Roof wrapping is obviously literally meaning wrapping your roof -or... applying a giant sticker to it if you like. Like other sections of car wrapping, this helps to protect the vehicle paintwork at the top of your car. If you have tried everything but not roof wrapping yet, here are some other reasons why you should do it: It has a wide range selection of different colors to choose from; it is totally removable; and more importantly, it costs you a lot less than painting. Now, although it might sound much simpler than wrapping other parts of a vehicle, there are a lot of things you need to pay attention when you do roof wrapping.
Cleaning
Even if you are only going to wrap your roof, you need to pay as much attention to its cleaning process as you would to a whole vehicle wrapping one. Use warm soapy water to clean up the top thoroughly, remove any dirt, mud, wax or any road deposits - as we keep saying, vinyl film is not fond of those. So try not to give yourself a hard time by overlooking this step. If you used to have an old wrap on it, make sure you remove all the old glue up there, too. And pay extra attention to the recessed areas on the roof.
Measuring and planning
For roof installation, you will need ladders or folding platforms. The reason why I use plural here is because we recommend you using two ladders on each side. And in this way you will not have to constantly move your ladder around. Then you need to find out the center of your roof by looking at the side referencing points, and measure up the center deck width. After you have put the wrap up there, before doing the actual application, walk around and check the overall, make sure your film has covered the top from left to right and front to back. This is very important, because for top wrapping, you can’t just apply it first, then step back, and see how it works. So make sure the position is right at the first beginning - especially when you are doing it by yourself. If there’s graphics on your wrap, you might also want to check if the direction goes right.
Installation
You might have seen I use the sentece “especially when you are doing it by yourself” above. What I am implying is that only one person doing a roof wrapping might be a lot more challenging than two people doing it. In fact it will be much easier when you have another person who can co-work with you on this. It is pretty straight forward, saves you a lot of time (nearly 60% of the time as you would do it by your own). And the good things about two people doing it are that... When you have one person standing on the driver side and the other on the passenger’s, it will be so much easier for you when you need to pull back up the film for a bit. Also you can both squeegee the two sides at the same time. So it is much more efficient.
But when you have no choice and need to work on your own, you might want to start from the back - around 30cm towards the back, because you will not want to pull so much backpaper off, so only release the rear backpaper first -release one side of it, then get off the ladder and go to the other side, do the other half - this is probably the annoying thing about working by yourself, because you always need to do one side, then stop, and go to the other’s. But here is a trick for you that can help you a little bit: when you pull over the rear backpaper, try to leave extra and fold it underneath. In this way it will be pretty easy for you to pick the paper back up -this will especially help you a lot when you have to release the whole backpaper. But if you did not take time to do it, it is going to be a little time consuming for you to finish the whole thing.
When you squeegee your film, work from the center to the outside, especially when there are some recessed areas. Always handle those areas first, because you will want as much material in the recessed areas as possible. Again, you get half of the side done, and then you walk to the other side and finish the rest. When there is a groove in the recessed area, you pick the material up and feed it into the groove so that you can get an even cut when it needs. While you doing your cutting at the edge, try do get it done in one shot. You can shift if it needs, shift your ladder or whatever, but try to minimize your movement as much as possible. And after all things are settled, do not forget to post heat your wrap.
Aftercare
Roof wrap is not much different from other parts of wraps on your car. It needs as much aftercare indeed. Make sure you clean it regularly with a soft clean non-abrasive sponge and warm soapy water. We have written an article about general proper washing for car wraps before, so as we mentioned, it is not recommended to use automated carwashes, as these are usually with harsh brush that will very possible damage your film.
