Wrapping

[HoofHearted]

My 250 is now racking up a considerable number of noticeable stone chips with one or two turning to rust.

is wrapping a realistic option for me? 

[J Henderson]

Never wrapped a car before but I don't think it's particularly cheap. Plus, won't any imperfections and chips that are under the wrap still be visible?

Unless you want a colour change, it's possibly better just to get the affected areas painted.

[LenT]

2 hours ago, HoofHearted said:

My 250 is now racking up a considerable number of noticeable stone chips with one or two turning to rust.

is wrapping a realistic option for me? 

When I had my car ‘Detailed’, wrapping the front was an extra I considered.  But apart from a couple of inconspicuous pin sized marks, there was no obvious damage.  So I decided to just have the full ceramic treatment and see how that went.

However, if you have damage to the extent you describe, then I would have thought it was worth considering.  The first problem is to have the rust eliminated and the paint surface resprayed.

Now this may be a body shop job as It’s not something Detailers usually do - although you may find one that does.  The surface has to be perfect as the film will actually make any imperfections more obvious.

You also have to consider how that may make the rest of the body look. At the very least, I would have thought that you would need to have a basic level of detailing to improve the rest of the bodywork.

The final result can look stunning.  Wrapping may not protect from a really determined stone, but it should shrug off the kind of damage you’ve generally been experiencing. It’s certainly more effective in this respect than a ceramic finish alone.  And the film itself is also self healing to some extent.

In the end, it’ll come down to cost.  How long do you think you’ll have the car?  It’ll certainly enhance the resale value and your pleasure in driving it around.  Indeed, the fact that it’s even a matter of concern suggests to me that you don’t really need much persuading!

[Mr Vlad]

As above. Forget wrapping unless you want a ruddy awful looking car. Body has to be perfect before any wrapping can go on.

[HoofHearted]

54 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

As above. Forget wrapping unless you want a ruddy awful looking car. Body has to be perfect before any wrapping can go on.

Fair enough, appreciate the input from everybody as always lads.

[Mr Vlad]

Do you have a dedicated car body shop near you? If so it may be worthwhile to get them to look at your car and quote you for repair. Ok it may cost a good few hundred quid but if you intend to keep the car then it'll be worth it. If a good few hundred quid is too much then there are a few very good touch up kits out there. A good kit is about £30 but you need patience. 

[Linas.P]

22 hours ago, HoofHearted said:

My 250 is now racking up a considerable number of noticeable stone chips with one or two turning to rust.

is wrapping a realistic option for me? 

If done right could be great, you can even apply just transparent wrap for protection, but it has to be done on perfect paint. As such wrapping in particular is no longer an option for you. The benefit of the wrap is that it could protect from stone chips, scratches etc. but because you already have stone chips which are starting to rust, this is certainly too late for wrap and would make everything much worse. 

It used to be cheap, like doing entire car costed £400 at the beginning and if you wanted just clear film to protect the front, could have that done for £150 or so... but that was good 15 years ago. Nowadays wrap became some sort of fad and all wrappers are out of their bloody minds, now people charge more for decent wrap job, than they charge for complete respray. I wanted clear wrap on my RC and was quoted £2000 - completely ridiculous.

I would advise to get glass fibre pen and some touch-up paint and address those stone chips as soon as you can, before rust really becomes an issue. 

 

[Texas]

This is the only 250 I’ve ever ‘seen’ wrapped and it’s the door shuts that I couldn’t live with!🙄

[Arnett]

45 minutes ago, Texas said:

This is the only 250 I’ve ever ‘seen’ wrapped and it’s the door shuts that I couldn’t live with!🙄

Lots of companies will do the door ****s but it's extra and many will skimp it as they don't want to pay anymore. But I agree completely the navy really.grinds 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Texas said:

This is the only 250 I’ve ever ‘seen’ wrapped and it’s the door shuts that I couldn’t live with!🙄

But this one was horribly done all around. I would argue one of the worse examples. Wrap could get much better than that, especially if not such a bright and contrasting colour used it could be hard to notice. 

In other hand because of current prices it long lost it's utility of being "cheap and reversible process". Say for example I want to take my car to the wedding, but it is black... in the past it would have been possible to do quick wrap job just for occasion for say £250 and remove it right after, but with current prices that is long lost possibility. I think overall, the sentiment changed for worse - wrap should be seen as a TEMPORARY thing, which is applied for certain occasion, time period, event and then removed leaving original paint protected. As such nobody should expect same standard from wrap as they would expect from actual paint. Now most wrappers sells it as a permanent feature and public seems to have fallen for it.

[MrTrendizzle]

There's a guy that comes and details cars around my estate which advertises paint corrections and touch ups.  

I've actually seen him repair a few marks on one of his customers cars and it's pretty impressive. He said a typical stone chip 5p in size will cost £100 to sand, touch up, blend and polish. This just gets added to the cost of the complete job anyway.  

I would 100% say paying out for the top package of complete detail with paint correction and full body mop before the car gets a heavy ceramic coating is worth it. From that point on the typical wash and wax will be fine for the next 6-12 months or even longer if you're not using the car heavily. Get the paint repaired then wrap it up. Failing that look at plasti dip. No need to repair the car just spray the rubber on and forget. Much easier and a ton of fun if you have a spray gun (B&Q paint sprayer can be used and works wonders) Just don't forget to mask up everything first.

[LenT]

On 6/5/2022 at 12:00 PM, Linas.P said:

wrap should be seen as a TEMPORARY thing, which is applied for certain occasion, time period, event and then removed leaving original paint protected. As such nobody should expect same standard from wrap as they would expect from actual paint. Now most wrappers sells it as a permanent feature and public seems to have fallen for it.

I think that may be a rather harsh appraisal of paint protection film.  It’s certainly temporary in that it can be relatively easily removed - unlike a ceramic coating.  But like ceramics it should be applied to a properly prepared paint surface, otherwise it might even make imperfections more obvious.

In fact the Detailer I used ideally likes to apply PPF after a ceramic treatment.  The reason for so doing is that the PPF offers advantages over ceramic.  Its surface is more resistant to impact, abrasion and chemicals and it has a degree of self-healing.

To my eye, the results are indistinguishable from ceramic alone and the advantages may just make the extra investment worthwhile - especially to protect a brand new purchase.

No doubt PPFs differ.  This is my Detailer’s product offering as a guide.

https://www.huntsmiths.co.uk/xpel-paint-protection-film/