Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

The paint on my plus 2 is getting tired and Im considering a wrap rather than paint. Has anybody tried this?

Advice appreciated.

Don't do it!! seen a few cars wrapped for events and it looks bad close up. Also a good wrap will only last one decent summer before it starts to fail.

Wrappers use templates, I doubt there is a +2 template, so they then have to wrap freeand... which makes it a longer and more expensive process. They need panel joins to hide seams.. there are none on the entire front other than light pods and bonnet, think they would struggle...

Get it priced and then get a price for paint... I have seen some excellent wraps that have lasted a few years... but would never do it again myself (I had ppf done, same-ish as wrap)... my esprit will get paint instead.

And unless paint is missing, a detailer can work magic sometimes...

I thoroughly investigated wraps just a week or so ago. In my mind, the problem isn't with price or how long the material lasts. it's the compound curves of most Lotus models and the width of the material. In plain English, that means you'll have to live with some seams. There's just no other way around the width limitation.

FWIW, I've seen wraps that look just fine after 4 or 5 years.

Steve in Ohio

Having seen the end result of professionally fitted wraps removed from 2 Ferrari?s I would be very wary of fitting a wrap to a car. One car needed a full respray after cuts during fitting had gone through paint and allowed corrosion to start. The other needed the bumpers resprayed as paint was pulled off during wrap removal

grassyknoll wrote:Wrappers use templates, I doubt there is a +2 template, so they then have to wrap freeand... which makes it a longer and more expensive process. They need panel joins to hide seams.. there are none on the entire front other than light pods and bonnet, think they would struggle...

PPF uses templates as they only cover exterior panels but from my limited experience the better wraps need to go into door jams and round edges so templates are a waste of time. The Vinyl they use is quite thin (so they can hide seams) but does tend to get damaged easy so allot of the better jobs have PPF on top to help with the finish.

A good wrap still means the car has to come apart so 4-5k for a wrap is often the starting point (assuming you want door jams etc the same colour) the last one i saw took a week to apply and showed every imperfection in the paint under even though it had been heavily detailed first, thats not to mention the gloss finish on the vinyl looks odd (look great in pictures so be careful)

The new thing is this Topaz skin, basically they put a peal able layer on then use standard paint on top. We use Spies Hecker so the rep has been bigging it up for weeks but that starts at ?10k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL2EJjv0R5Q

Good wrap's just like this Topaz skin or a repaint still involves considerable man hours to apply which is why the price is steep. You can of course find places who are prepared to cut the hours down to save money but at the expense of the longevity/quality of the job. Don't think a wrap is some sort of cheap paint job, thats not what it's about.

DJW wrote:Having seen the end result of professionally fitted wraps removed from 2 Ferrari?s I would be very wary of fitting a wrap to a car. One car needed a full respray after cuts during fitting had gone through paint and allowed corrosion to start. The other needed the bumpers resprayed as paint was pulled off during wrap removal

Ditto, have removed wraps from both Ferraris and Lambos and in all instances have found many scratches under the wrap (albeit small ones) where cuts have been made. On the plus side, we did one where no visible damage was done.

But we still charged $4200 to remove the wrap and remedy the paintwork.

'K, a +2 is not a Ferrlambo but unless you can view an example of the work done ON A PLUS 2 - ideally one done a few years ago...

I suggest you rub n scrub until your fingers resemble white prunes...