**Don Nguyen | Vinyl roof wrapping, tail light tinting, black out chrome trim install
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
This specific car is not the typical case of a car coming in with chrome/brushed aluminum trim and wanting me to black out their trim with my vinyl materials. The owner of this BMW E30 M3 brought his car in to have me vinyl wrap the previously painted gloss black trim with my matte black vinyl. I know it may be a bit hard to tell, but if you look at the pictures side by side or back to back it may be easier to notice the differences between how matte black trim vs gloss black trim looks like on a car.
This is also good for those who have asked me in the past how well vinyl will cover up bumps/dents/etc. As you may see in some of the pictures, whoever did the paint job on the trim did not do that good of a job, which left the trim a bit lumpy/uneven. If you can’t see or make it out in the pictures, any imperfections that are underneath the vinyl will show through, as the material is fairly thin and basically takes on the shape of the surface/pieces that they are being applied on over.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
This is also good for those who have asked me in the past how well vinyl will cover up bumps/dents/etc. As you may see in some of the pictures, whoever did the paint job on the trim did not do that good of a job, which left the trim a bit lumpy/uneven. If you can’t see or make it out in the pictures, any imperfections that are underneath the vinyl will show through, as the material is fairly thin and basically takes on the shape of the surface/pieces that they are being applied on over.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
The owner of this white Nissan 350z brought me his car to have me vinyl wrap the roof of the car in my gloss black vinyl material. In addition to the roof, I also did his two side vertical pillars with the 3M dinoc matte carbon fiber vinyl material. I believe the owner of this car was from around Long beach and drove his car out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange county to get the work done. The gloss black, especially on the 350zs or similar smaller two seater cars, the gloss black roof connects and continues the front and rear glass fairly nicely.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
I feel like sometime the only cars I do are BMWs, then I go on a stretch not doing any BMWs for a while. Either way, the owner of this silver E46 BMW M3 brought his car in to have me vinyl wrap the roof of his car in my gloss black vinyl material. It was also a nice change of pace to have a non-white colored car come in for some vinyl work done. The owner of this car drove his car to my shop in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to have the work done. I think the gloss black roof on the silver really contrasts and compliments it fairly well.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
I always do enjoy having modified cars come by to have work done on their cars. The owner of this carbon black BMW E39 M5 came by to have me apply my light tint material to his whole tail light. This is the same material/shade that you see me using in all of my previous pictures of tinted tail lights. It may appear slightly lighter on this specific car, but that’s because on darker colored cars (IE black, dark grey, etc) the contrast between the tint shade and the car is not as big, so it’ll appear lighter than it does on lighter colored cars (IE white, silver, etc). He drove out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to have the vinyl work done.
Before:
Left/driver side tinted - Right/passenger side stock:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
Left/driver side tinted - Right/passenger side stock:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
I always take requests, if anyone is trying to look for a specific example of my vinyl work on a certain type of color or car. In this case, I had someone ask me if I could post pictures of blacked out window trim on a red colored car. The owner of this red Audi S5 had me black out his chrome/brushed aluminum window trim with my matte black vinyl material. I believe the owner of this car was from Los Angeles and drove out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to have the work done. I think the matte black provides a nice contrast with the bright color of the car, but I think gloss black would have looked just equally as good in this case.
Before:
After:
Note: The bump that can be seen on the top rear quarter window trim piece is a factory bump/seam and not due to any installation reasons/issues.
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
Note: The bump that can be seen on the top rear quarter window trim piece is a factory bump/seam and not due to any installation reasons/issues.
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
This picture set is a lot shorter than what I normally post, but I get a lot of requests for pictures of carbon fiber wrapped front lips. The owner of this white Mercedes CLA sedan came by to have me wrap the back 1/3rd of his roof in gloss black, to complete the panoramic look of his car. In addition to the roof, he also had me wrap the front lip of his car int he 3M 1080 gloss carbon fiber vinyl material. Due to the size of his front lip, I had to do it in three different pieces/sections. I decided to make two seam lines that lined up/matched two edges of the bumper’s lower grill. Unfortunately, due to how late it was when the owner of this car came, it became dark very quick and it was hard to photograph pictures of the car once it was done with the lighting that was available inside. The owner of this car drove to me in Orange county/Anaheim Hills from Los Angeles to have the work done.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
For this white Audi A6 sedan, I vinyl wrapped the roof in my gloss black vinyl material and also lightly smoked/tinted the tail lights of his car. I liked the way this turned out, because the changes with the gloss black roof and lightly tinted tails really gave the car a different look without making it look too modified. If you didn’t know or didn’t look very closely, most would probably have thought it came from the factory like this. The owner of this car brought his car out to me in Anaheim hills/Orange county to have the vinyl work done.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
I know the before/after differences may not show up well in the pictures, but for those who own these cars and are familiar with it, I am sure you can see/notice the differences. The owner of this white Lexus IS250 brought in his car to have me apply a clear red transparent film over the orange amber portion of his tail lights. This gives the tail lights a nice consistent red tone/finish to the entire tail light, without having the random orange amber break up the tail light’s lines. In addition to the tails, I also applied a clear transparent yellow film to his head lights. I typically use the yellow for fog lights, but I have had quite a few requests for the yellow to be applied on head lights in the past and lately.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
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Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
The owner of this new jet black Lexus IS250 sedan had me vinyl wrap the chrome/brushed aluminum window trim. The blacked out trim makes a huge difference on dark colored cars, as you can see in the pictures below. For this car, we went with the gloss black vinyl finish for the material, to have the window trim of the car blend in with the black paint on the car. The owner of this car drove out to me in Anaheim Hills/Orange County to have the work done.
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Thread Starter
Former Vendor
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,151
Likes: 7
The owner of this car was from out of state and brought in his car to me in Orange County/Anaheim Hills to get some vinyl work done on it. He had me vinyl wrap the roof in the 3M dinoc matte carbon fiber finish and also had me light smoke/tint his rear tail lights on his white BMW 128i coupe. The owner of this car was trying to replicate the look that the M3 E92 coupes have on roofs stock carbon fiber from the factory. This is as close as you’re going to get to that effect/look without actually changing out the entire roof.
Before:
During: Driver/left side tinted/smoked - passenger/right side stock
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com
Before:
During: Driver/left side tinted/smoked - passenger/right side stock
After:
-Don Nguyen
donathon@gmail.com