Don Nguyen

I have people always asking me how well my material holds up over time and how long does it last. Well, here is a black MkV VW GTI that I did roughly 2 - 2.5 years ago. I vinyl wrapped the center section of his grill in my matte black vinyl material. This is as exposed to road debris and wear and tear as any wrap is going to get, being on the front of the bumper. There are some nicks here and there from sharp rock chips/hits, but nothing out of the ordinary that you wouldn't expect to see on a car's front bumper that's been daily driven for the last couple of years.







-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

This white Lexus IS350 dropped by to have me vinyl wrap the roof of his car with my gloss black material. Hopefully these pictures will help out those who have carbon fiber hoods see how the gloss black vinyl roof matches/looks with a carbon hood. I thought that the gloss black vinyl roof complimented the carbon fiber hood and other carbon fiber/black accents on the car fairly well. The owner of this car was from around Cerritos and came out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to have the work done.























-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

I had this new white Mercedes Benz C class coupe come by to have me wrap his chrome/brushed aluminum window trim in my gloss black vinyl material. He wanted to go with the gloss black to match the glass panoramic roof and to also match the B pillars on the door, which were also gloss black already from the factory. I should have taken the after pictures of it outside so you guys can get a better view/look, but for some reason this time I took the pictures of the car inside. The owner of this car was from around Buena Park and drove out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to get the work done. I have a lot of guys ask me if they should go with matte or gloss black on their window trims, so hopefully this will help those of you out trying to figure what to go with.

Before




After










-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

I vinyl wrapped both the roof of this car and his window trim in my gloss black vinyl material. However, I am just going to post pictures of the roof done for now. I'll post pictures of the gloss black vinyl wrapped window trim that I also did on this car later. You can still sort of make out the gloss black window trim in the pictures, for those who were considering on doing both and weren't sure which finish to go with on the window trim with their gloss black vinyl'd roofs.











-Don

donathon@gmail.com

PCH

25 posts....I think we get the point Don.

Don Nguyen

Thanks. Good to know.

This time around, I went with a lighter shade than the usual shade that I have used in the past for when I tinted/smoked head lights/tail lights. I chose this shade to closer match a tint/shade that you would expect to see as a dealer or factory option. I basically would describe this as an OEM+ look. For those who are familiar, it's similar to the blackline tail lights that BMW offers or the Porsche tail lights that come from the factory with the clear portion tinted/smoked already. Hopefully you guys will be able to get a good idea of how this shade looks like on these tail lights from the pictures that I took. Let me know if you guys want any specific angles or more pictures and I'll see what I can do.

Left factory - Right tinted


Both tinted/smoked






Tinted/smoked - after


Tinted/smoked - before


-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Here are some pictures of a new black BMW F10 5 series that I vinyl'd the chrome window trim with my matte black material to resemble the BMW factory shadowline trim look. I had some people ask for some closer up pictures of the wrap around the edges, so here they are. Let me know if you guys have any questions or other picture requests.

















-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

I had some requests for some more eye level angles, so I mixed those in with some of the higher angle ones to help you guys better visualize what it looks like. I usually get a lot of white and black cars coming by to get vinyl work done, so it's always different when other colored cars come by to get some vinyl work done. I think this is probably the second or third yellow car that I have had come by. The owner of this car was from around Cerritos and came out to me in Anaheim Hills to get the vinyl work done. We went with the gloss black to match the lips/finish on the wheels.

















-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

How much of a difference does blacking out your chrome window trim make with gloss black vinyl wrap?

This much of a difference.







After:







-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

This is not a car that I personally worked on. This car belongs to one of my customers that installed the vinyl wrap himself for his roof. I asked him for these pictures, because this is the flat black material, which is not to be confused with the matte black that you see in all of my other pictures. I've had this flat black material for a while now, but I never had requests for it, so I never got around to using it myself.

I don't have many pictures of it, but hopefully these will be enough to sort of give you guys an idea of how it looks like on a car.







