Beedub said:SonnyA85 said:Beedub said:hi sonny, thanks for your honest feedback and thanks for being part of this discussion, lets dive in alittle more detail.
Frustratingly ive written this post twice now and laptop has failed to send. The z4 in any guise is a complex car to wrap , and the strip down is a PITA, the door handles in e85 form are horrendous to remove. i warranty my vinyl work for 3 years, as such for a well looked after car id expect double your listed life cycle and , honestly no my customers are not wrapping and changing colour few years, some do, but they are usually celebrity clients that want to appear like they have a new car when in the news papers etc.
R.E you painting your car i totally agree BTW, if the wrap price gets too close to a PROPER paint job then paint it if your not fussed about loosing the originality ( some are bothered, some aren't ) . Again i love Both sectors, and a HUGE part of my business is paintwork correction and protecting with either PPF or ceramic , i love nothing more than perfect paintwork dripping with gloss, LOVELY. As with wrapping , cheap paintwork is often horrendous and a proper paintjob is usually x2 or more the price of a high quality vinyl coverage.
Here's an example, Ive just been commissioned by continental tyres to wrap a very special rest-o-mod vehicle they have purchased to showcase a new tire line. They have clearly outlined the standard they expect from me, and its PERFECTION... its a small two seater with no roof. The cost will be 4k ( including ceramic coating) and it will have to be stripped completely, ill even be removing the windscreen. The professional paint shop quoted 11.5k for the same job .
Wrapping vans is a different kettle of fish, the panels are large and flat, the edges are thin and we are often using much quicker cutting techniques on commercial vehicles , also vehicle strip down is much much less and often , just the door handles, plates etc. I can wrap 2 vans in the time i can wrap a complex car for full coverage to a paint like standard. where vans get expensive is the sheer amount of material they require to complete. In my shop ALL the vinyl is top end, nothing at all is cheap and i simply wont even entertain using cheap materials. As mentioned before this complete sector is literally something i adore and love, wrapping is a true skill and art and it can achieve finishes that a painter simply can't do at all or couldn't recreate without costing mega money ( think chrome, satin finishes, printed Retro rust style finishes, flip colours etc). On the flip side wrap will never be able to achieve the clarity and depth of a proper paint finish. Its also important to note i am positioned at the high end side of the sector within my area's ( paint correction/ restoration, vinyl and PPF install .
on a side note, heres a range i wrapped recently, if you make it to the end of the video you'll see the end result. ( excuse my tired look and bald patchy hair, i was just getting over chemo in this video and should not have been working but..... this job lights my soul so just couldn't say no)
https://youtu.be/iNSF1py9RUc
Thanks for the detailed reply. You are clearly very enthusiastic and put a lot of pride into your work and it shows.
On my side of the fence I'm not wrapping a lambo. I'm wrapping or painting a 19 year old car worth £4k. I'm not exactly looking for the absolute best job. Not looking for the worst either. A middle ground that's value for money and brings it back to its former glory without the cost of buying a new one from the manufacturing line.
I'll be getting a few quotes on resprays and think it over. Probably leave it as it is for the time being as I have just spent the best part of £2k getting it back on the road and still have to figure out why my roof has lost power but after spending £2k on it I thought I may as well spend another £1500 on a wrap if possible. I thought that was a realistic price to aim for but obviously I am not that clued up on the finer details like you are so if my pricing in my head was way off it's simply due to a lack of knowledge on the subject. I appreciate the detailed reply and it's back to the drawing board if the respray quotes do come in at a staggering amount. It's not that I don't have the cash to do it. I'd rather not just keep throwing money at it when ideally I should be investing it for the future instead of putting it into a depreciating asset. I appreciate people have larger wallets and see spending £3k+ on a wrap as worthwhile but honestly I'd rather just pay the extra £1500 and get a really nice paint job from the manufacturing line instead of chucking several £k on a wrap on these brand new cars that you do even if it's colours and finishes that are unavailable in paint format. BMW have some really nice OEM colours these days. £11k to paint a car? I'm not surprised they decided to seek a cheaper option. I'd expect to get a full working car along with the paint job at that price.
You have people who spend £300k on a watch and then you have folk that spend £300 on a clone of the same watch that unless you own the real thing 99.9% would never know any better.
Is there really such a big difference between the top end vinyl and say one that's high end or even mid to high end? When it comes to a gaming PC for instance I buy bang for buck. I have a £250 processor which plays games just as well as a £600 processor (within 5%) and then I get cheap high speed ram from crucial instead of Samsung which again provides performance to within 1-3% of the top end. What I am saying is of you would normally wrap a Z4 for £2200 - £2500 using the absolute best kit.
How much would it cost to use say a mid end or mod to high end film and is there a reason why you don't offer that option? Is it simply the cost difference is minimal and therefore labour and expertise makes up the majority of the cost?
totally get where your coming from spending 3/4 of the cars value on a wrap is just not viable.
NOW , whats great is you've now opened up your position alot more and give me some info i can really work with. SO if you went for a lower end film ( difference is orange peel effect , ease of install, longevity , you could easily get the body covered for around 1800 quid.... with a less experienced shop that's willing to take the job and their are LOADS, accept it wont be the cleanest wrap with less strip down done and it wouldn't surprise me if you couldn't get this done for around your target price, caveat being the shop in question, when the price really starts dropping some of these shops are extremely shoddy however, their is always a diamond amount the rough.
you are right, my shop operates at the top end of the market and as such our pricing reflects that as my customers demand the quality in the video, single piece installs monster strip downs and paint like finish. if you ever need advice, drop me a line, that costs absolutely nothing, plus i enjoy talking about the subject , lol!
With a cheaper film and a solid installer i'm not sure the difference would be significantly noticeable , longevity would take a hit. it all down to the installer.
If i ever win the lottery I will give you a shout for sure. But I will likley leave the car as is and see how my savings and investments go over the next couple of years and if I hit a big win on something you never know I would travel from Glasgow to your shop. I have already travelled to Newcastle (roof motor relocation) and Liverpool (VANOS) for work on the car. And the furthest I went was London for a wedding. I could even do that again and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
I only have 1 final question. How long does it take you to wrap say a Z4, a normal hatchback, a normal saloon and then say a larger car like a SUV or estate or Luxury long wheel base style saloon. It will obviously depend on the cars but just a rough idea so if I did get it done I know how long I'd need to stay or be without the car for. Seriously I would use your services but right now it makes zero sense for me with other priorities in the forefront. I will be for instance doing a full landscaping project in the back garden plus a high end log cabin and then after that a Lean to on one side of the house and a car port for the Z4 and then finally a garage conversion. That's essentially going to wipe out all my savings so right now spending money where it's not a priority and I need for those projects is a no go.
