Your car’s interior trims are some of the best assets you can have when it comes to pure aesthetics, and if you want to up your car’s value, wood trims tend to be some of the best if you want your car to have that natural and classic look.
Of course, keeping your trims protected should be a priority for you as well because you don’t want your interiors to have a faded or damaged design, especially if you have wood trims.
So, can you carbon wrap vinyl wood trim?
Is it possible to wrap carbon fibre over vinyl wood trim?
Yes, you can use carbon wrap for vinyl wood trim, but that ruins the essence of your wood trims. Remember that carbon wraps will wrap the surface of the trim entirely and will hide its natural look. As such, you won’t be able to reveal the classic and natural look that your vinyl wood trims come with.
It might be important for us to make sure that our vinyl wood trims are protected, and that is where you might want to use a protective layer of wrapping on them.
That said, you can use carbon wrap on your vinyl wood trim, but we advise against doing so because it ruins the purpose of having wood trims. As such, it might be best to use wood grain vinyl wraps instead of carbon wraps.
Related:
- How To Remove Interior Car Trim? (Explained For Beginners)
- How To Clean Car Interior Plastic Trim? (Little Known Tips)
Can plastic trim be vinyl wrapped?
Your car’s interior trims are some of the most important aspects of the vehicle’s overall aesthetic value.
While the interior trims do not have a lot of practical purposes for your car, the fact is that they make the car look more appealing.
And in some cases, the trims can actually improve the overall comfort level of the driver and the passengers.
This is why, as you may have noticed, even if the specs of one vehicle are similar to another vehicle model with a higher trim level, the second vehicle is far more expensive.
The trims may only be the difference, but they already make a huge difference. As such, it might be better for you to choose a vehicle with a higher trim level if you want your car to look better inside, be more comfortable, or have a higher value when you are ready to sell it.
In relation to that, most cars that are on the lower end of the trim level have plastic trims that don’t look the most appealing.
It might be true that there are some people who would want to save money by choosing a vehicle with a lower trim level, but it is also true that plastic trims don’t really give that wow factor.
On top of the fact that they don’t look like they are the most appealing, plastic trims can end up fading due to natural causes such as sunlight exposure. This is quite normal among cars that have plastic parts both inside and outside. So, in that regard, you might end up with a vehicle that won’t be the most appealing when it tends to have plastic trims.
So, to make sure that your plastic trims are protected and are good-looking, you can actually use a vinyl wrap.
A vinyl wrap is simply a layer of wrapping that you can put on top of interior trim. What happens is that the vinyl wrap allows the interior trim to look better and may even hide the fact that it is simply made of plastic for lower trim levels.
Of course, even if you don’t care about how your car’s interior looks, you can still use the vinyl wrap to protect the plastic from the effects of UV exposure.
One of the most popular types of vinyl wrap that is used on plastic trims is carbon wrap. The reason why carbon vinyl wraps are so popular among car owners with plastic interior trims is that carbon fiber tends to be one of the high-end materials used on trims.
Essentially, by wrapping your plastic trims with carbon vinyl wrap or anything similar, they become more appealing, even though you know for a fact that they are not made of carbon fiber. And in most cases, carbon vinyl wraps come with a 3D texture that makes them look and feel so realistic.
That is why plastic trims are usually covered with carbon vinyl wraps if car owners want to make them look better.
Can you carbon wrap vinyl wood trim?
While plenty of cars have interiors that have trims that are plastic, fabric, or leather, there are still some vehicles that come with models that have vinyl wood trim as a trim level.
In most cases, cars with wood trims tend to be on the higher end of the price spectrum because of how they give the car a more rustic and natural look.
But, given the fact that there are some people who might want to protect their wood trims from the natural effects of UV exposure, can you use carbon wrap on them the same way you use carbon wrap on plastic trims?
There shouldn’t be anything preventing you from wrapping your vinyl wood trims with carbon wrap because this is entirely something that is up to your own preference. You can use any kind of wrap for your wood trims, depending on your personal preferences, and carbon wraps can be choices on your list.
However, despite the fact that this choice is entirely up to you, we do not recommend that you use carbon wrap for your wood trim precisely because they don’t match.
Wood trims tend to give your car a rustic and classic look that is different from the kind of look that carbon fiber trims and other similar types of trims give.
So, even if your reason for wanting to wrap your wood trims is to protect them from wear and tear, it still shouldn’t be a good choice to use carbon fiber wraps that don’t necessarily match the look of wood trims. In fact, wood trims look better in terms of style factor compared to carbon fiber, which mostly gives the car a more modern and sportier look.
That said, if you want to use the vinyl wrap on your wood trims, we recommend that you use wood grain vinyl wrap instead.
Wood grain vinyl wrap is similar to the wooden look that your car’s interior has. As such, you won’t be changing the car’s interior a lot if you choose to use wood grain vinyl wrap instead of carbon fiber vinyl wrap.
Then again, this is still up to your choice because there may be some people who don’t like the look of wood trims and would rather go for a more modern look instead by using carbon fiber wraps.
But we do recommend that you use wood grain vinyl wrap instead if you want to preserve the classic look that your car’s interior comes with.
How do you cover wood trim on a car?
When you want to cover wood trim on your car, the process follows the same procedure that you would follow with any kind of trim.
However, if your car has real wood for its trims instead of just artificial materials with a wooden texture, the same process should be followed, but you have to be more careful with your approach.
Here is what you need to do:
1. Remove the trims in your car’s interior
Removing your car’s interior trims shouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as you know what to do. There are different tutorials on how you can remove your car’s interior trim, but it is best to heat to soften up the adhesive on your car’s trim. However, there are also trim removal tools that you may use.
Do not use some of the sharper tools because they may end up damaging the car’s trims. That is why we recommend that you use a hairdryer when trying to soften up the trims’ adhesive. From there, you can use a trim removal tool to gently pry the trims off the car. Click here for detailed instructions on How To Remove Interior Car Trim.
2. Measure the trims
It is important that you measure the trims because you want to make sure that you wrap your trims with something that fits them.
Of course, we recommend that you measure half an inch in excess of your trims because you may want to leave some allowance.
This is also the reason why we recommend that you remove the trims first before putting the wrap on them.
3. Apply the vinyl wrap
After you have removed the trims and have measured them, cut the vinyl according to the measurements of the trims.
From there, remove the backing paper of the piece that you will be applying on a certain trim.
Lay the wrap on your workbench with the adhesive side facing up. Place the trim over the wrap and gently wrap the sides all over the trim for a snug fit.
Use a heat gun to allow the adhesive to dry, but make sure that you don’t put it on a very high heat setting because that will melt the adhesive instead of allowing it to dry up.
4. Reinstall the trim
After wrapping the trims, the next step is to reinstall them on the part where they belong.
You may want to consult your manual on this, but reinstalling them shouldn’t be too hard, as this should be quite similar to how you remove them.
Here is a great video on how to wrap carbon fiber trim on BWM
Closing thoughts
As you can see it is very easy to wrap your old trim with a new one however it requires a lot of patience. If the job is done well the end result will always come out to be amazing for a fraction of the cost.
Hope this article is helpful and you can equipped with the knowledge on how to wrap your trim.
