Wrapping the company car: what to know first

Before you wrap the company car, decide three things: how much of the car you cover, what has to be readable from a distance, and who looks after it once it's installed. The right film and a good installation take care of the rest. Below is what we ask in the first conversation, so there are no surprises at handover.

How much to cover: full, partial or just a logo

There are three main options:

• Full wrap. The film covers almost the entire body. It looks the most striking and changes the car's color completely, but it takes the most material and the most labor.
• Partial wrap. You cover the areas people see: doors, tailgate, hood or a stripe along the side. The car's own color becomes part of the design. It's the most common choice for vans and service cars.
• Logo and cut lettering. The logo, company name and contact details, cut from colored film. Simple, clean, easy to change.

For a fleet, a partial wrap has a practical upside: a damaged car gets repaired and rewrapped in one area, without redoing all the graphics.

What has to read from five meters

A car is seen moving, from the side, for a few seconds. The design is built for that:

1. The name or logo, big. The first thing people read.
2. What you do, in two or three words. "Plumbing," not a list of ten services.
3. One contact. The website or the phone number, in large type. Nobody in traffic remembers two phone numbers, an email and three social handles.

There's one more detail many mockups miss: a car isn't flat. Handles, door lines, fenders and window frames cut through the graphics. A letter that lands on a handle or across a door gap reads badly. That's why we work on a template of the exact model and year, not a generic silhouette. And we ask for the logo in vector format, so it can be scaled to door size without breaking up; we explained why in our article on vector logos.

Which film is used

For full wraps and for surfaces with curves and recesses, manufacturers recommend cast films, made to conform to complex shapes. Avery Dennison, for example, describes its wrap films as cast vinyl with an adhesive that removes cleanly after years of use. Many have fine channels in the adhesive that let air escape during installation, so no bubbles stay behind, and they can be repositioned while being applied.

For logos and cut lettering, Avery Dennison also recommends colored cast films, cut to shape. Printed graphics (photos, gradients) go on white film and get a clear overlaminate on top to protect them from sun and scratches.

Two rules from the data sheets that we follow on every job:

• all the film for one car comes from the same production lot, because colors can vary slightly between lots;
• wrap film is never applied wet, with soapy water, but dry, on a surface cleaned the way the manufacturer specifies.

How long it lasts: the hood wears out first

Manufacturers rate durability separately for vertical surfaces (doors, sides) and horizontal ones (hood, roof, trunk lid), and the gap is big. On one Avery Dennison wrap film, for instance, horizontal durability is several times shorter than vertical, because that's where sun and water sit right on the film. Color matters too: within the same film, black and white last the longest and metallics the least.

In practice: if the car spends a lot of time in the sun, the hood and roof will show wear first. Sometimes it makes sense to leave those areas in the car's own color and put the graphics on the sides.

After installation: washing

The manufacturer's care sheet is short and worth following:

• don't wash the car for the first 48 hours after installation;
• after that, wash it about every two weeks, by hand, with a mild car detergent (pH between 5 and 9), from the top down;
• no automatic car washes with brushes, which can scratch the film or catch an edge;
• no pressure washer held close and at an angle on the edges, so they don't lift;
• clean off bird droppings, bugs and tree sap as soon as you can.

Matte film is fussier: some cleaners and waxes leave shiny spots on it, so test any new product on a hidden corner first.

What drives the cost

We can't give a price without seeing the car, but we know what changes it: the area covered, how complex the body is, whether the graphics are printed and laminated or just cut, how many cars are in the fleet, and the condition of the paint underneath. See what we do on our vehicle wrap page.