How long will it take to remove this vinyl?

[Stacey K]

I think there is some kind of overspray on my customers truck and trailer so decals need to be removed. I need to quote for removal and to reinstall the decals for insurance.
I do NOT want to undercharge for the removal. I usually charge $100hr for removal and I use a torch, heat gun or the zapper wheel. I've never done an insurance quote for removal.

The trailer decals are 8' long, 2 sides of the trailer 3M180c from around 2022

Truck is 2 doors and tailgate. Those trees are going to be a nightmare. Oracal 751

 

[signheremd]

I would estimate the Truck at 3.5-4 hours and the trailer for 4 hours. Wouldn't use a zapper on the trailer, to avoid swirl marks on that aluminum, just heat or sun. If you get the truck heated up to what I can Cookies Fresh from the Oven temperature and peel from the bottom lifting upward, I think the trees will be less of an issue than you might think. You probably know but in case you don't, if you lift at a 30-45 degree angle and not 90 or 135, along with heat, little things tear less and leave less adhesive.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I don't know about everyone else, but there is a about a 0% chance I ever get an "insurance quote" converted to an actual order. I oversprayed my car on a windy day and used a clay bar to take it all off.

 

[Stacey K]

I would estimate the Truck at 3.5-4 hours and the trailer for 4 hours. Wouldn't use a zapper on the trailer, to avoid swirl marks on that aluminum, just heat or sun. If you get the truck heated up to what I can Cookies Fresh from the Oven temperature and peel from the bottom lifting upward, I think the trees will be less of an issue than you might think. You probably know but in case you don't, if you lift at a 30-45 degree angle and not 90 or 135, along with heat, little things tear less and leave less adhesive.

Good point on using the zapper on the trailer - I didn't think about that!
Did not know about the 30-45 degree angle LOL thanks for the tip!

 

[Stacey K]

I don't know about everyone else, but there is a about a 0% chance I ever get an "insurance quote" converted to an actual order. I oversprayed my car on a windy day and used a clay bar to take it all off.

I've had several for accidents but none for overspray. If you look close on the door photo it looks like some kind of clear goopy stuff. He didn't specify and I didn't ask. Maybe it's some kind of roofing overspray glue or something?

 

[JBurton]

If you look close on the door photo

I just see some troublemaker in their stroller...

I don't know about everyone else, but there is a about a 0% chance I ever get an "insurance quote" converted to an actual order

EMC struck by lightning had about 5 trips and 10k worth of parts in it, constant emails to the insurance company assuring them that this was not all of the repairs, just all the repairs to diagnose the rest of the repairs. I highly don't recommend working with Vision billboards btw.

 

[unclebun]

Who is removing the overspray? If it's a body shop wouldn't they be the ones to remove the vinyl and adhesive?

 

[Precision]

Has anyone tried "Vinyl Off" by Brothers Chemical?

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I just see some troublemaker in their stroller...

EMC struck by lightning had about 5 trips and 10k worth of parts in it, constant emails to the insurance company assuring them that this was not all of the repairs, just all the repairs to diagnose the rest of the repairs. I highly don't recommend working with Vision billboards btw.

I think I mentioned this before, but I validate sign repair bids for a national insurance company. Some people really try to get one over on their insurance company.

 

[MrDav3C]

I think I mentioned this before, but I validate sign repair bids for a national insurance company. Some people really try to get one over on their insurance company.

Perhaps this is different in the UK but vehicle insurance companies here seem to over inflate the costs of any work they do.

For example last year a typical genius decided to open his car door and hit it into my car on the rear quarter just above the rear wheel on the side of the car as I was driving past and he was rushing to get back into his car.

There was a small dent and a little scratch, nothing major but it's a nice pristine car with not a mark on it before this so had to be sorted.

I got a quote for £300 from my local body shop to have the work done independently without going through insurance but the genius didn't want to pay this and said to go through insurance so that's what we did.

The insurance company collected my car and had i for nearly 3 weeks, provided me with a hire car, replaced the rear quarter panel which was damaged, replaced the plastic trim that didn't need replacing and even replaced the tyre which was virtually brand new before this.

