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Problems with commercial reflective vinyl?
We have had a problem with Grafityp commercial grade reflective vinyl we used it on our own van and it has degraded in just 3-4 weeks and is now transparent in places and looks awful. When I contacted them and sent photos they have offered to replace the vinyl but cannot guarantee this issue would not arise again
My problem is it was layered onto of other vinyl of different makes including other reflective vinyl and they are refusing to replace or compensate for this am I wrong for asking them to replace or compensate for the other vinyl?
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14 Replies
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are all the letters the same or just the odd one. ?
really don’t think this thread should run
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All the letters done in the vinyl from them is the same and degrading by the day.
I just wanted the opinions of other sign makers.
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Looks like what happened to many Avery users about 7 years ago.
Avery only gave you a materials compensation (if that) and the other vinyls damaged and your labor to remove/replace was not covered.
I see nothing wrong with posting this, it may help someone who thought they were the only one experiencing a failure.
Love….Jill -
It’s clearly a fault with the material & annoying that Grafityp won’t compensate you for your time or damage to other substrates when it’s clear the product has failed, but I believe this is standard warranty practice for any manufacturer. Shameful really.
I’d get a full refund, never darken their doorstep again & use Nikkalite from victory design in future.
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my opinion – to be honest its hard to tell from the photo, it looks dirty as much as anything but obviously thats not the issue were talking about, tell us more was it wet or dry applied? on site or in a unit? was the air/body temp within the manufacturers spec? are they flat or curved panels or a mixture of? these things shouldnt matter much in practice but will be important to detail if you want someone to advise on your problem, its possibly a material fault although unlikely and hard to prove unless others come on here with similar issues you might be unable to get a better offer than replaced material without some in depth research – annoying I know, have you looked on other forums for similar threads?
have you still got some material from the same batch to send back for analysis?
Graphityp are a reputable company with few complaints on here so jumping ship to another supplier only works untill you run into another problem, better to get this understood and sorted.
for my own part ive applied similar material over other without issue that in itself shouldnt be a problem
Hope you get it sorted satisfactorily
Good luck _ John 😀
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To answer your question and to the best of my knowledge…
"ALL vinyl manufacturers" will only compensate you the loss of their media,
refunding cost or replacing it.
The only one i know off to compensate loss of earnings, labour etc is 3M.
but even for that to happen the case must be extreme & pretty much black & white, authorised media applicators, followed by the book etc etc…can i ask how it was fitted, wet or dry?
did you have any problems fitting it?
was it fitted inside or outside?
what type of squeegee did you use, nylon or felt?how many letters were effected and was this the worst?
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The pic is of the van clean not dirty this was taken before christmas it has now degraded a lot more and is getting worse by the day.
The vinyl was fitted dry and inside with a nylon squeegee its all on flat panels and all the vinyl supplied by them has gone the same all the other vinyl is good but will have to be removed to replace the faulty vinyl.
I have only asked them to replace the vinyl damaged not for any labor to remove and replace I thought this was fair we are looking at purchasing a new roland xr640 it will not be from Grafityp now if this is the customer service they provide.
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Has your customer used chemicals with power wash??
This is most common cause of this, we are very careful with commercial reflective we always fitter with underlayer of standard vinyl, just in case
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Lee until we can get a sample of the reflective you have there to test against other rolls we have in stock then how can we guarantee the same will not happen again, if it is a bad batch we need to compare first of all before we can replace.
I understand you are sending a sample piece back to us now, when we receive it then we will test it against a sample from every other roll we have in stock.
Regards
Nigel -
Robert really surprised your going with this it will serve no purpose.
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quote Gwaredd Steele:It’s clearly a fault with the material & annoying that Grafityp won’t compensate you for your time or damage to other substrates when it’s clear the product has failed, but I believe this is standard warranty practice for any manufacturer. Shameful really.
I’d get a full refund, never darken their doorstep again & use Nikkalite from victory design in future.
Gwaredd as stated by Lee this reflective is sitting on other vinyls from different manufacturers, without testing this vinyl on its own how can you be so certain it is faulty???
At least give us the time to test samples before donning the black cap!
Regards
Nigel -
quote Chris Wool:Robert really surprised your going with this it will serve no purpose.
Contrary to what some may believe mate, UKSB does not just remove a post unless it breaks board rules.
The site would loose its credibility overnight if we pulled every thread we felt like.
However, These type of posts "are" frowned upon unless every effort possible has been made by the sign maker to resolve with a supplier, and this is a last resort type scenario.However, reading between the lines of the posts made so far, I personally DO NOT think Grafityp have been given adequate time to deal with this matter, nor do i think a picture of a single letter is by any means enough to publicly fault any vinyl.
