Harlaquin
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 7, 2017
- Threads
- 179
- Messages
- 1,780
- Reaction score
- 1,353
- Location
- USA
- Vehicle(s)
- 2017 Type R and a beater ford focus
- Thread starter
- #1
Where to begin? So I decided I want to get some wrap done on my car but I was not going to pay high prices for it as I am cheap. Heck I can do it myself, lets get this party started. So off I go to my first Vinyl shop.
Nice people, friendly but they only sell sign Vinyl in store and have to order car vinyl... eh ok on to the next place. They suggest I go to see this guy
Nope, he will do car vinyl but is more of a sign shop plus he didn't have any Carbon Vinyl in stock for me to buy. ok again nice guy super friendly just not what I was needing...so on to my third place.
Auto Armor ok this guy does cars and cars only.. lets take a peek. I pull in and its just a metal building. I open the door to walk in and whoaaa look at that .
Man that is a one shiny car. It has expel ppf and ceramic on it. The owner is in and he stops what he is doing to talk to me. I explain I want to try it myself first (as he is booked out through the middle of may) and he sells me some carbon wrap that matches the Rs carbon aero bits. Shows me how to do it, gives me tips, the whole nine yards. Super nice guy. awesome so now I have wrap and im good to go. But first a few stops. Then Ill finish the DIY wrap story. First discount tire to fix my wobble I now have since Honda "FIXED" my front tire.
They did true balance and road force balance for free and now R drives like silky smooth. Then I stopped by a K tune dealer just to chat and see options.
Then one last thing I want a custom plate. Guess what was available in NC? I was Surprised. So ordered my new plate. Yeah im gonna paint the R red.
OK so all chores finished time to wrap. First let me compare what I got today and what came from Amazon. Got some Vvivid true R carbon from Amazon.
The vvivid is shiny more like a real carbon look. The stuff i got from the wrap guy matches the cars Carbon dead on. so for my hood and mirrors I'm gonna use the guys wrap and for wing I'm gonna use the vvivid. Oh yeah IM wraping my mirror covers , my hood scoop and the black middle part of wing.
So lets do this. Get instructions off the net on how to take off covers. And get to work.
OK ready to go. Easy its just 3 little clips and you slide it off... Son of a bitch... an hour later...
Finally, three easy clips my ass... and anyway so lets wrap this..
So far so good....
Oh no the corners...
Ill spare you the gory details but.. after an hour of screwing with it and watching 45 videos and... well yeah I didn't do so good. Those corners with patterned Vinyl are hard as you cant really stretch it with out screwing up the pattern. So I gave up, looks good on car but ill get back to that in a sec...
ok so lets try the scoop. Its flat..hahahahah right..
so I remove it
Ill spare you the photographic details but lets say it wasn't pretty with cutting for that opening.. but here it is.. looks impressive.
And on car
Now the oh so sexy shot. Yes I did put extra shine on my car LOL.
Unfortunately when you look up close... I think this is why people are only doing the indention of the scoop and not the whole scoop because lining up that cut to match the top and bottom of the opening is a bitch and about impossible. For a non pro anyway.
All I can say is more power to the Vinyl guys. I tried and tried and man I just could not get it right. Plain wrap is easier but this pattern wrap.. if ya make it fit, the pattern distorts, if you try to keep pattern then it wont fit corners right. Either way I gave up Im gonna leave it on till I can get appointment just to see how it holds up. I'm gonna let the pros redo it and finish the other mirror and wing.
IM a fairly good DIY person but this wrap kicked my butt. But oh well I tried. 35 bucks in wrap and a few hours of my day to find out. No big deal and I have about 6 x 12 feet of wrap ill just take for the pro to use.
Anyway thanks again for looking at my adventures.
View attachment 144953
Nice people, friendly but they only sell sign Vinyl in store and have to order car vinyl... eh ok on to the next place. They suggest I go to see this guy
Nope, he will do car vinyl but is more of a sign shop plus he didn't have any Carbon Vinyl in stock for me to buy. ok again nice guy super friendly just not what I was needing...so on to my third place.
Auto Armor ok this guy does cars and cars only.. lets take a peek. I pull in and its just a metal building. I open the door to walk in and whoaaa look at that .
Man that is a one shiny car. It has expel ppf and ceramic on it. The owner is in and he stops what he is doing to talk to me. I explain I want to try it myself first (as he is booked out through the middle of may) and he sells me some carbon wrap that matches the Rs carbon aero bits. Shows me how to do it, gives me tips, the whole nine yards. Super nice guy. awesome so now I have wrap and im good to go. But first a few stops. Then Ill finish the DIY wrap story. First discount tire to fix my wobble I now have since Honda "FIXED" my front tire.
They did true balance and road force balance for free and now R drives like silky smooth. Then I stopped by a K tune dealer just to chat and see options.
Then one last thing I want a custom plate. Guess what was available in NC? I was Surprised. So ordered my new plate. Yeah im gonna paint the R red.
OK so all chores finished time to wrap. First let me compare what I got today and what came from Amazon. Got some Vvivid true R carbon from Amazon.
The vvivid is shiny more like a real carbon look. The stuff i got from the wrap guy matches the cars Carbon dead on. so for my hood and mirrors I'm gonna use the guys wrap and for wing I'm gonna use the vvivid. Oh yeah IM wraping my mirror covers , my hood scoop and the black middle part of wing.
So lets do this. Get instructions off the net on how to take off covers. And get to work.
OK ready to go. Easy its just 3 little clips and you slide it off... Son of a bitch... an hour later...
Finally, three easy clips my ass... and anyway so lets wrap this..
So far so good....
Oh no the corners...
Ill spare you the gory details but.. after an hour of screwing with it and watching 45 videos and... well yeah I didn't do so good. Those corners with patterned Vinyl are hard as you cant really stretch it with out screwing up the pattern. So I gave up, looks good on car but ill get back to that in a sec...
ok so lets try the scoop. Its flat..hahahahah right..
so I remove it
Ill spare you the photographic details but lets say it wasn't pretty with cutting for that opening.. but here it is.. looks impressive.
And on car
Now the oh so sexy shot. Yes I did put extra shine on my car LOL.
Unfortunately when you look up close... I think this is why people are only doing the indention of the scoop and not the whole scoop because lining up that cut to match the top and bottom of the opening is a bitch and about impossible. For a non pro anyway.
All I can say is more power to the Vinyl guys. I tried and tried and man I just could not get it right. Plain wrap is easier but this pattern wrap.. if ya make it fit, the pattern distorts, if you try to keep pattern then it wont fit corners right. Either way I gave up Im gonna leave it on till I can get appointment just to see how it holds up. I'm gonna let the pros redo it and finish the other mirror and wing.
IM a fairly good DIY person but this wrap kicked my butt. But oh well I tried. 35 bucks in wrap and a few hours of my day to find out. No big deal and I have about 6 x 12 feet of wrap ill just take for the pro to use.
Anyway thanks again for looking at my adventures.
View attachment 144953
Attachments
-
0 bytes Views: 0
Last edited: