When to replace your vehicle wrap in Phoenix, AZ

There are two questions we frequently get from our vehicle wrap clients here is Phoenix. The first is “Will the wrap damage the paint” and the second is “How will I know when the wrap needs to come off”.

The Phoenix sun is extremely strong because there is no filtering from humidity or clouds and we get over 300 bright sunny days per year. The UV index from the late spring to early fall is very often 10/10. As uncomfortable as it is for one of us to stand in the direct sun during the mid-day hours, it has an even worse effect on your vehicle wrap.

Here in the desert the answer to the first question is “If you care for your wrap correctly and remove it before it substantially burns, it will actually protect your paint (from chemicals, stone chips, and the sun).”

This obviously leads to the second question. The UV from the sun burns the vinyl and makes the vinyl brittle. It also causes shrinkage of the vinyl (depending upon the type, a little or a lot). This leads to two failure types: burning and cracking.

This photo shows the badly cracked and brittle vinyl we removed from a box truck recently.  The wrap vinyl has completely broken away around the rivets.  You can also see around the black lettering where the white vinyl is turning brown.  The big issue with brittle, cracked vinyl is it looks bad and its a lot of work to remove it.  Once vinyl reaches this stage of failure, you can expect to pay many times more to have it removed than if it’s addressed earlier on.

This shows a section of wrap that is completely burnt by the sun.  It took us days to remove this wrap and the burnt vinyl had totally discolored the paint beneath.

Here you can see a section of the vehicle where we had removed the wrap. The discoloration on the paint is obvious.

Both of these are very extreme cases of significant failure of the vinyl. It is obvious the vinyl was allowed to remain on the vehicle for much too long.  If a little care is taken with the wrap, it can easily be removed and replaced at the first signs of aging.  At Blue Chip Signworks, we are ready to inspect the conditions of any wrap and let you know how well its dealing with the harsh Phoenix sun.