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Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:14 pm
by dave
We are between a Maaco store and a body shop. Neither one will do our fiberglass.

The paint is the cheap part. Downside is too many re-paints add weight and causes cracks.

Vinyl is much better than duct tape. The Maaco guys are also super-good at applying vinyl...

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 3:26 pm
by breton
I had my car fully body wrapped in vinyl with a very fancy logo design. The installation process too a very long time as it needed cutting and fitting (done by a professional who did an amazing job but took all day.) Have no idea how much it cost, but it looked nice. One comment was that most professional teams don't use vinyl because of the wind resistance; told him it was not a problem with an SRF!

The second part is how long it lasts; managed to keep it on for a season, but obviously with printed vinyl it would have been impossible to keep it in good shape and matched to the remaining vinyl (this is a "contact" sport, after all...)

Vinyl for dress-up is fine and a lot less expensive than multi-tone paint jobs, especially if you want flames shooting out of your car (Rod). When I went to black and white I bought two rolls of vinyl and color-matched the paint to the vinyl so I could use if for touch-up, though after the 2008 June Sprints it was effectively replacing a substantial amount of the paint on the sides of the car (definitely a "full contact" weekend!) :-)

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:53 pm
by Chris Taylor
A good wrapper won't need a template of the car to get it done, but it will cost you significantly more as it's a 100%, completely custom job. I don't do printed vinyl wraps, but I have lots of experience with single color cut vinyl and signs... I would DREAD wrapping an SRF. Cost around here for a wrap and install is around $8/sq ft for a trailer/truck, I'd imagine an SRF would be $10-15 but you wouldn't be able to have the same place do it as cheap the second time!

As far as damage, if they save the file, they should be able to match up whatever section you need to redo very easily. With my experience in paint and sign vinyl, it would be easier to match up a vinyl wrap than a paint job with metal flake, candy or any multi-stage paint jobs. If you stick with solid colors though, painting is easy to fix (especially if you go multi-tone and choose your damage areas to change colors in.

The scheme for my cars has metal flake around the cockpit and that's it. Black/solid colors on all the fenders/sides so we just have to mask off the blue metal flake when doing repairs and can paint right up to that seam.

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:35 pm
by steve kramer
anyone had more experience with wraps since the last post from 3 years ago?

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 9:35 pm
by JoshO
I would consider plastidip. It's not very durable, buts it's pretty cheap and looks pretty good. You can get some pretty crazy metallic looks with it. I can cover my entire car for around $300. Then just peel it off when you want something else. Even if you do that once a year it's the cheapest option there is other than hand spray cans.

Dipyourcar.com

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 8:56 am
by Racer X
I plan to have my car partially wrapped (baseline white paint job) in the next month and will try to post my experiences.

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:00 pm
by EfrenO
My car is wrapped, the vinyl is susceptible to the heat around the motor but is a lot easier to fix than paint when needed.

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:15 pm
by Martinracing98
JoshO wrote:I can cover my entire car for around $300


I just use basic single stage. I think it is lacquer. It is less than $300 in material. I think prep for both is going to be equal. I think the one certain would be that it is easier to get off so you do not build up layers. Does anyone know if it is easier to apply than normal paint?

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:17 pm
by JBPDXOR
I just reviewed a number of the videos from Dipyourcar.com.
The process looks easy but I wonder about being able to repair a larger section than they presented in a video ( repaired a wheel with small tear of about 1"). Another question is being able to vinyl over the finish or how to add a second color accent easily.
Approximate cost appears to be a basic cost in the $500.00 range and maybe a little less our size car.

Re: Vinyl wrap or paint

PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 9:59 pm
by Martinracing98
JBPDXOR wrote:Another question is being able to vinyl over the finish or how to add a second color accent easily.


I am curious about this also. I am going to do a test with two rattle cans of the stuff hopefully this week