Thoughts on Wrapping a Car instead of painting it

[tyoneal]

Hello:

I am planning for the outside colors and graphics of the Grand Sport Corvette I'm building and I wanted to bounce some questions/ideas off you all to get your thoughts on this.

Many of you have seen it already, but I will post one of the rendering pictures of the car so for those who haven't it hopefully will give you something to visualize.

Regarding coloring my car, by Painting it, wrapping it or both, since I am going to drive this car (with any luck at all) quite a bit, on and off the road and area tracks, I'm thinking of going ahead and wrapping the car. Here are the reasons why: (Pro's)

1) Faster

2) Less Expensive (2-3k)

3) Durable

4) Easy to repair if you bugger up on single piece.

5) Easier to change designs/colors if you wanted to.

6) Don't have to worry about matching paint and fixing paint

7) Good enough for Race Cars (Which most of our Cars are types of Race cars, unless the owner just doesn't drive them how they are built to be driven) become Good enough for these Cars.

8) From the people who have used them for quite a while, they mention that "IF you do indeed have a nice paint job on your car, a wrap will do wonders for keeping the shine and finish of the paint underneath in good shape".

Now for the Con's I have thought about so far.

1) Doesn't look as nice as a painted car? (From what I'm told the finish on a wrap if done correctly looks great up to about 3-5 feet away, then you can tell it is not paint.)

2) Hurts the value of the car? (Maybe, if you didn't take the time to put a $15k Paint job on it.) I don't know about this one.

3) Feel free to add anything else you can think of.

I hope some of you will consider taking the time to give this some thought. As a Auto-X, Pro-Touring, Track/Street car, I just haven't seen this question really come up before.

Thanks in advance,

Sincerely,

Ty O'Neal

I'm going to try and get some additional information on some other sites. whatever comes up that is interesting, I'll bring over here for you all to consider.

Thanks again.

[66SuperSport]

Personally, I like some of the new wraps that people are doing. Not a bad idea for durability and ease of repair either. From a resale standpoint, I do not think that this would be helpful. If resale and durability are your goals paining the car blue, then doing all of the orange and graphics in a wrap would be a great compromise. The orange wrap material would protect the front and lower rockers and all of the graphics would be easily removed if needed. If you ever want to sell the car just remove all of the material and you have a nice blue Corvette.

[John510]

A wrapped car will look good until you open the door, hood, or trunk. Then it will look like caca since none of your jambs will be done.

[Flash68]

I really like the wraps personally. If they're good enough for Lambos and Porsches (I've seen them and they look damn good when done right by a pro) then why not on our cars? I'm strongly considering it in the near to mid term as well.

Go for it. That rendering is killer.

[Sieg]

I have a 15" cube van, 1 ton van, and 16' enclosed trailer that are all wrapped. After 6+ years (parked outside with no cover in Oregon) I'd have to say without a doubt it holds up on par with paint. I'm assuming replacement will be much less also. Originally the cost for all 3 units was $7K.

Honda did their F1 cars in a vinyl wrap one year. The vinyl definitely held up better than their engines. :D

[70rs]

Put a decent paint job on it (driver quality) or wrap it. If it comes down to resale latr you could always freshen it up then. I wouldn't do just a partial wrap, you will still see it in the pain5 after you remove it. (if it's left on for any long period).

[James OLC]

Wrapping works fine and most people can't tell a good quality wrap from paint from a foot away. Mothers also has a cleaning compound that works really well on wraps - at the Goodguys show in Ft. Worth they actually polished the wrap when they did the OLC. After being wrapped for a year there was absolutely no difference in the paint if you looked where it was and wasn't wrapped - except that the paint had some swirl marks from cleaning where it wasn't wrapped.

[TheJDMan]

So when you remove the wrap material it does not leave any glue residue on the paint? I see decals on trailers and trucks that have been removed and the ghost image of the decal is still clearly visible. Is a vinyl decal different from a wrap material?

[tyoneal]

Personally, I like some of the new wraps that people are doing. Not a bad idea for durability and ease of repair either. From a resale standpoint, I do not think that this would be helpful. If resale and durability are your goals paining the car blue, then doing all of the orange and graphics in a wrap would be a great compromise. The orange wrap material would protect the front and lower rockers and all of the graphics would be easily removed if needed. If you ever want to sell the car just remove all of the material and you have a nice blue Corvette.
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66SuperSport:

Thanks for the input. After visiting with some of the suppliers locally, I think a good high quality wrap would be really nice. Some of the lessor quality wraps I don't think should be used.

I wondering "IF" I were to ever sell the car in the future if having it wrapped would really make any difference in the value. The car is made to be driven, and I would think that any future buyer wouldn't necessarily see this as a bad thing as it would also allow them to make any kind of change they wanted for very little money to, "Make it theirs".

