If you’ve just got vehicle signage to advertise your business on your car, you’ve chosen a highly effective method to get your name out there. But what happens when you need to maintain your car by taking it to a car wash. Can you take your car through the wash without damaging the vinyl or adhesive wrapping?
The technical truth is that you should be fine, depending on what kind of wrap you’ve used, but there are better ways to wash a car you have spent good money on for branding reasons.
Why it’s ok to do it:
Most adhesive car signs are wash-safe, with the exception of EZ-Stick vinyl, as the machines may rip them off. However, most car wraps, car door decals, car lettering and window graphics that are adhesive-based will be fine. This is because these wraps are printed with inks that are UV and weather resistant and are embedded in the material.
If you your wraps are magnetic, remove these before going into the car wash as once again, the machines will pull them off.
Better ways to wash:
The thing is though; it’s better to avoid a car wash with any car wrapping or adhesives because you never know if a machine will, in fact, damage your advertising. Remember, these machines are basically running on overdrive so that businesses can wash cars in minutes, with strong jets of water and harsh bristle brushes being used. So even if you don’t lose your wraps, they could get damaged.
Instead, consider washing your car by hand. Yes, this can take a lot of time which sometimes we don’t always have, but you remove the risk of damaging your wraps which can cost you an arm and a leg.
Use a microfibre cloth or a soft sponge with non-abrasive soap and keep the pressure from the hose minimal. Use slow, circular movements to wash when you clean the wraps so you don’t stretch or peel away any of the vinyl.
Your other option is to take it to a car wash that does hand washing, but just make sure the technicians understand how to clean vinyl wraps and magnetic signs as well.
If you want any more information about your vehicle signage, feel free to contact us anytime.
Related Tag: Vehicle Signage Melbourne
