12 advantages of vinyl vehicle wraps vs painting your vehicle

This is a relatively new technology, and for marketers, there’s a lot to get excited about here, with very few drawbacks. Wraps are made of thin, adhesive, vinyl sheets that can be printed with any design, cut to any dimension, and applied to the three-dimensional surfaces of a vehicle exterior. The material protects the paint beneath it, yet leaves the paint intact when the wrap is removed. And it costs less than paint. But let’s look at these benefits one at a time:

1. 1. Endless design options: The more unique your vehicle graphics look, the more they’ll be noticed. While even the best custom car painter has limitations in terms of photo-realistic imaging, wraps have no problem duplicating intricate designs and shading patterns. This can be an important consideration for many types of graphics if you hope to display them exactly as they appear in other advertising media.
2. 2. Repeatability: Vinyl wraps are used widely in-vehicle fleet situations where several cars, vans or trucks need to be covered at once. If there is a change of custom painter personnel at a paint shop, you may not get exactly the same design on every vehicle. But vinyl wraps are printed from digital files that never change, so your brand will stay consistent from one vehicle to the next.
3. 3. It can be removed: Things change, logos change, and paint jobs eventually wear out. If you keep vehicles long enough, the paint will fade, and it will be time to repaint. Or if you change your logo, you’ll have to repaint. Vinyl wraps can be removed much more easily than repainting, and new vinyl can be applied in its place.
4. 4. Vehicle resale value is preserved: Wraps do two things to preserve vehicle value:
   a. Wraps protect the paint from dust, wear, and debris. If a wrap is removed in a couple of years, the paint beneath will be less faded and worn than it would have with exposure to the elements.
   b. Because the original paint is intact, and the buyer can remove the vinyl, the vehicle doesn’t have to be repainted for resale (or sold at an under-market value due to the graphics).
5. 5. Wraps are cheaper than paint: Vinyl offers several savings compared to a custom paint job:
   a. Wraps take less time to apply than paint, so the labor costs less. A custom paint job on an average vehicle may run $3,000 – $10,000—higher in some cases. A single-vehicle wrap rarely costs more than $5,000 and may run as low as $2,500. If you have more than one vehicle wrapped, the price drops even more. This cost difference, alone, makes vinyl an easy choice for most fleet owners.
6. 6. Faster than a paint job: One of the drawbacks of painting company vehicles is the amount of time it takes. You may have a vehicle in the paint shop for up to two weeks, which means that the vehicle is not on the road making you money. Wraps typically three to five days to apply, so you suffer less lost revenue while the vehicle is in the shop. And unlike paint, you can drive a freshly wrapped vehicle normally, right out of the shop, rather than having to be cautious about road and weather conditions after the application of a paint job.
7. 7. Vinyl fits vehicles of all sizes: While vehicle paint can become prohibitively expensive on large vehicles, vinyl once again provides a cost-effective alternative. Do you have buses or large trucks in your fleet? No problem; vinyl can be applied to any vehicle with paint on it, and your design can be customized for each size and shape. This customization is important because the same design will look different on different vehicles, which brings us to the vehicle wrap modeling…
8. 8. Modeling of the design is easy: Because vehicle wraps are designed around the models of specific vehicles, it’s easy for computer software to virtually “apply” your design to your vehicle. This prevents readability problems that can happen when two-dimensional designs are translated into three-dimensional shapes. It also puts you in charge of the design process. You can “audition” various ideas—and make changes to designs—long before the vinyl goes on the vehicle. You can experiment with colors, layouts and special-effect options, to be sure your vehicles make a powerful brand statement.
9. 9. Wraps are easier to maintain than paint: As pieces of mobile advertising, your company vehicles have to look great, but caring for auto paint is time-consuming. And you have to pay somebody to wash and wax your vehicles to keep them looking sharp. Not so with vinyl; all you have to do is wash it, and you’re back off to the races. Repair-ability is another advantage of vinyl. While damaged paint is expensive and time-consuming to repair, vinyl is easy because it takes less time, and specific sections of vinyl can be replaced rather than having to sand, paint and polish large areas.
10. 10. You can also wrap vehicle windows: The glass on your vehicles is no longer out of bounds when you choose vinyl. The design that begins on the painted areas can seamlessly continue onto the windows, thanks to the magic of perforated window film, which allows full visibility from inside the cabin, while displaying bright designs to viewers outside.
11. 11. A rainbow of colors: Paints come in a lot of colors, but the exact color of your logo may not be available. Again, to maintain brand consistency, it’s important to get the details right, and minor differences in logo color can detract from the brand impression you make over multiple advertising media. Wraps have lots of colors available, and they look exactly the same from one application to the next.
12. 12. Vinyl offers visual special effects: There are things you can do with vinyl that you just can’t do with paint, like colors that shift in the light, and eye-catching metallic patterns.

More advantages of vinyl vehicle wraps vs painting your vehicle

Use your vehicle as an investment. Use it to make money. It is super important that your vehicle makes an impression on your future customers. Make sure your message is clear and that your brand carries the same consistency across all your vehicles. Your vehicle must remain professional, yet it should stand out and convey a clear message of who you are, what you offer, and how to get in contact with you.

That’s where MightyWraps comes into the picture. We can make sure that your vehicle wraps stand out from the rest. We can make sure your message is portrayed clearly and that your brand stays consistent on one vehicle or your whole fleet. Give us a call at 316-264-1321 and let us help you get started.

Even if you don’t own a business, you still should consider wrapping your ride. It is a great alternative to painting your vehicle. Whether you are looking for a color change or custom graphics MightyWraps has your vehicle covered. Remember, your imagination is the limits when it comes to the custom design, wide format printing, and professional installation of MightyWraps. And you can save yourself a lot of cash…