I am definitely going to go with one if for no other reason I have never tried one, and if it turns out to be a crap idea at least people wouldn't make the same mistake as I.

Thanks again for posting, will see if this works out well or not. Keep you fingers crossed.

Thanks,

Ty

[tyoneal]

A wrapped car will look good until you open the door, hood, or trunk. Then it will look like caca since none of your jambs will be done.
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John:

Interesting point. I'll give this some thought and see if I can come up with a way of de-emphasizing this issue.

I appreciate you bringing this up, I have not even thought of this.

Thanks,

Ty O'Neal

[tyoneal]

I really like the wraps personally. If they're good enough for Lambos and Porsches (I've seen them and they look damn good when done right by a pro) then why not on our cars? I'm strongly considering it in the near to mid term as well.

Go for it. That rendering is killer.
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Flash68:

Thanks for the input.

After I get mine done, I'll try and post some really good pictures of the quality of the wrap. Hopefully, this will give some people an idea how they can look. I'm sure after several years of abuse it will be easy to see what kind of bang for the buck it is.

I do agree with you regarding, (I've seen them and they look damn good when done right by a pro) then why not on our cars?

There are more and more items finding there way onto our cars as pricing comes down, and new products become adaptive to them. It is an exiting time to be playing with cars.

Thanks for the compliments on the rendering. I think I will be very pleased with the outcome. I feel very strongly that it will work with the lines of the car, and the time period.

Take care,

Ty O'Neal

BTW: I'm working with Ben now on a Composite of the renderings. I'll get these posted under the design thread in the next day as soon as I can.

[tyoneal]

I have a 15" cube van, 1 ton van, and 16' enclosed trailer that are all wrapped. After 6+ years (parked outside with no cover in Oregon) I'd have to say without a doubt it holds up on par with paint. I'm assuming replacement will be much less also. Originally the cost for all 3 units was $7K.

Honda did their F1 cars in a vinyl wrap one year. The vinyl definitely held up better than their engines. :D
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Wow, that is really encouraging.

Did you use a private business or a Franchise to do them for you? If a chain, who did you use?

How long were they ready before you had them on your vehicles?

How did they measure for you trucks?

How do your hoods and door jams look?

6+ years is plenty of time to look really nice. The more I read like this the better it sounds.

That is funny about Honda. Too bad it's true, they used to have some killer F1 cars.

Ty

[tyoneal]

Put a decent paint job on it (driver quality) or wrap it. If it comes down to resale latr you could always freshen it up then. I wouldn't do just a partial wrap, you will still see it in the pain5 after you remove it. (if it's left on for any long period).
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70rs:

I agree with your sentiments.

I intend to have the body prepped especially for the wrap. I think this will do a lot for the reliability of the covering, and probably allow the colors to be seen in their intended tones and brightness.

I'm thinking there won't be paint as much as surface prep material that will have some neutral pigment to to. As I write this, I just don't know, I should have probably done some research before I posted this.

I'll see what I can find.

Thanks,

Ty

[tyoneal]

Wrapping works fine and most people can't tell a good quality wrap from paint from a foot away. Mothers also has a cleaning compound that works really well on wraps - at the Goodguys show in Ft. Worth they actually polished the wrap when they did the OLC. After being wrapped for a year there was absolutely no difference in the paint if you looked where it was and wasn't wrapped - except that the paint had some swirl marks from cleaning where it wasn't wrapped.
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James:

That is terrific information, Thanks. I know you use your car a lot, how has the wrap held up as compared to a decent paint job one might put on their car? (After the course of years, and rocks, dirt, grime, solvents etc?)

Thanks a million for the education. Is the Mother's product a specific cleaning compound for wraps, or a polish that works dirt etc. off your car?

Take care,

Ty

[awr68]

I'm sure you know this but you have to have the body preped as if you were going to paint it before the wrap...so there's little to no money savings on body work.

I'm on the fence if I would wrap a car or not. I think if I was to do one I would take many pics of the car before and during the wrap to help show a potential buyer that I wasn't hiding anything, but just chose a differant finish over paint.

There is a time and place for everything.....:thumbsup:

[elitecustombody]

Tony, when wrapping the car, it has to be washed and clean, otherwise no other prep work needed besides removing trim,door handles,mirrors,lights,bumpers,e.t.c. and the installing everything back when all wrapping is finished.

[skatinjay27]

Tony, when wrapping the car, it has to be washed and clean, otherwise no other prep work needed besides removing trim,door handles,mirrors,lights,bumpers,e.t.c. and the installing everything back when all wrapping is finished.I think anthony was refering to a full resto car that been taken down to bare metal.

[awr68]

I think anthony was refering to a full resto car that been taken down to bare metal.

Exactly! :yes:
I meant any welding or dents need addressed first...the wrap will show anything and everything. Might get by with sand scratches on the body work...but the car will need body worked/prepped for a standard paint job. :thumbsup: