Question On Vinyl Wrapping

[JMF]

Not bought a Charger yet but it's getting difficult to find one in the colour I want(Black), so thinking of getting one in another colour and maybe vinyl wrapping it until I can afford to paint it, just wondering is there any way round the engine bay ? Eg if I vinyl wrapped a yellow car black and the engine bay will be yellow would it mean taking the engine out to do the engine bay black too ? Thanks.

[Troy]

It's a never ending struggle - I just buy more cars.

However... I also toy with this idea fairly often so I've done a fair bit of poking around. Here are some of my observations:
1. A good quality vinyl wrap installed by a professional shop gets really close to costing about what a "budget" paint job will run.

• Bear in mind I'm only talking about the outside so your problem of mismatched jambs and engine bay remains.
• You can paint the engine bay but I doubt the wrap will hold up to the heat. You could do a "quickie" single stage job in there since you won't have the hood up all that often.
• Don't open the hood in public. I personally hate trying to take pictures of cars at shows with the doors and hoods wide open. Therefore I almost never open mine.
• Recently, well known show car came up for sale and I was reading up on all the specifics. Since its retirement it had been wrapped in a stunning color but with the hood open you could see the original factory paint. No one seemed to care.

2. Vinyl isn't forever. Depending on the quality I've heard estimate of 2, maybe 3, years max. If you can't get a paint job by then are you willing to reapply the wrap?
3. It allows you to try different colors as well as glossy/matte. Even really cool patterns if you desire.
4. I'd honestly consider applying at least a clear wrap on the front end even after paint. I drive a LOT and my cars all have sandblasted/chipped paint on the nose. Estimates for the Scat Pack are around $1,000 so I haven't quite bit the bullet. I'll have to do it after I have the front end painted now. Should have saved money and done it when it was new.
5. This stuff won't hide bad paint and/or body work. You need a good surface. That doesn't mean you can't just find some sort of cheap paint to get the car smooth and one color before wrapping. If you do that, paint the jambs and engine bay.

I have this aversion to doing things twice AND a bad habit of the "while I'm in here" syndrome so I'm not sure I will ever really embrace the wrap. I have an old 4x4 that's a perfect candidate though (needs minor paint repair and a little body work but is already in the color I want). On the other hand, it's cheaper to just Rhinoline or Plastidip that thing...

Troy

[alfaitalia]

Maybe it's a UK thing....but I've never seen a wrap done so cheaply that it did not include all the inner surfaces (engine bay excluded)...so the wrap included door jams, trunk channels and exposed painted interior trunk areas...even inside the filter flap on modern cars. Would look terrible to open the doors on a wrapped car and see a completely different colour in the jams (we say "shuts" rather than jams btw!). It also should last a lot longer than three years if garaged.

As a side note a friend of mine has three Lamborghinis (it's a tough life he has!)....when he picked up his recent Aventador, a bright yellow one it went straight the the graphics shop to be wrapped...in bright yellow. It's just to protect it from stone chips! Don't know how much it was but it's a superb job...I did not notice until he said.

[Troy]

So let me reiterate... I drive a LOT. Seriously. Not like once a month cruise-ins and a country drive once a summer. My cars are out several times per week (whenever they work) from about February through November. As a matter of fact, I was out driving old cars on December 5th this year. A few years ago I put approximately 29k miles between 3 classic cars in a single year (not counting the 25k+ I put on my daily drivers). I put 1,700 miles on my yellow 1970 Challenger in the first 8 days I had it. That wrap isn't going to hold up for a decade - but neither will paint. If your car sits in the garage for all but 3 sunny days a year you may have better results.

As for the engine bay, a quick Google search shows mostly engine covers and battery boxes. Apparently there is a glue to help it stick in high heat but the wrap itself seems to have a max temp of 300 degrees. Go ahead and shove some of that on the passenger side inner fender with headers on a 440. Googling shows lots of instances of shrink back and peeling due to heat. Are you sure these cars don't have black engine bays and fabric trunks? I can see wrapping the jambs too - but old Mopars have a rough edge where the quarter is spot welded and I think that could be tricky. Also, wrapping inside an engine bay would be extremely labor intensive and I'd imagine the budget would be ridiculous.

Troy

[JR]

I really don't see a realistic, way of wrapping the engine bay/underhood area. For the amount of disassembly and labor involved, you'd be better off respraying the engine bay in paint. I mean, you'd end up doing 80% of the work to prep it, and then 200% of the work when it came time to remove the vinyl later.

I also imagine removing the vinyl after two years of cooking from engine heat would be a nightmare.

Id strongly recommend to wait til you find the car in the color you want. Or at the very least, living with the mismatched engine bay if you're dead set on wrapping it.

Frankly I'd be surprised if you found a shop willing to wrap an engine bay.

[alfaitalia]

I've never seen an engine bay done........can see that as a realistic possibility.