click here to see our latest car wrap prices to find out what you you expect to pay for a quality wrap?

Graphic design will have some cost associated with it. This will truly depend on how elaborate you get. This also dictates the cost of printing, how elaborate you go and how much ink will be required. This process can run into the thousands of dollars, so choose wisely. It truly is up to your budget!

Finding a quality installer is key to a great wrap, and the longer a wrap lasts the less likely you are to have to replace it any time soon. You should get 5 to 6 good years out of your wrap, and you will with the right products. Most vinyl manufacturers & installers do offer a warranty on their products, usually around 5-8 years, depending on the colour and material type.

With industry growth, new installers are introducing themselves all the time so you have many to choose from.

We list the best on our Vinyl Wrap Directory but the easiest way to contact suppliers is to submit a wrap quote with 3Dom Wraps and let us distribute to suppliers near you!