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Writer's pictureOllie Brown

Why Must Cybertruck Owners Be Careful With Wraps And Decals?

One of the best ways to personalise practically any car on the UK market is with a high-quality wrap from a luxury car modification service provider.


Compared to changing body panels or respraying a car, a car wrap is better value, faster and more versatile, able to transform the look of a car in an almost limitless number of ways.

What makes it special is that the wrap can be peeled off later with no damage to the underlying bodywork or original finish. At least, that is true in the overwhelming majority of cases.


There are some exceptions to this rule, and perhaps the most infamous and well-known is a car that is exceptionally rare and technically illegal to drive without modifications on UK roads and a vehicle that has become infamous for a number of very strange problems.


An Unnecessary Issue And A Damaging Solution

Even before its launch, the “stainless steel” bodywork of the Tesla Cybertruck was a point of contention, either for the astonishingly unsafe design with rigid panels, sharp edges and such a significant weight profile that category B licence holders cannot even drive it legally in the UK.


However, early adopters found that the “stainless” nature of the bodywork was not exactly what it was cracked up to be, with the lack of a clear coat causing persistent orange rust marks when exposed to the elements.


This was not exactly desirable for a car that started at over £60,000 for the base model, so many owners opted for wraps and decals to try and protect the finish as much as they could, including one man who spent nearly £4000 for a wrap that looked identical to the stainless steel finish.


Naturally, this is not the only reason why people wrap their cars, and the eye-catching (for better and for worse) design has made it a popular mobile billboard amongst some small business owners.


This is all well and good, and wrapping a vehicle in brand iconography is typically a fantastic 

idea, with countless successes with taxis, buses and company cars showing it is a great, long-lasted but ultimately non-permanent solution compared to respraying, and leads to more consistent results than smaller decals.


With a normal car, or even another similar light truck such as the Hummer EV or the Ford F-150 Lightning Raptor, this is a viable option. However, with the Cybertruck, problems quickly soon emerged with the purported solution.


One owner, as reported by Inside EVs, added a vinyl wrap and stickers to his Cybertruck soon after it was delivered in March, but after eight months of driving around with the name of his business on it, he decided to take the lettering off in order to replace it with another update to the logo design.


This is where the problems began, however. Whilst the vinyl came off, the imprints of the lettering remained. Given the stainless steel bodywork, any blemishes look particularly unsightly and the owner was rather unimpressed by the issue, trying multiple cleaning techniques and solutions.


None of them ultimately removed the etching, and there is a chance that may end up being a permanent addition to his truck, making the difficult task of selling it (once the embargo lifts) even more difficult.


What has perplexed owners is the potential cause, and there are a lot of potential culprits to blame here.


The first is perhaps the owner was unlucky with a low-quality vinyl finish that happened to react to UV radiation and cause a reaction between the steel and the adhesive it used, but given that other owners reported very similar issues with discolouration, this seems unlikely.


One suggestion is that the vinyl protected the steel from corrosion, which leads to an incongruous look where certain parts of the body that were protected by a wrap look more pristine than the rest.


A final suggestion is a bonding between the chemicals in the wrap and the steel, something that took place slowly and would not typically be an issue for a conventional car due to the existence of a clear coat to bear the brunt of any potential damage.


Of course, if the Cybertruck came with a clear coat in the first place, a lot of owners would not feel the need to wrap them in the first place, and even if they did, there would be no oxidation because the clear finish would significantly slow the rate of oxidation.


For most UK car owners, however, this is unlikely to be an issue, since the Cybertruck would not receive a passing Euro NCAP safety rating without a significant redesign to the angular body.


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