Cost of a vehicle wrap?

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benrk

Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2019
Messages
12
Location
Winnipeg, MB, CDN
Hi,

I put a downpayment on a well equipped & well priced i3, I just don’t like the silver paint.
Has anyone wrapped his i3? Anyone got an idea how much it costs on that little car that has much of the body panels in black anyways?

Thx, Ben
 
It really varies but we did the paint armor wrap of the entire front end, door edges and rear bumper and it was $1500. I would guess $3K to do the complete car?
 
joeblow said:
It really varies but we did the paint armor wrap of the entire front end, door edges and rear bumper and it was $1500. I would guess $3K to do the complete car?


Hi, thx for the response. Where are you located, what kind of $ is that? If that’s USD, it sounds very high, but there is some fancy & expensive film out there.
Given how few painted surfaces (besides the black) the i3 has, I’m pretty sure I can have the car painted for cheaper than 3k CAD.

Greetz, Ben
 
Given how few painted surfaces (besides the black) the i3 has, I’m pretty sure I can have the car painted for cheaper than 3k CAD.

Problem is, the car body panels are all plastic. Normal automotive paint won't work - won't stick, just wipes right off when dry. For any success at all, each body panel will need to be removed, and the finish completely sanded off. Then it needs to be treated with a plastic adhesion promoter. Once that is done, each panel can be primed and painted with a paint made for plastic, ie flexible enough when dry not to crack when the panel flexes. then the panels can be reinstalled when dry. Labor costs alone will push the job North of $7K. Friend with a Corvette, which is all plastic and fiberglass was quoted $10K to $14K.
 
maybe buy new body panels in your preferred color then replace current painted body panels...?







I am currently in the market for a used 2017 i3Rex... White and Silver are my favorite colors on the i3.
 
I don’t know if you can buy body panels painted.
For a wrap I meanwhile got a quote for 1500,- CAD without the company seeing the car, they say I should stop by once the car is here & they’ll get more precise.
As far as painting the body panels go, it’s not a problem, no different from painting a plastic bumper that all cars have these days. The i3 panels have normal automotive paint on, for a color change it should be enough to wet sand to scuff them up, mix softener into the paint so it can flex with the plastic & paint it, no biggie, paint to paint adheres well.
 
I will get my i3s wrapped next week, all the “non-black” panels. This will cost me approx 1100 USD incl VAT in Sweden

/U
 
The i3 panels have normal automotive paint on,

Actually they don't. It is a special paint developed by BASF for painting the BMW i3 plastic panels.

Frank Naber, BASF’s Account Manager for BMW Europe: “Our laboratory teams joined forces with the BMW Group to develop a coating for the special construction of the i3."

https://automotive.basf.com/news/read/challenge-coating-new-bmw-i3
 
MKH said:
Frank Naber, BASF’s Account Manager for BMW Europe: “Our laboratory teams joined forces with the BMW Group to develop a coating for the special construction of the i3."

Sure sounds like very typical marketing hype to me. The article makes no mention of what is "special" and it could simply be the color palette for plastic, or some tweak for the particular robot painters BMW uses that have no bearing on aftermarket repainting. Yes, there could be something important different, but my bets are that there is nothing significantly different from other automotive paints used on plastic body panels.
 
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