Vehicle graphics

A set of cut vinyl lettering — company name, phone number, web address and logo — is usually a single day, and often back with you the same afternoon. A part wrap with printed panels is one to two days. A full wrap is two to three days depending on the vehicle.

The variation is mostly in preparation rather than application. A high-roof panel van with deep recesses, roof bars, mirrors and handles to remove takes considerably longer than a flat-sided box body. The vehicle also has to be genuinely clean and dry before film goes anywhere near it, and vinyl does not behave in the cold, so a wrap booked in January gets a warmer bay and a little more time. We will give you a firm figure for your vehicle rather than a general one.

On sound original factory paint, no — the opposite. The film takes the stone chips, the road salt and the UV instead of the panel, so the paint underneath is often in better condition than the areas around it when the vinyl eventually comes off. Removal is done with gentle heat and leaves the surface clean.

The one real caution is a resprayed or repaired panel. Aftermarket paint that has not fully cured, or a poorly prepared repair, can lift when film is removed — not because of the vinyl, but because the paint was never properly keyed in the first place. We inspect the vehicle before we start and flag anything that looks like it has been redone, so you can decide with the facts in front of you.

Yes, and most fleets are built exactly that way. We keep the artwork, the cut files and the vehicle template on file, so a van added in two years' time gets the same layout in the same colours at the same scale as the first one.

It matters more than people expect. A fleet where each vehicle was done by whoever was cheapest at the time looks like several different businesses parked together. A matched fleet reads as one organised company, which is precisely the impression you want when three of your vans are sitting on a customer's site. If the new vehicle is a different model or size, we adapt the template to suit its panels rather than shrinking the old layout to fit.

Cut vinyl lettering is exactly that — your logo, name and details cut from coloured film and applied to the vehicle's own paint. It is the most cost-effective option, it looks sharp and professional, and on a white van with a strong logo it is often all that is needed.

A wrap covers the panels themselves in printed film, so you are no longer limited to the base colour of the vehicle: photographs, gradients, full-colour illustration, a complete colour change. It costs several times more and takes longer, but on a leased vehicle it also protects the paint and comes off cleanly at the end of the term. Which one is right depends on the vehicle, the budget and how much of the design depends on covering the original colour. We will price both and tell you where the extra money actually buys you something.

Yes. Chapter 8 chevron kits are fitted to the correct specification, in the right materials, with the appropriate reflective grade and the alternating fluorescent and retro-reflective pattern the standard calls for.

This is one area where cutting corners is a genuinely bad idea. Chapter 8 markings exist to make a vehicle visible when it is parked on a live carriageway at night, and a kit made from ordinary vinyl looks similar in the yard and does nothing at all in headlights. If your work takes you onto highways or into contracts that specify it, we will make sure the markings are what they are supposed to be — and we will tell you if what is already on the vehicle is not.

Yes, and we do a steady trade in exactly that. Both cut lettering and full wraps come off with controlled heat, leaving the panel clean and the original paint intact on a sound vehicle. Any adhesive residue is removed as part of the job.

It is worth booking removal before the vehicle goes back rather than after the lease company inspects it. It is also worth doing on a vehicle you are selling privately — a de-badged van in plain white sells more easily than one carrying the name of a business the buyer has nothing to do with. Give us the vehicle for a day and it goes back looking like it was never signwritten.