Vehicle wrap help and advice please?

[David Hammond]

What film are you using?

It could be temperature related, I’ve had 1080 tear when finishing off a rear door wrap but it was freezing in the workshop.

When I say tear it was more of a shattering.

[Mark Newman]

It probably is temperature related, but this was two days ago, and the building we were in was warm.
This was using chromatic vinyl, a new brand I am reselling, the green however is pretty poor quality

[David Hammond]

Never heard of it…

There’s loads of alternative wrapping films to Avery Supreme and 3M’s 1080, which in my opinion are the two leaders of wrapping films.

There’s Arlon (never used myself) Mactac Tuning Film, but non compare to the two above.

[Mark Newman]

Unfortunately most people wanting any wraps won’t pay proper prices, so using the top vinyls is out of the question. 3m is ridiculous money, not sure on avery but it’s likely to be a similar story, I’ve found 90% of the work is for the lowest price they can find.
eBay vinyl is awful and I wouldn’t touch, chromatic is s brand that I am a reseller of and is very good for a mid range brand. The green however wasn’t chromatic I think my supllier substituted for eBay stuff.

[David Hammond]

Horses for courses.

We can wrap a roof with 3M or Avery in about an hour start to finish, but with Mactac it takes well over an hour, so works out just the same really.

Well worth the extra £8 we pay per meter in my opinion.

[Mark Newman]

Maybe I’m not getting the best prices on vinyl then, my suppliers are charging a lot more for avery or 3m

[David Hammond]

UKSG discount, well worth the money joining if you buy a lot from William Smiths.

Europoint sell Avery Supreme too.

It will depend on your sales rep, and I assume your volume, but no harm in asking.

[Martin Pearson]

If the people you are dealing with are buying on price alone then to be honest with you Mark you are dealing with the wrong people, building your business based on customers who buy only on price is not the way to build a solid business, been down that road myself, working 24/7 barely making enough to pay the bills was a position I was in & all I ended up doing was making myself extremely ill. Concentrate on the 10% that are prepared to pay what you ask.

Lower cost wrap vinyl is more difficult to fit & far more time consuming, Top brands may seem to be more expensive but when you take fitting time into account they are not as expensive as they at first seem especially if you are working on your own where the prepositional qualities of the top brands really help.

I would suspect Chromatic is along the same lines as KPMF, looking at the vinyl specs it would appear to be. Wouldn’t put money on it but I have a vague memory of KPMF being manufactured somewhere like Ireland many years ago.

[Simon Worrall]

Ditto David and Martin,
I would add that these cheap films are hard to remove at the end of their short lives.

[Cheryl Smith]

on the courses I’ve taken, the ambient temperature (including the vehicle and material) has to be at least 22 degrees before you do anything…

[Miroslav Penev]

Why don’t you try with some low series of 3M (50 polymeric or something ), for the roofs or other simple parts, and try to"feel" the difference…I can assure you that even budget vinyls can do great jobs too!

[Cheryl Smith]

When manufacturers talk about the life of a material, it is generally when it is applied vertically. This life can be greatly shortened when it comes to horizontal (such as roof and bonnet) so bear that in mind if you don’t want to be called in 6 months because of deterioration of cheap short term vinyls.

[Phill Fenton]

How much would you be looking to charge for a typical wrap on a small car (e.g Corsa) not including door shut returns Mark?

[Dan Smith]

I have to agree with people here, if your customers are complaining at the cost of wraps and that is making you by substandard materials then you need to rethink your business model.

I would highly recommend sticking to the ‘more expensive’ vinyls. The price difference isn’t much more and the cost goes to the customer… Not yourself. I have always found that customers that complain about the price usually complain about a lot more in the future

[PETER SUNG]

I totally agree, don’t sacrifice your time/effort because your customer is a tightass, if they want quality they need to pay for it. Another trap I used to fall in, was promise a job to be completed by a certain time, therefore giving myself added pressure, always allow an extra day if possible with wrapping as it is a time sapping process. (I find i work best when not under any time pressure.)