Vehicle wraps
Vehicle wraps in Puerto Vallarta: a guide for businesses and fleets
A wrapped van is the only advertisement you pay for once and that works every day, for free, at every traffic light in the city. Here is what to know before sending it to the shop.
A wrapped vehicle driving around Puerto Vallarta — airport to Marina Vallarta, Pitillal to downtown, Versalles to Nuevo Vallarta — passes thousands of people every week without you paying anyone extra. It is by far the best cost-to-exposure advertising a local business can buy.
It is also the job where the difference between a sign shop and someone with a printer shows most. Badly installed vinyl lifts at the edges within two months, and a badly thought-out design becomes illegible at the speed people will actually see it. This guide covers both.
The three levels of vehicle graphics
Partial graphics
Logo, phone, website and a couple of services over the original paint, usually on doors, hood and rear. It is the most common option among local businesses: it costs a fraction of a full wrap, installs fast, and comes off without damaging the paint when the vinyl is good quality.
Half wrap
Covers the lower or middle portion of the sides with a continuous graphic and leaves the rest of the body visible. It gives far more presence than partial graphics without full-wrap cost, and works very well when the vehicle color is already part of the brand.
Full wrap
The vehicle is covered completely and its factory color disappears. It is the highest-impact option and the one that allows design ideas independent of the original color. It needs more material, more installation hours and the removal of some trim so the vinyl can be tucked inside the edges, which is what makes a wrap look properly done.
Designing to be read in motion
One idea per side
This is where most vehicle graphics go wrong, and it has nothing to do with material. A vehicle graphic is not read like a flyer: it is seen by someone driving, twenty meters away, for three seconds, while the light changes. Every design decision follows from that.
- One idea per side. Who you are and what you do. Everything else is noise.
- Make the phone number big or leave it out. A number nobody can read takes up space and returns nothing.
- Contrast before gradients. Under bay sunlight, light text on a light background simply disappears.
- Watch handles, moldings and door lines. Text split by a door handle reads badly forever.
- Social handles only if that is where your customer looks for you. If you sell on WhatsApp, WhatsApp is what goes on.
- Leave room to breathe. A vehicle crammed with information reads as clutter; one with air reads as a brand.
Before printing we deliver the design mounted on the actual silhouette of your vehicle model, not a generic template, so you can see where the body lines fall.
What Puerto Vallarta weather does to vinyl
Quality vinyl with a protective laminate holds up well here for years, but it is worth knowing what it fights: direct sun for many hours a day, salt-laden humidity, heavy seasonal rain and, in many cases, a vehicle that sleeps parked outdoors near the water.
What shortens a wrap most is not weather in the abstract but three specific things: installing over paint in poor condition or recently resprayed, pressure-washing straight at the edges, and leaving the vehicle in full sun all day when shade was an option.
- Wash by hand with neutral soap; avoid direct pressure on the vinyl edges.
- No abrasive waxes or solvents over the graphics.
- Park in the shade whenever you can: it is what adds the most years to the color.
- If an edge starts lifting, deal with it early: re-seating an edge is cheap, replacing a panel is not.
Fleets: what changes with several vehicles
Wrapping five vans is not wrapping one van five times. Three things change.
- Consistency rules. The same design has to look the same across different models, and that forces rules: where the logo sits relative to the door line, what gets dropped on smaller units, how a box truck is resolved.
- Logistics matter as much as the vinyl. Almost no business can leave the whole fleet parked. We schedule by unit or in pairs so operations never stop.
- Numbering and maintenance. Fleets usually carry unit numbers, and it is worth solving that as a separate piece so one can be replaced without touching the rest.
The service page has the detail on how we handle fleets, and the portfolio shows real commercial vehicles wrapped here around the bay.
How long it takes and what the shop needs
Partial graphics usually take a day or two; a full wrap needs longer, partly because trim has to come off and go back on. On top of installation time you have to count design and printing.
From your side very little is needed, but it matters: the vehicle has to arrive clean and dry, with no recent wax, and you should mention if any panel has been resprayed, because vinyl does not bond the same way on new or poorly cured paint. If the vehicle has dents or rust, we look at them first: vinyl does not hide them, it underlines them.
Is it worth it for a small Puerto Vallarta business?
Almost always, for a very local reason: people here hire on proximity and trust. Seeing the same wrapped van several times around the neighborhood moves a business from unknown to “the one that is always around here”, which is exactly the effect any brand awareness campaign chases — except with no monthly rent.
It works even better when the wrap matches the rest of your image: the same typeface as the storefront sign, the same colors as the uniforms and the website. When it all comes from one place, your business looks considerably bigger than it is. If you want to start, send us a photo of your vehicle and your logo.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
How long does a vehicle wrap last in Puerto Vallarta?
With quality vinyl and a protective laminate, several years. Real life depends mostly on three things: the state of the paint at installation, whether the vehicle sleeps in sun or shade, and how it is washed. Hand washing and shade add years; direct pressure on the edges takes them away.
Will vinyl damage my paint?
If the vinyl is good quality and the original paint is in good condition, no: it comes off with heat and leaves clean. The risk appears on resprayed, poorly cured or already deteriorated paint, because removing the vinyl can lift paint that was badly bonded to begin with. That is why we always ask whether the vehicle has had bodywork.
Can I do just the doors and rear window?
Yes, it is the most requested option among local businesses. Logo, service and phone on the doors and rear captures most of the effect for a fraction of a full wrap.
How long do you keep my van?
Partial graphics usually one or two days; a full wrap takes longer because trim is removed and refitted. If you have a fleet, we schedule unit by unit so your operation never stops.
Do I need my logo in vector format?
It helps a lot but it is not essential. If you only have an image, we vectorize it and propose how it should look at vehicle scale, which is almost never the same proportion as on a business card.
Do you wrap motorcycles, trailers and delivery vehicles?
Yes. Motorcycles, trailers, dry boxes, delivery vans, tour buses and service units. What changes between them is how curves and edges are resolved, not the design criteria.