I dread to think how much the total bill was for this compared to the £300 that it could have been sorted for, I think this would have about covered them collecting the vehicle!

But yeah, we put a small sticker providing our contact details on the back of every commercial vehicle graphic job we complete and get a few jobs each year via various insurance companies from when vehicles have been involved in accidents etc.

The price the insurance company pays is usually more than what the end customer would pay. They are often harder to deal with, sometimes slower to pay and works are typically carried out on site so the cost goes up to reflect this.

I think I could remove the graphics on each vehicle in under 3 hours but would allow 4 on each to be on the safe side.

For graphic removal we usually provide an estimate / price bracket (£X - £Y) rather than a quote as it's sometimes hard to guage how long it will take until we have actually started. Especially if we didn't install the graphics, there are just too many unknown variables such as what the vinyl is, how old the vinyl is, how the vehicle is cleaned and even where the vehicle is parked.

We only ever use zappers or toffee wheels as a last resort, they tend to make a lot of mess and there's always a bit more risk of damaging the customers paint work.

Typically for us we would start this removal with a heat gun and a scalpel, if the vinyl is brittle or being a general pain to remove we would swap the scalpel for a plastic scraper if it's going to get the job done quicker.

 

[Jean Shimp]

Hard to estimate removal time. Maybe 6 to 8 hours? Charge by the hour. We bought a cheap steamer years ago at Home Depot for vinyl removal. It's my first option for removing vinyl. We use Rapid Remover for adhesive removal.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Perhaps this is different in the UK but vehicle insurance companies here seem to over inflate the costs of any work they do.

For example last year a typical genius decided to open his car door and hit it into my car on the rear quarter just above the rear wheel on the side of the car as I was driving past and he was rushing to get back into his car.

There was a small dent and a little scratch, nothing major but it's a nice pristine car with not a mark on it before this so had to be sorted.

I got a quote for £300 from my local body shop to have the work done independently without going through insurance but the genius didn't want to pay this and said to go through insurance so that's what we did.

The insurance company collected my car and had i for nearly 3 weeks, provided me with a hire car, replaced the rear quarter panel which was damaged, replaced the plastic trim that didn't need replacing and even replaced the tyre which was virtually brand new before this.

I dread to think how much the total bill was for this compared to the £300 that it could have been sorted for, I think this would have about covered them collecting the vehicle!

But yeah, we put a small sticker providing our contact details on the back of every commercial vehicle graphic job we complete and get a few jobs each year via various insurance companies from when vehicles have been involved in accidents etc.

The price the insurance company pays is usually more than what the end customer would pay. They are often harder to deal with, sometimes slower to pay and works are typically carried out on site so the cost goes up to reflect this.

I think I could remove the graphics on each vehicle in under 3 hours but would allow 4 on each to be on the safe side.

For graphic removal we usually provide an estimate / price bracket (£X - £Y) rather than a quote as it's sometimes hard to guage how long it will take until we have actually started. Especially if we didn't install the graphics, there are just too many unknown variables such as what the vinyl is, how old the vinyl is, how the vehicle is cleaned and even where the vehicle is parked.

We only ever use zappers or toffee wheels as a last resort, they tend to make a lot of mess and there's always a bit more risk of damaging the customers paint work.

Typically for us we would start this removal with a heat gun and a scalpel, if the vinyl is brittle or being a general pain to remove we would swap the scalpel for a plastic scraper if it's going to get the job done quicker.

I say 90% of the bids I see are on point. 5% are for more work than needed (replacing an entire cabinet because a piece of plain aluminum angle retainer is missing) and the other 5% is the customer claiming damage that was previously there, like a shredded sign face.. but when I look on Google street view you can see that face was torn 5 years ago because it's old.

 

[Glavin_ID]

We do not quote hard estimates on removals, especially if we didnt install the graphics in the first place. We always charge by the hour. We had one recently where our guys thought it was going to be a few hours and it took less that 30 minutes. Usually it's we quote two hours and it takes 6.