-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Here is a black BMW E90 335i that I vinyl wrapped the roof with the 3M di-noc carbon fiber material. The owner of this car was from around the LA area and drove out to me in Orange County to have the vinyl work done. I had also vinyl wrapped his window trim in matte black a while back as well. It's not very noticeable in the pictures, but the mirror caps were real carbon fiber, as a reference point for how the vinyl compares to real carbon.















-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

I always enjoy getting new cars that have just come out coming by to get vinyl work done. It's like the dealership's showroom is coming to me, instead of me going to it, haha. I had this gray/silver new Audi A7 come by to have me vinyl wrap the chrome/brushed aluminum window trim with a matte black finish, which gave it a very nice touch. Matte black was definitely a good choice over gloss black for this car and color combo imo. I wish I had taken some before pictures of this car, to show the before/after, since the chrome dominated such a large area on this car. However, I think I forgot my camera that day or it ran out of batteries. Luckily the owner of this car lived down the street from me in Irvine, so I dropped by to take these pictures and did some vinyl stuff for him at the same time.









-Don

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Here is a brand new silver Mercedes E63 sedan that I vinyl wrapped both the roof and the chrome window trim + trunk handle on the rear. For the roof, we went with a gloss black vinyl wrap finish to give it a panoramic or gloss black painted look. In addition to the roof, the side roof rails were also wrapped in gloss black, which on this car extends from the bottom of the windshield to the back of the roof. On the window trim, we went with the matte black vinyl wrap finish over the gloss black in this case, to give it a nice contrast and have it blend in with the rubber that's also around the window trim pieces. It makes the window trim pop a bit more versus just completely blending in with the windows, if that makes sense.

Before:






After:


















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

The owner of this car contacted me to see if I could wrap the fading back pillars on his black Mercedes SLK. He decided to go with the 3M di-noc carbon fiber material for this, to give it a nice contrast and at the same time hide/cover up the peeling/fading black pieces. The owner of this car was actually just up the street from me in Anaheim Hills.

Before:




After:






-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

This is the same black Mercedes SLK as above that I vinyl wrapped the pillars in the 3M di-noc carbon fiber material. I also tinted / smoked the clear portions of the tail lights on his SLK. This is my current/new shade that I am using, which is lighter than before and really gives a fairly factory look similar to BMW's black line tail lights, for those who are familiar. The owner of this car was also in Orange County/Anaheim Hills.

Before:


Left side tinted / smoked, right side untinted / unsmoked.




Tinted/smoked


Untinted/unsmoked








-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Here is a black Mercedes W204 C300 or C350, I don't remember, since it was debaged. I vinyl wrapped the chrome or brushed aluminum window trims with my gloss black vinyl material to give it that shadowline blacked out look. For this car, we went with the gloss black material over the matte black material. We did this so that the window trim would blend in with the car more, since his tail lights were tinted fairly dark (making then look like gloss black) and his wheels had some gloss black accents on it as well. I also blacked out the chrome trunk handle in the rear to complete the entire chrome blacking our look/process.

In addition to the window trim, I also did the top half portion of the side mirror blinkers in gloss black. I basically covered the reflector portion and left the actual indicator portion visible/clear.

Before:






After:


















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

I've had a few people ask me what a gloss black vinyl wrapped roof would look like on a more stock/factory looking car. I vinyl wrapped the roof of this white BMW E46 325i sedan in my gloss black vinyl material. For this particular car, if the owner of this car was to have keep this car as is, without doing too many other mods, gloss black would definitely be the correct choice over matte black or carbon fiber, etc. Those finishes would be too aggressive for the car. Don't mind the pink emblems. This car was owned by a girl. The owner of this car drove out to me from Irvine/Orange County.

Before:




After:








-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Tinted / smoked the headlights on this new white C250 Mercedes sedan with the new lighter shade of tint that I have been using. The darkness of this tint is about half of other tint shade that I used to use. This shade of tint is light enough to still allow a good amount of light through it, so that not too much light output is reduced, but it is still dark enough that it still tones down the head lights / tail lights that it is being applied to. The owner of this car came out to me from around Corona to Orange County / Anaheim Hills to get the vinyl work done. I also blacked out the chrome and the roof on this same car.

