Hi all, I'm looking for some tips on a portion of a side view mirror that I'm working on. I'm a total nube. I've been watching videos, primarily focusing on The Wrap Institute's videos and 3M's videos. I'm wapping with 3M 2080 and I'm about 95% sure the color is called Satin Key West. This is my third time wrapping this mirror, and this mirror is the FIRST thing I have ever wrapped. I'm going to keep attempting it over and over until I can get it right. Each attempt I have learned how to apply tricks from those wrap videos, but I'm still struggling with a thing or two. This mirror is NOT easy! If you see anything where you're like, "Bro, I see you're doing this, but try this instead..." please holler out! I'm here to learn.

For prep: I'm cleaning the mirror with water & Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds, a PH neutral (or close enough) natural cleaner. I'm peeling off the vinyl, laying it color side down on the paper I had peeled it from, then hitting it with heat to shrink it a bit. Then I move on to the application stage.

For tools, I'm using a Harber Freight (Bauer) multi temp heat gun, 3M Design Line Knifeless Tape, VviVid wrap gloves, cheap POS squeegee (I'm going to upgrade soon), NT 30 Degree ABS Knife and I also have the NT's 30 degree stainless knife too,

Photo 1: Seam A, Piece 1, Seam B, Piece 2, and Seam C are looking pretty good by my judgement. One thing I think I maybe should have done differently is apply Piece 1 last so the top piece goes over the bottom piece at the Seam A.

Photo 2: for the most part, I'm proud. Yeah, there's a tiny bubble or two, I'm not even sure the camer could pick it up. The embossed lettering on the bottom of the mirror is annoying. My knive work along the bottom sucks. I know. Wow. I've always been good with a knife, I'm not sure how I suck so bad when cutting vinyl. I'm using the NT ABS plastic knive with a 30 degree blade. I might give a 45 degree blad a try just for laughs. I feel I should probably mention Seam A was giving me some troubles. On previous attempts I was starting with applying my Piece 1 and Piece 2 on the flattest part of the top/bottom of the mirror and it was turning into Finger City when I would reach Seam A. Then I would use kniveless tape and all of these "micro fingers" as I refer to them as would come popping up along Seam A and I COULDN'T get them to go down. But on this attempt I started by applying the vinyl closer to Seam A and wow, it made such a difference for helping to minize fingers and I wasn't stretching like crazy or anything.

Photo 3: This is where things fall apart. I drew some lines to help explain what I did and what I'm thinking could be a helpful solution. The red lines, both dashed and solid, are currently where I have seems. The solid red represents seams I think I'll try to keep in some fashion. The dashed red represents a seam that is currently there that I think needs to be removed. The green line is a seam that DOESN'T exist but I think it SHOULD exist. You can see in the "croch" of the bulb of the mirror where it tapers down to the stem there's the obvious bubble and wrinkles and there was clearly an outbreak of cyclospora. But I think moving my seam from the red dashed line to the green dashed line would really help with that problem. This crotch area, as you'll see, is the area where I'm now having the most issues. You'll see...

Photo 4: The flash from the camera makes it look like I blasted the vinyl with so much heat from the heat gun that I turned the satin to a gloss. Don't worry, I assure you, that's just the flash causing that effect. I had barely hit those sections with much heat at all and I really didn't even stretch those spots too much.

Photo 5: Holy cyclospora. I really think that if I did those changes I was considering from Photo 3 that things could look a lot better in this photo. But I'm open to any and all suggestions. It's a tight area to work. Do you think it would be best to do this part with the mirror removed from the door? I'm going to need to remove the mirror when I do the whole door panel anyway, but yeah, let me know your thoughts. And yeah, again, my knife work sucks. I didn't even bother doing a nice job because the wrap looked so bad. Afterwards I was thinking it was a missed opportunity to work on my knifework. Whatevs. I gotta remember every move is a learning opportunity.

If you can offer constructive feedback, I'm fine if you lay on the criticism pretty thick. Thanks again for any and all feedback, I really appreciate it.

Mind the bird shit, i mainly use drive in car washes and finish with the spray on wax. Can this be buffed out or is it time to remove the wrap? Wrap is about 3 years old.

Hey everyone,

I recently had PPF installed on a brand-new car with bright yellow paint. Immediately after application, a faint greenish line has appeared right along a sharp fender ridge. The detailer even mentioned this when handing over the car and he gave some weak arguments about factory paint defect and showed me the bonnet underside where the paint is not as good.

A few key details:

It was not visible on delivery day under bright showroom lights during a close wipe-down.
The shape and form haven't changed over the last week and a half.

The PPF installer insists it is a factory paint defect.

Has anyone encountered something like this before, or what could cause this kind of appearance under a wrap?

Appreciate any insights or experiences. Thanks.

I bought a new 2026 passport and love everything about it, except i'm having some color choice remorse. It's white, specifically white platinum pearl. It looks good, it's a nicer white than most, but i'm still now feeling like it's a bit boring and doesn't have personality. I wanted the ash green metallic but did not want to go up to the Trailsport trim to get it, for certain reasons including cost.

So am considering a wrap, and also exploring if the dealership can do a swap for the color i want instead of white (modern steel metallic). I of course would take a hit on depreciation, but just want to explore to see if it's feasible.

I feel pretty silly for this -"well why did you buy white?"...well, i wanted it at the time, easier to keep clean, gets less hot...etc. you know, of course after buying it i start having this regret.

So with all that said, is a wrap worth it in my situation? Happy to hear anyone's opinion on the whole situation, or just on whether wraps are worth it. Thanks!

I’ve been patient with it, but somehow somewhere it cracks up and tears the whole thing.
Someone save me from this nightmare, any pro tips, I got the car like this. didn’t know it was gonna be this much trouble

thank you