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Wondering if anyone here has ever wrapped their car? I'm looking at possibly wrapping my '71 Cutlass. My paint is faded and there is a few spots on the body I'll need to fix. The body shops that I've spoken with want to strip the car down to metal and then paint (which I understand as there name will be attached to the paint job). However, my Cutlass is a driver and I don't want to put that money into the car at this time. The quote I was given to wrap my car is 60% cheaper then to do a complete body & paint job.
From what I have seen wraps are only as good as what they are going over. What you are wrapping should be as smooth and clean with no rust. They only thing I dont know is how long they last.
Will the car sit outside year round or be in a garage? The wrap will degrade faster if exposed to constant UV light from the sun. Most say ~ 5 years or so if the car is always outside. I had my wagon done with a black brushed metal metalic wrap in the areas the woodgrain would have been. As said, the body still needs to be pretty straight and smooth for the wrap to look good. The plus side is that as long as you can get a decent looking surface, you would not need to strip it to bare metal and you can probably prep it yorself in your driveway. The wrap on my car cost $1600 a few years ago. Roughly half was for the material and the other half was labor.
I had the windows in my 96 98 tinted by a shop that also does vinyl wraps. Momma and I even paid them to tint a window in our home. I've considered taking my 96 98 in to get a quote for a wrap. I wouldn't be willing to strip a panel to bare metal, but undoubtedly the body would have to be prepped before the wrap was applied.
Don't forget about door jambs and portion of the door where the latch is etc... Many wrap jobs don't include the door jamb, so it looks goofy when you open the door and see a different color, unless the car is currently black with a black interior. In that case the black jamb would look fine.
Those areas can be wrapped, but it adds to the cost.
I would strongly consider getting my car wrapped if/when the day for a full "repaint" came around. Stored in a garage, it would last a long time.
Will the car sit outside year round or be in a garage? The wrap will degrade faster if exposed to constant UV light from the sun. Most say ~ 5 years or so if the car is always outside. I had my wagon done with a black brushed metal metalic wrap in the areas the woodgrain would have been. As said, the body still needs to be pretty straight and smooth for the wrap to look good. The plus side is that as long as you can get a decent looking surface, you would not need to strip it to bare metal and you can probably prep it yorself in your driveway. The wrap on my car cost $1600 a few years ago. Roughly half was for the material and the other half was labor.
That looks sharp. Yes, the car is always stored in a garage. Thanks for the help.
Don't forget about door jambs and portion of the door where the latch is etc... Many wrap jobs don't include the door jamb, so it looks goofy when you open the door and see a different color, unless the car is currently black with a black interior. In that case the black jamb would look fine.
Those areas can be wrapped, but it adds to the cost.
I would strongly consider getting my car wrapped if/when the day for a full "repaint" came around. Stored in a garage, it would last a long time.
Thanks. I'm going to take the car over to the shop and I'll make sure I mention that.
On a humorous note, when I was in school I used to see this van where the kid had covered the whole exterior with carpet. I don't even think it was indoor/outdoor carpet. No doubt to deal with a badly rusted body on a student's budget. I wonder how much more his van weighted at the end of a NY state winter. Probably didn't smell too pleasant.
Good vid, nice car, cool lady, skilled “wrapper.” When we’ve had cars wrapped at the shop, usually fleet cars with “ad” wrap after a collision, the “wrappers” often use a propane torch instead of a heat gun, still amazes me. Wrap is a viable alternative to paint but as mentioned above, limited UV resistance=limited life span and can be a little rough around the edges. Seams are usually invisible at a glance, one would have to really look for them up close. Like shiny paint, flaws of the substrate (paint & body) tend to be magnified instead of hidden so it needs to be good, unless you go camo!
I had my 68 chevelle wrapped back in 2020, 3m 2080 Gloss Black.
I bought a full roll of material- $700 (2020 price, no idea what it is today) and still had about 20 ft left over when done, could have saved some buying only what i needed
My friend works at a shop that does these, he is their tint guy, but helps iwth the wraps so it was straight forward for him. took him 16 hours (2 solid 8 hour days) to complete not counting the time i spent removing & reinstalling bumpers and time. He charged $1k, so I was all in at $1700. I would expect a regular shop to have been $2500-$3k with them doing the full disassembly reassembly. with Jambs and stuff, another $500 or so.
I did very little prep over a rough body beyond just a deep cleaning... I scuffed and sanded down & primed the few solid but rusty areas, then wrapped right over them. There was a couple actual rust holes in the passenger lower fender & rear quarter, i painted them black, and we trimmed the wrap around them. There were old trim holes going down the car on both sides, wrapped right over them. no issues.
Overall it turned out fantastic considering what it went over and what our level of prep was. After 3-1/2 years "most" people don't even realize its a wrap. Its very presentable from 5ft. You get closer and you can see some of the gunk through the wrap, but again, consider the patina look i started with.
Yes there is a seam at the c-pillar. it is not noticeable unless you are specifically looking for it.
Yes the door jambs and trunk jam are not done, but I didn't care as this is meant to be temporary. Would have been no big deal for my friend to do those as well, but likely would have been a few more hours and $$.
The wrap has a 10 year warrantee (meaning it should be able to be removed safely up to that time), but I will probably take it off next winter (4-1/2 years) or the following summer (5 years) and start to prep for real paint... however my financial situation hasn't improved a lot, i may do body work on the car, get it in sealer, wet sand it- then have another wrap put on... kick the high cost of real paint down the road another 4-5 years, we'll see.
Patina look Before....
I had previously wet sanded and polished the car (except for the hood) down to 1500. In person I can tell the difference between the hood that was NOT wet sanded and the rest of the car.
Doing this again, i would have definitely wet sanded the hood prior to wrapping.
You can see the trim holes going down the side of the car (old dealer installed ugly steel backed rubber)
My Friend started with the roof, c-pillar seam edges would face upward and not be visible. If they faced down you likely would see the cut edge.
Super closeup shot showing the seam. The white stuff is the exposed adhesive and actually went away after a few washes, but thats why we had the side overlap the top instead of vice versa.
And the final product.
As i said, its covering up a lot of ugly, and a wrap is only going to look as nice as whats under it- HOWEVER, my car was pretty damn ugly with a lot of scabs and scars that would require real work and $$ to solve...
So after 3-1/2 years with it on, am i still happy, hell yeah i am
Will this damage the paint if you want to remove it. and how easy is it to remove please.
Would love to cover the gold paint on my 79 HO
If the paint is in decent shape, and you follow the instructions to remove the wrap, then it should not cause any damage. however if the paint is damaged or peeling in anyway, then I would not count on it to come off undamaged.
My car this wasn't a concern of course...
To remove it, you have to heat it up a section at a time using a heat gun or a propane torch to get the adhesive to release and you peel it up off, Once its off, you have to clean the surface off with an adhesive remover to get rid of any remnants of the adhesive.
This sounds simple, but it is a giant sticker, so it can be time consuming. The edges are held down with an adhesion promotor so it can be hard to get started taking it off.
If you use cheaper wrap materials, the removal can be harder, so I would recommend using one of the well known brand names, and not el-cheapo products.
Curious if you ever got a detailed quote, and if so did you move forward and get the car wrapped?
Haven’t gotten it wrapped. I was quoted $3500 CAD for med level vinyl and $4500 for a top of the line quality vinyl. Still not 100% sure what I’m going to do.
I was quoted $10k plus CAD to strip the car down to metal, body and paint. That doesn’t include anything they find while doing body work.
