S60R - Wrap Repair + Driving the Eastern Shore

While the winter is in full swing, it is obviously hard to get any good content out. During my drive down from NJ to NC, I noticed that I had developed a bubble under the 3M wrap on my car. I can only assume that this pocket of air was caused by water melting off my hood, entering a lifted section and then forcing its way further down into the panel.

The gap caused by "popping" the air bubble in the wrap.

To remedy this situation I wanted to take as much care as I could in with preserving the area. First I used a razor blade to "pop" the affected air pocket. Once this was done I trimmed away the damaged pieces that no longer had any adhesive left. Now, because I did not have any new vinyl on hand, I used 3M clear repair tape from Pep Boys to hold the fresh edges down so that no more damage could occour in the area.

Once I received the new wrap piece (only around $5 on Amazon) I removed the 3M tape, and cut a piece around the size that I needed (actually slightly larger to account for shrink). With the headlight off I used a heat gun to make sure that all pieces of the new patch vinyl were adhered to the body with no air underneath at all. I also made sure to cover the back under the headlight to prevent any more lift, this is in part because of the nature of putting a flat piece on a curved surface as it leaves a lifted section unless cut or significantly heated and stretched.

It has now been over a week and it seems like my fix has done a great job standing up to more snow and ice. The process took me about 10-20 minutes, and was a much better alternative than re-wrapping the front bumper! Hopefully soon I can refinish the passenger side headlight to remove the nasty scrapes that it came with when shipped from Germany (came from a D3 R Design).

Stopped at a Royal Farms somewhere on the Eastern Shore. The roads were absolutely horrible, un-plowed and covered in snowdrifts from the wind sweeping across farmland. This weather is what I think damaged my wrap.

S60R - Vinyl Wrap

As my winter break is finally wrapping up I managed to get some time to take a few shots of my new wrap! This wrap was done by iDetail here in northen New Jersey. It is a full panel off wrap using 3M Intense Gloss Blue. On top of the blue wrap, I also had the shop wrap the trim around the windows to give it more of a Polestar look. 

These shots are from the Skylands Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey which is one of my favorite sport to shoot during the summer and fall. (This was my first time visiting the park during the winter.)

For anyone wondering, the cost of this wrap was around $2700, which is a lot, but definitely worth it for a better than paint way to change the color of your car.