As i only have the one letter at the moment ill give my honest opinion based purely on the visual.
I think its fair to assume this must be one of the worst of the bunch for it to be used as an example.i have attached the picture rotated and duplicated so you see the original on
the left. on the right ive marked yellow lines to indicate what i am referring too.Engineering grade reflective vinyl has a reputation for being a difficult and very temperamental vinyl to apply, especially in cold weather.
This applies to all brands i have tried going back to when it first came onto the market.
For the record, I do use some vinyl’s from Grafityp, but i haven’t ever used the Engineering grade reflective in question.Engineering grade reflective vinyl is made of microscopic glass beads beneath a top skin of clear or transparent colour tint vinyl. (sorry this is a vague description)
If you look at "Section A" in both pictures.
You will see faint but definite straight line marks.
My opinion is that these are "snap back" lines caused when a letter is tugged sharply back to re-apply. because its tugged the face film of the vinyl has very slightly stretched and separated the reflective rear.
if this was a regular vinyl you wouldnt see it other than a faint line on the face, but because this has a clear face, you see the fracture line beneath the surface.
Of course i could be proven wrong, but i have never saw or heard of media fails in straight lines on a flat panel."Section C"
This again looks like the result of a snap back. but this time de-laminating a patch of the adhesive/reflective from the face film. this can happen on warm days, or very cold. "for some reason" cold metal can make the initial tack high and either shatters the letter by being brittle or leaves the adhesive/reflective rear on the vehicle but the vinyl face film comes away.
when laid back down it does tack into place but doesn’t align properly. which it "sort of looks like" in the picture to me."Section B"
again we are seeing straight lines. but this time one area looks whiter than the other. this is why i asked you Lee what type of squeegee had been used. hard lines like this indicate a nylon squeegee, which is good.
but inconsistent pressure, or perhaps the vehicle body was too cold for proper adhesion.
the middle line of the B section looks to me more like a tear in the letter.
again, can be caused by brittle vinyl being snapped back, or perhaps "the darker area" indicates that it may not have had same pressure. then as days past, the vinyl face has different surface tension and begins shrinking and causes the crack to form itself.Please note Lee:
All i have said above is purely based on this one picture of one letter provided, for which you have asked our opinion mate.
The flip side of this is, I haven’t saw it fitted, i haven’t saw the failed letters in the flesh. i know nothing other than what i see and i am "guessing" purely based on experience.Why have i not blamed the media?
If the media was failing i would expect signs of shrinkage, de-laminating all around the edges of the letter, corners curling back and more. but "from the picture" all the activity appears to be behind the face film and the face film intact.could the reflective be failing due to being put onto another vinyl, i dont think so. because i recon if anything the vinyl below it would promote adhesion.
Had it been in recessed areas then i think yes this could come into play as a possible reason for the fail. however, what’s to say that there wasn’t a cleaning fluid present on the surface of the base vinyl?
This creating an adverse reaction to the adhesive of the reflective, anything is possible, but those straight lines throw doubt again.You never know, once they get the vinyl returned for testing, Grafityp might come back to you and confirm its a faulty roll/batch. But you must at least give them the chance first.
hope this helps you some Lee…
regardless, i am sure Nigel/Grafityp will do their best to resolve this for you as quickly as they can..
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Thanks for your opinion Rob
Hannah at grafityp has agreed that the materials was faulty and offered to replace the material they have supplied us, we have used engineering grade reflective from grafityp before they used to sell LG lite which we used a lot of on a fleet of van for a large client and over the last 12 years have not had any problems with the material or service from Grafityp. We also applied two other makes of engineering grade reflective to the same van all of which is fine with no problems.
It seems to me that the vinyl is going transparent as you can now see the base vinyl colour through the white and as I have stated it is getting worse by the day please see more photos.
I was asking for opinions on if they should cover the cost of the base vinyl and not just the white they supplied. If we as a company supplied a product that then damaged a clients property we would be responsible to repair the damage I was asking them to cover the cost of material damaged not labor to remove and replace which I thought was fair.
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what do their terms & conditions say?? Ones I have read from different suppliers say they will replace any material they supply that is faulty so Graphityp are no different from any other supplier, mind you having said that most would want a sample for testing BEFORE agreeing to give you anything back.
I’m actually in agreement with Chris in that this sort of post should not be made before any supplier has had a chance to look at the problem & try to sort it out.
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