Drivers seek signature look with vehicle wraps

By Susan Carpenter

We’ve all seen them: The minivans advertising restaurants, the hatchbacks trumpeting services, notaries and plumbers. But there’s a growing niche in the vehicle wrap business: Drivers who are customising their cars with personalised graphics.

“Only 20% of the public has started to understand this is not paint. These are stickers,” said James Naccarato, general manager of Iconography Studios in Los Alamitos, California. The vehicle wrap company has, in recent months, outfitted a Nissan Cube in wood-print vinyl to emulate a vintage woody wagon and a Mazda Miata with a Japanese anime design.

A decade ago, vinyl graphics were single-colour cutouts mounted on a car door or window.

“Now the guy who owns a Maserati and a couple of small businesses can dress up his personal car. He doesn’t have to own 100 fleet vehicles to make it affordable,” said Iconography President Sarah Naccarato.

Personal full-vehicle wraps cost between $3,000 and $4,000 in the US and require two to five days to complete. Partial wraps, such as a custom graphic on a hood or side panel, typically cost less than $1,000.

“It’s a relatively inexpensive, non-invasive process for an automobile mod. (Vinyl) allows people to really play around with what they have without devaluing their cars,” Naccarato said.

While vinyl wraps have been around for almost a decade, what’s new is an explosion of colours and textures. Vinyl comes preprinted in hundreds of colours and finishes that can be customised into personalised designs printed on enormous digital printers that are laminated in finishes ranging from matte to metallic and applied to the car’s exterior.

They stick with microscopic glue bubbles built into the vinyl’s backing that, when removed, in most cases leave the car’s paint intact and without damage.

Personal vehicle wraps are “a very quickly expanding area,” said Dan Marx, vice president of markets and technologies for the 225 companies that make up the Professional Decal Application Alliance in Fairfax, Virginia. “I think we’re on the edge of seeing a lot more of this in the consumer area,” he said, especially as prices come down due to increased competition.

The growth in vinyl wraps is due in large part to the technological advances that have dramatically reduced the amount of space needed to make and apply a wrap. Still, the process can be complicated.

Matt Richart teaches semiannual Born to Wrap workshops in Irvine, California, to show aspiring wrappers how to use the large-format Roland printers that have become the industry standard. Richart is a former sign maker who switched his business to vehicle wraps when he “noticed customers who put lettering on a work van were getting more business off their vehicles than the banners and signs.”

While 85% of Richart’s Digital EFX Wraps customers are commercial, 15% of his business is personal. “The wrap industry is moving toward the retail side more and more each year” as the world becomes more custom, said Richart, who recently applied a racing stripe to a Maserati emblazoned with the owner’s initials.

At Iconography, 97% of the business is commercial, according to the Naccaratos. Just 3% is personal, but it’s the personal side of the business that’s seeing the most interest and growth.

The Naccaratos have recently fielded calls from a woman requesting her Smart ForTwo be wrapped in argyle print, a man who thinks his Ford Mustang would look better dressed in anime, and another customer who had asked about mimicking Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine. — The Orange County Register/MCT

Strut renewal is possible at home

I have a question about struts. The dealer gave me a quote of more than $1,800 to replace the front struts on my 4-cylinder 2001 Toyota Camry. Yikes! The independent shops are pretty steep, too.

Then I found out about KYB Strut-Plus and Monroe Quick-Struts for a lot less money. I’m thinking about just tackling the job myself using one of these products. They are a complete unit with pre-compressed new coil springs, the strut and strut mount. I am pretty mechanically inclined.

Is there a downside to using these units and installing them myself? I’m leaning more toward the KYB Strut-Plus. We plan to keep the car for several more years. It has about 95,000 miles on it and runs great. Or should I have the dealer or an independent shop just put on struts and use the old coil springs?

Yikes is right! I can’t fathom the price you were quoted for this simple service procedure. Periodic renewal of struts is necessary, as these tubular suspension parts contain the shock absorber. Shock absorbers wear out somewhere between 50,000-100,000 miles, which can affect vehicle stability, tyre tread life and ride comfort.

Replacing struts on a typical MacPherson strut vehicle involves removing the complete strut assembly, which is a fairly simple initial process. The strut is then mounted in a spring compressing fixture and disassembled.

Typically the coil spring and upper strut mount, if in good condition, are transferred to the new strut and reassembled. On some vehicles, the strut contains a replaceable cartridge, and the strut housing and other parts are reused.

The quick replacement and complete strut assemblies you mentioned are a great idea, as renewing the complete assembly is a real time-saver and eliminates the inconvenience and danger associated with compressing the spring or disassembling the strut if attempted at home.

Also, the new assembly includes the spring insulators, upper bearing and mount, which often need replacement. You’re paying for a new coil spring, which may not be a bad idea either, as springs can sag, affecting ride height and wheel alignment.

Replacement (bare) name-brand struts run about $60 to $80 apiece, and after you include the insulators and upper bearing, you’re only a bit shy of the cost for the complete unit — $160 or so. The prices I mentioned involved some frugal shopping and may be a best-case scenario.

The standard answer is yes, you should align the front wheels after renewing struts. Your Camry has elongated mounting bolt holes at the bottom end of the strut, allowing a camber adjustment, in which the wheel leans in or out. It would be difficult to accurately guess or estimate proper reassembly position, and differences in manufacturing tolerance of new versus old strut can also affect wheel alignment.

On vehicles with wishbone suspension, on which the strut is more like a simple shock absorber, or with cartridge-type or non-adjustable struts, you might forego the alignment process.

When removing your original struts, note the paint deformity and crush position of the lower mounting bolt washers.

Imitate this as closely as possible when bolting up the replacement units. Wheel alignment will be close enough to allow a day or two of vehicle use prior to getting in to the alignment shop.

Thanks for bringing up this topic — it’ll likely be of use to quite a few other folks. — By Brad Bergholdt/MCT