HELL NO!

i thought about it but for the weight difference/cost i wont track my car enough to care but I still love the look of the carbon fibre hood. i have gotten good and bad responses towards it but i like it and that's what matter most right?

 

Good Job!! That looks GREAT!!!!

 

i used to think this way but honestly, having the contrast to the flat color w something else is nice.. and i can also attest to the fact that shiny real CF on partially wrapped cars sounds cool, but looks bad after awhile..it just highlights the yellow and greening of the CF more than other finishes.



i ahve an authentic veilside full CF hood, its CF front and back.. but im still wrapping it in dinoc to tone down the contrast.


ALso about the pricing, its no less laborous than a paint job, and it actuallyl has higher liability.
By that i mean a shop has to wrap your car using a heat gun and a razor blade and underneath, they can tleave single scratch from the razor? thats a difficult feat.
the time put into it is similarto a paint job, but wrap is more pupolatr due to the fact that the equipment you need is very basic and the are you need is simple as well.. both are prohibitive for painting.. but if any of us knew how to paint, had good guns, and a booth?
Man.. wed paint everything.. period. lol, wed paint our friends stuff too..

this media is for a diy'er.

OP, did you ahve a friend help you get the pieces off the backing and help laying them out?
Did you dry install or did you use a spray mister and reposition?
I find that its even harder to start it out wet.. as it doesnt stick and hold itself while you stretch the rest..

Dunno.... i paid to have mine wrapped.. they didnt do a fantastic job either.. and now i have some damaged areas i need to have fixed.. so im really thinking i may jump in and do ti myself this time.

dinoc is easy.. its thick and is jsut simple to work w..
3m 1080, or CV3 like i used ...is like saran wrap..just a heads up to anyone who wants to try this. That fact makes it tricky to work with to say the least..
i imagine hexis is a bit thicker?

I jsut bought a sample of thier teal blue.. might be a cool color to rock for a bit.

 

I did it all by myself (tones of fun laying it out, having a friend to help would be good if they are on the same vinyl knowledge level as yourself) i did it dry but i used rapid tac to clean and have a surface that wasn't as super tacky until pressure was applied. hexis is 4mils i believe and it is developed specifically for car wrap hence the longer life expectancy over 3m and oracle its is also supposedly the best brand for diy'ers, although i wouldn't recommend this for your average home project guy. It is extremely strenuous and taxing mentally (some panels would take 4 hours and once you start you don't stop) all it takes is one little screw up to throw off the whole thing and wastage can get costly a new bumper sized piece is about $100. Also when wrapping you want to stretch it as little as possible it will throw off the finish and colour if done to much. (i would do a write up on this but i didn't get any pics in the process of doing it.)

 

Congrats on the wrap! I'm from Port Coquitlam, nice to see another local wrapper lol I wrapped my Z last spring so I have a pretty good idea of all the pain you went thru.... Hope to see you on the road this year.

 

Looks good OP. Does the CF vinyl weave match the CF headlight cover weave? I'm not sure if it's the finish not meshing right between the two, but it looks like the weave is going in two different directions. That would drive me nuts.

Vinyl application isn't hard at all. You need some good practice and a good amount of patience. I work for a large format print company and we wrap vehicles on a weekly basis with 3M 180C CV3. Once heated up, your golden. Here are some taxis we did to advertise for Turning Stone Casino.

http://www.theimagepress.com/Home.aspx

 

I have also always wondered, lets say you keep on the vinyl for an entire year. Since the vinyl probably doesn't let any air and stuff hit the paint, would the paint loose its shininess or quality? Or would it actually help store its quality?

I think I am over thinking this. I did a great job on the interior, but doing this on the paint puts some fear into me lol.

 

I'm not entirely sure since I have never done this to my car but I would think it would prevent anything from happening to the quality of the paint. It's covered so therefore no elements are damaging the paint. I would give it a really good clay bay/polish/wax job before you do it. A guy I work with has a yellow Mustang but wanted a deeper yellow than the stock yellow. He wrapped his whole car with 3M 1080 with a 2-tone black top, yellow bottom scheme. He blames me for showing him the samples haha. He also applied a metallic laminate to the vinyl, on top of 3M clear bra in certain spots for longevity. I'll try to see if I can get some pics from him.

Most 3M vinyls have around a 5 year warranty or so, plus adding laminate also prolongs the durability of the vinyl. The only thing that you would have to deal with is getting any adhesive residue off that's left behind from removing the vinyl.

 

I like what you did with the car man. Clean job right there.

 

The directions are the same the lines might be a bit off but the eyelids are a real cf so that might be the difference you are seeing. I might end up wrapping the eyelids to make it more uniform.

 

Like I said, I think the different finishes were messing with my eyes.

 

it fully protects the paint underneath it.

not to thread jack, but here was mine shortly after installing it. the kt parts are painted to match as close as possible.. but you can see that real cf looks pretty bunk next to the flat black.. would look far better imho to cover my hood in gloss black dinoc cf.

 

The OP said it took him 35 hrs. Lets say a pro does it in 30hrs @ $75/hr, that's 2250 without materials or taxes.

I'm not sure what somebody who does this professionally charges per hour, but I would bet it would be in the ballpark of $50-$100.

 

fluff, get outta here..a team could do a wrap job on a car in few hours especially professionals

 

ha vancouver roads, atleast you get to drive your car mines in the oven waiting till spring, FYI it's -30 and -46 with the wind chill in Saskatoon right now haha.

good job, looks good.

 

Does this wrap come up/off at all or bubble at all? I have only wrapped certain interior parts with 3M carbon and that stuff does come up in some areas. Also, how sticky is it? Debating on weather or not I want to try to tackle this next year some time when I'm thinking about getting a body kit.

 

as for a team doing a wrap in a few hours.. thats totaly true.. BUT thats their profit then.. the job itself is still normally priced on regular man hours.. if a shop was set up to have multiple dudes working a car wrap at once. and pay them all. they have 2 choices lol.. make more profit or price their work cheaper.
Sucks, but i am just ok w dealing w the fact that a wrap can be super cheap if you learn how to DIY and have a friend to help who wants to actually learn to do it right as well.... or be willing to pay full price elsewhere for a shop to do it.


As for the post about bubbling.. no it should not bubble up.. normal exterior wrap is far thinner than the dinoc gear.. its sticky as all hell and the bubbles disappear w some sun or a safety pin.

improperly cleaned cars, or interior pieces will make adhesive fail on anything.. i keep bottles of rubbing alcohol around and clean eveything i do very heavily front and back, and then i wipe my hands w it before i start working the stuff too. No touching your face while working either .

Dinoc is also not very sticky which makes lifting and reworking it very easy.. but if you dont use primer on all deges, you will get lift as it always snaps back to its orig shape when it gets warm again.

 

@ ksuberk54

If any vinyl, doesn't matter which brand, is applied right the first time, there should be no issues of bubbling or peeling. Prep is the most important thing when it comes to vinyl application.

Unless for some strange reason you got a bad batch. I would notify 3M if that's the case. Make sure you still have your receipts/packaging so 3M knows which lot # it's from. This happens at my work from time to time.

 

 

Very nice. Good job with the DIY!