Tesla owners are spending $7000 to wrap their car!

I've never looked into the cost as I've never cared but yes some (not many, probably <1/5) of the Teslas which show at my work up have "PPF". I do personally know at least two at my work who have bothered.

I'd never even heard of this being a common or semi-common practice to get "PPF" until I was active on "TMC" for awhile. Virtually nobody wraps their Bolt, Leaf or Prius (at least when I was a Prius enthusiast from 2006 to mid-2013, but I owned my 06 until end of Jan 2019). I had an 04 Nissan 350Z for awhile and I can't remember this sort of thing being common there either. And, it certainly wasn't common on 5th gen Maximas (I had an 02).

cwerdna said:

I've never looked into the cost as I've never cared but yes some (not many, probably <1/5) of the Teslas which show at my work up have "PPF". I do personally know at least two at my work who have bothered.

I'd never even heard of this being a common or semi-common practice to get "PPF" until I was active on "TMC" for awhile. Virtually nobody wraps their Bolt, Leaf or Prius (at least when I was a Prius enthusiast from 2006 to mid-2013, but I owned my 06 until end of Jan 2019). I had an 04 Nissan 350Z for awhile and I can't remember this sort of thing being common there either. And, it certainly wasn't common on 5th gen Maximas (I had an 02).

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Wraps used to be for advertising and they look cool as mobile billboard for a company. I've seen high end cars with front bumper cover and part of the hood wrapped with PPF against stone chips and I was even considering it but I never had the desire to wrap my entire car.

BoltEUV said:

Wraps used to be for advertising and they look cool as mobile billboard for a company.

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Indeed. I've known of and seen that before. Even Tony Williams did something like that for his BC2BC Mexico to Canada via Electric Highway June 12-20, 2012 - My Nissan Leaf Forum trip. You can see a video showing part of his car at . There are some older videos from him of the actual trip.

He carried a SPOT satellite beacon so we could follow along and in case he really got into trouble.

BoltEUV said:

I've seen high end cars with front bumper cover and part of the hood wrapped with PPF against stone chips

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It doesn't need to be that high end. I had a "clear bra" installed on my former '02 Maxima on the front of the hood and front bumper cover (memory foggy) as for some reason, the silver paint racked up a lot of stone chips VERY easily. I already had a few within a few months.

BoltEUV said:

and I was even considering it but I never had the desire to wrap my entire car.

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Ditto, esp. w/something that is matte. The above clear bra was clear.

BoltEUV said:

I was reluctant paying $500 for ceramic tint. I also remember feeling bad spending $2000 for a set of tires and wheels for my Bolt. When did $7000 become so trivial that people are spending it to put removable stickers on their vehicle?

Are these the same people that spend $100k on their daughter's 16th birthday?

What was the most expensive modification did you do to your car?

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Don't be a hypocrite.
You got the Premier Launch edition, meaning not the cheapest one.
Hence you spent extra to get what you wanted.


Man, if you can afford it, do it.
There were times I was like - spending more than 5k on a car is too much. Then I spent 30k on a Q5 (used). It was worth it and I could afford it.
I said buying a brand new car was stupid, yet I did it 3 times.
Now I have 4 cars, although I thought 2 is too much.

Again, my financial situation improved.
If I could afford (let's be realistic, I coudl really afford it) a 100k car, what would a 7k in PPF be? About the same what you spending on 2k wheels (comparing item cost to the car price).

cwerdna said:

I'd never even heard of this being a common or semi-common practice to get "PPF" until I was active on "TMC" for awhile

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I used to own a BMW Z3. It was very common among owners to get PPF (not wraps). FWIW, I bought a bottle of touch up paint to fix the inevitable rock chips.
It's also interesting that Aptera vehicles will not be painted. They will offer a factory wrap instead.

BoltEUV said:

I was reluctant paying $500 for ceramic tint. I also remember feeling bad spending $2000 for a set of tires and wheels for my Bolt.

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And you are posting about other peoples extravagance?!