Before - Untinted/unsmoked on passenger side, tinted/smoked on driver side:


Untinted/unsmoked:


Tinted/smoked:


After:






-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Here is an imola red BMW E46 M3 that had me vinyl wrap his roof with the 3M 1080 gloss carbon fiber material. I tried to take more pictures to try and help show the differences between carbon fiber weaves in the 3M 1080 vs the 3M di-noc material. I believe the owner of this car was from San Diego and came up to me in Orange County to have the vinyl work done. The weave in the 1080 material is a lot smaller/finer, and due to the nature of the material, it comes out wavier than the dinoc material.

Before:




After:
















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Who said you couldn't modify wagons? Here is a brand new white Mercedes E63 AMG wagon that I vinyl wrapped the factory chrome or brushed aluminum window trim with my matte black vinyl material. In addition to the chrome window trim, I also blacked out the rear chrome trunk handle piece to complete the look. The owner of this car was local to me in Orange County. It made a big difference as you can see from the before/after pictures. Getting rid of the chrome made the car look a lot more solid and really pulled the car together. Completely changed the look/stance of the car in my opinion.

Before:






After:











-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Brand new alpine white BMW 550i F10 sedan, less than a week old. The owner of this car had me vinyl wrap the roof of his F10 in gloss black including the side roof rails on his car. The antenna was painted gloss jet black to match the roof. This car came out to me to from Buena Park area to Anaheim Hills/Orange County to get the work done. I think the gloss black roof really suited this bigger body car very well, especially with the black trunk spoiler and darker gunmetal wheels. The car came with the sport package factory shadowline trim from the factory already, so that match fairly well with the roof as well. You can find some more pictures of this car on the Vorsteiner site/facebook.



















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Somewhat more recently, I had this titanium silver BMW E46 330i ZHP sedan come by to have me vinyl wrap the roof of his car with the 3M di-noc matte carbon fiber vinyl material for him. I think this is the first E46 or even BMW in general that I have worked on that did not have a sunroof, which was pretty cool. As you can see in the pictures, both the side roof rails were wrapped along with the roof for this car. The owner of this car was from around the Los Angeles county and came out to me in Orange County / Anaheim Hills to get it done.

Before:




After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Again, this is the new lighter shade of tint/smoke film that I am using. This is not regular normal window tint. This material is designed to be used on the exteriors of cars. I tinted / smoked the tail lights on this darker gray gunmetal colored new E350 sedan. We decided to go with covering the entire tail light to give it a consistent finish over the whole tail light versus just tinting the clear or red section on this car. The owner of this car was from around Newport Beach area and came out to me in Anaheim Hills to get the work done. It's not often that I get non white cars, so this will help out those who have similar colored cars and were thinking about getting their tails smoked or tinted and how it'd look. I also took some pictures inside and outside, to show the differences of how the shade looks in different lighting conditions.

Before:




Driver side tinted/smoked - Passenger side untinted/unsmoked.


After:






-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

The owner of this silver F10 528i sedan drove down from norcal / San Francisco to me in Orange County to have his window trim vinyl wrapped with my gloss black vinyl. Similar to what the shadowline trim would have looked like from the BMW factory. I took more close up pictures around the edges, corners, etc this time to show you guys in more detail of how the finished product looks.

















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

Don Nguyen

Not exactly sure the name of the color of this 370z, but the color looked silver. Either way, I vinyl wrapped the roof of this car in my gloss black material. The owner drove from Los Angeles county to me in Orange County to the roof wrapped. The curves of the roof really help make the gloss black roof pop and stand out a bit more. The owner of this car plastidip his antenna in the matte black finish. So this is good for those who wanted to get gloss black roofs and wanted to plastidip their antennas. I believe plastidip has a gloss black version out now that'd probably work better.











Some of the plastidip peeled off/up a bit when installing the vinyl. Tip of advice, plastidip the antenna after the roof is wrapped, instead of plastidipping i tbeforehand.


-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com