Should You Paint or Wrap Your Cargo Trailer?

Many folks that buy a cargo trailer use it for a business.  With those businesses they want to advertise on the trailer with a logo, phone number, pictures, graphics, etc.  What is the best way to display your business or brand?  You have the option of wrapping, vinyl cut outs, or even paint.  We'll discuss each of these options and hopefully help you decide which is best for your trailer.

Vinyl Wrapping

A full vinyl wrap covers all the surface on a trailer. This prevents stone chip, general wear and tear, scratches and weathering unlike paint which chips away. For example if you live in an area with a lot of loose gravel on the roads, your paint will chip and scratch very easily. Having your cargo trailer wrapped would help to prevent damage to the actual paintwork with cheap and easy to replace vinyl

Once a wrap is on it is fully and easily removable. Therefore the value of the trailer isn't lowered when you go to re-sell it. Having a respray de-values the overall price of the trailer. It is also prohibitively expensive for a full respray. Having the perfect color, pattern and finish for a fraction of the cost is one major benefit of wrapping.

The vinyl does not fade in the sun unlike paint. This means if you damage a panel you can just replace that one panel rather than the cost of a full side if it was painted due to color match reasons.

Vinyl stays a lot cleaner due to the oils and waxing in the surface of the material making life easier to look good. You will find yourself washing less and admiring more!

For businesses, wrapping is a great way to advertise cheaply and extremely effectively. A full wrap for a car produced on high quality film could start from $1500 and could last 3-5 years! It isn't hard to realize the potential for great ad coverage at extremely affordable prices.

Vinyl Cut Outs

Vinyl cut outs are the same material and consistency as a full wrap but they offer much less real estate coverage.  They are great for phone numbers, website addresses, or business name and logos.  If you are looking to display your business info but don't want a full coverage then a vinyl cut out would be a great option.  Not to mention the pricing would be a fraction of a full wrap.  The one thing to be concerned with on a vinyl cut out is the installation.  Whoever installs the cut outs need to have a good system for placing the letters on straight.  There's nothing worse than a phone number or business name that is crooked on the side of your trailer.

Painting

If you want to go first class and have the time and money, then perhaps painting your trailer is the option for you.  Painting a trailer with custom graphics can be expensive and time consuming.  When considering this option be certain you get examples of previous work from the company that is paintin your trailer.  When painting your graphics, the trailer is the blank canvas and the painter is the artist.  Ask about paints that resist fading, etc.  Also, if you really like the flat look of paint but don't want to cover the full trailer, you could check into stencils.  This is kind of like the vinyl cut out option but with paint.  Stencils are good for business names, logos, phone numbers, addresses, etc.  They use negative space to allow you to paint your info on the trailer.  Again with this option you want to make sure there is a good system in place for a clean and straight paint job.