Take the word "Tesla owners" out of the title and replace it with "People." Wrapping is all over.

PhilipD said:

Take the word "Tesla owners" out of the title and replace it with "People." Wrapping is all over.

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Correct. And Tesla owners look for the same bargains...meaning no one in the Albutquerque area is paying 7000.
More like 2000, and still very well done.

BoltEUV said:

What was the most expensive modification did you do to your car?

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$3.00 for a roll of black foam tool drawer liner to be placed on my dashboard to limit reflections

I see a lot of wrapped Teslas in the Tampa area. All colors and even iridescent wraps. I saw a hot pink one yesterday. Teslas are so common around here that you about need to wrap it so you can spot your car in a parking lot.

$250 for window tint.

I did not do any after-market modifications on my Chevys (Cruze, Volt, Bolt) - but those were all leases so I felt reluctant splurging out (though in hindsight, the window tinting would have been very useful back when we were in California, summers can be ... hot. Ditto now here in Illinois)

Planning to keep my EV6 until the powertrain warranty expires (so 10 years), so that one is getting full front PPF, ceramic tinting, and window tinting. Total is about $7k - getting full-body PPF would have been exorbitant (that alone would be over $10k) as it's a bigger car.

Funnily -- I'd not have expected it, but my detailer's Instagram has photos of them working on a full-body wrap of... a Smart car. Go figure. Though I expect it'd be way cheaper to wrap such a small car . I wonder if the owner gets a discount for being featured on their social media channels too.

PhilipD said:

Take the word "Tesla owners" out of the title

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To be fair, I hear the Tesla paint is very thin (similar issue with Kia, Hyundai) compared to those from European car makers, so they might be more interested in any additional paint protection compared to someone driving an equivalently-priced car with ... a better finish

michel-slm said:

To be fair, I hear the Tesla paint is very thin (similar issue with Kia, Hyundai) compared to those from European car makers, so they might be more interested in any additional paint protection compared to someone driving an equivalently-priced car with ... a better finish

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That could very well be true. I know nothing about Teslas except for what I read on this forum.

A good share of the Rivian owners of my acquaintance are immediately spending $6500 on a Stealth mat-finish wrap and $500 on window tint.

FWIW, Rivian partnered with Xpel to get a "factory" $4500 wrap, but those who've spent $75 - $100k don't want to be seen cheaping out, so many are upsold to the $6500 full-edge wrap

jack vines, whose Bolt has snow tires on black steel wheels

It i

cwerdna said:

I've never looked into the cost as I've never cared but yes some (not many, probably <1/5) of the Teslas which show at my work up have "PPF". I do personally know at least two at my work who have bothered.

I'd never even heard of this being a common or semi-common practice to get "PPF" until I was active on "TMC" for awhile. Virtually nobody wraps their Bolt, Leaf or Prius (at least when I was a Prius enthusiast from 2006 to mid-2013, but I owned my 06 until end of Jan 2019). I had an 04 Nissan 350Z for awhile and I can't remember this sort of thing being common there either. And, it certainly wasn't common on 5th gen Maximas (I had an 02).

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s partly because with a Tesla you have to wrap your car, TRUST me on that one. I had a model Y and in the first month there were literally tens of stone chips. Front end and rear doors at lower corners in front of rear wherl.. I PPF'd the entire front(hood, fenders, bumber, side mirrors etc then realized I needed to do rear doors as well because of the chips happening there. Tesla even sells small PPF kits to address the door issue. However, their kit is only a small patch meant for the bottom of th3 door and not the entire door like it did. I ended up spending around 2500 for that PPF

Avery said:

Since I live in Phoenix, and will be using this for frequent trips between Phoenix and San Diego/LA for work, and side rideshare hustle, I opted for a full PPF. $6,500 was well worth it since the whole front end would be full of stone chips and black is extremely easy to see any damage/chips with compared to other colors like white.

It has more or less to do with what you want your vehicle to look like dependent on your region, and usage. For me the protection has been well worth it compared to using a paint pen super frequently on it.


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That's a nice looking Bolt.