Full car vinyl wrap, How much is needed? Options

[Noahwhite2014]

For a full wrap how much material is needed to have no seams besides in the rain traps on the roof. Looking for info from someone who's had experience with wrapping out Cars before if possible. But others are welcome to chime in as well

[Box]

You can "square" off the trunk/liftback, doors, front fenders, bumpers, and hood. The roof and rear quarters will be the hard part as it's all one contiguous section. Still you'd try and "square" it off as well to figure out how much is needed. Problem being there is finding a piece big enough that won't be a fortune, or figuring out where to piece it together.

[yellowchinaman]

Depending on how you wrap Nd and generous your handling area is, id say 11 meters is enough to do the entire car.

[JoshuaM]

Yeah, I had been planning to wrap mine (bought the material and everything ) but changed my mind.

I calculated about 12m being very efficient. Accounting for a couple of mistakes the general recommendation is 20m. A friend who did his 165 in a cheap eBay wrap said he used the full 30m getting it right which I believe him after using some cheap wrap for my roof - VERY hard to get right.

[Box]

Better to have too much than not enough.

[Noahwhite2014]

Thanks guys! Haha i was planning on getting 3m 1080 sp10 (satin pearl white) vinyl to wrap it in. Ive also heard some good things about vvivid vinyl and was thinking about that option as well. Any one know or have experience with any other vinyl brands (oracal, avery, etc)?

Ive wrapped things in vinyl before but nothing larger than a couple feet in either direction. I was thinking that i would separate the rear quarters and roof into three sections. One quarter with the pillar on one side, same on the other side, and the roof as a separate piece and ill probably have it gloss black for a somewhat panoramic roof look.



What i was reading on multiple forums was that people were using a whole 25 yards of vinyl to wrap their sedans. Ill probably order around 5 x 50 ft of the stuff. Hopefully i can get a good price otherwise i may have to settle with just satin white vinyl. I don't want to go back to satin black (the old paint) because... well in hawaii we have lots of sun, and the interior gets insanely hot with satin black cars. if i can get a place where i won't have to park in the sun, or under a tree, i may opt for the cheaper satin black route.

[The_enD]

I recently saw two wrapped Celicas on the FB pages, one was matte white, the other blue.

[yellowchinaman]

20M!!! That would kiss half your margins goodbye if you where a business with 3M vinyl.
But then again if its DIY its not that bad but for a little bit more you're better off paying an expert to do the job. Save you the cursing and nothing looks worse then a badly wrapped car.

This post has been edited by yellowchinaman: Dec 4, 2014 - 7:43 AM

[cheela]

this guy wrapped his 1st gen and it honestly looks great.
http://s1303.photobucket.com/user/GorillaM...rt=2&page=1

[Box]

They make pearlescent vinyls now? Interesting... I bet they probably make some chameleon ones as well then, would definitely be cheaper than paint in those cases and properly wrapped looks just like paint... Anyhow, I'd consider taking it to a professional at least for the roof and rear quarter section. Could do all the easier bits yourself to save some money.

[cheela]

I agree. on a 6gc, you could probably do the hood, fender, hatch/trunk, and rear bumper yourself. the front bumper and ALOT of weird curves so I wouldn't attempt that myself.

[Noahwhite2014]

Probably a good idea. I'll go forward with trying out wrapping the good first. If it comes out okay I'll move on to fenders and doors, then the hatch. The front bumper may be hard so I'll probably take that and the rear quarters and get a quote from an authorized 3m installer. sadly there's only one on my island. But if his price is too high ill go to one of the family owned shops that I've been keeping my eye on. They do wraps, dips, paint jobs, body work, auto glass work, and the quality coming out of there is great. Really close to where i work So I see updates on the progress daily.

And yeah 3m and a bunch of other vinyl company's have metallic vinyls too so there is many finishes that are available that mimic paint jobs very well

[Noahwhite2014]

So for anyone else wondering about this now or in the future who happen to find this thread: The absolute best vinyl for beginners at wrapping (at this moment) is vvivid. I picked up samples from a local place that keeps avery, 3m, and vvivid. I used 3m previously but noticed of course the streaking issue with a lot of their vinyls but it could be resolved with heat. Avery was a bit better but i couldn't figure out how to get that stuff for a reasonable price. Then i tried out vvivid... it was a bit thicker but very easy to reposition. best of all: No streaking! Streaks are what makes an amateur vinyl wrap look.. well, amateur. (of course bubbles, 'fingers', and seams will do the same as well)

The bubbles were non existent on such a small piece but even if there was bubbles, its easy to just lift and pull it a bit. i will be ordering directly through their website once i figure out how to order space pearl since there is no option for it at the moment unless ordered on amazon. Through their website, its about $320 for 50ft (about 16m i believe) so it should be more than enough for a big mistake or two. Though the price is without shipping. Ill have to contact them for a shipping quote and also on how to order space pearl. I may ask them if they would make a black pearl vinyl in the future as well in a semi gloss finish.

[Box]

I had gotten a sample pack of 3M's 1080? or whatever their most expensive line is called and noticed it was fairly thin, but also was really easy to use without much heat. The only thing I'd have been concerned with is using a white vinyl on a car that wasn't white as it'd seem it'd just bleed through.

[Noahwhite2014]

I had gotten a sample pack of 3M's 1080? or whatever their most expensive line is called and noticed it was fairly thin, but also was really easy to use without much heat. The only thing I'd have been concerned with is using a white vinyl on a car that wasn't white as it'd seem it'd just bleed through.

Yeah my Celica is gloss black, So i was also worried about that, But the Vvivid is thick enough where even when stretched it won't bleed through at all. And also theres multiple layers of coloring with the space pearl due to the specialty finish.

As for the 3m, i think because of its thickness, thats why streaks are apparent when you lift it up to reposition, it stretches out in that spot so the color changes to a lighter hue.

[Box]

Vvivid is what my brother used for his interior, I knew there was some company but couldn't think of it. It was nice and thick, almost felt like plastic but it was a carbon fiber wrap. I was pretty impressed with the quality of it.

[Noahwhite2014]

So after a few emails back and forth between vvivid vinyl (they take a while to respond) i found out that i can't order the space pearl at 318.99 because the cost of production and the demand is so high. I also haven't been able to get a shipping quote or a quote on how much the space pearl will be, so if it takes too long for that i may end up getting the XPO satin white which is micro finished on the surface to minimize orange peel on gloss surfaces, and make cleaning easier on satin/matte surfaces.

Just a quick question as well, has anyone on the forum had experience with metallizer and pearlizer plastidip? I don't really like the finish of plastidip in my opinion, but if the pearlizer lays down smooth, i may end up trying to spray pearlizer and metalizer onto a test piece of vinyl to see how that works out.

I haven't been able to find stuff on the internet about that.