tonight at the local club's gathering, there were three or four C5's with the CE look alike stripes. they all have the same problem. the vinyl is shrinking and this leaves an edge of adhesive or something around the edge and generally is looking bad. one of the members even has one piece that came off entirely from his roof. is this a problem with all the CE stripes or just the ones down here in texas? i know most if not all of these cars are garage kept and most probally arent driven everyday so its not like they have been left out in the sun for months, especially since teh stripes havent been on there for months yet anyway. the shrinkage is mainly noticeable on the large center portion and this causes the gap around the larger piece between that and the smaller outlining piece to be uneven and get larger etc. if you havent noticed this yet and are thinking about getting the stripes, i'd suggest looking at the ones that have been on for a few weeks and see how they arent holding up. i know i changed my mind. look good brand new but few months down the road i'd hate to think my car would look like those do or have to take them off and throw away 150 bucks or so. just my observations.

 

now you have me scared.......I am awaiting arrival of mine already

Shawn

 

First I have heard of this problem, but like you said, they have not been out that long. I would recommend the owners contact the supplier and see what is said. Hopefully it can all be straightened out.

 

Mine just arrived today & I will hold off on the install till I here what's up with this issue..... :mad

 

My OEM stripes are doing just fine. I got my Z16 in Jan. but is is garage kept with about 4K miles.

 

Thats too bad. I think I'll hold off until I see sone that have been on a while!

 

If the stripes are made from cheaper vinyl that is going to happen.

If memory serves the vinyl some of the sign shop guys are using is 3M's 220 Scotchcal which is on a high end of what is available to them.

When we produce fleet graphics and the Harley-Davidson decals we are using at a minimum is 3M's 180 series Controltac. This is 3M's high end vinyl. Controltac is the best then comes the Scotchcal line.

The 220 is like I said the high end of what the local sign shops use and there is even some lesser vinyls out there. For you guys getting the aftermarket items look at the backer of the stripes. That will tell you what it is. If it doesn't have any printing on the liner...it is more than likely the cheap crap.

 

Can this adhesive be cleaned off?? say with denatured alcohol or something??? then imediately washed and waxed, leaving a clean finish???

As long as the stripes still maintained the orginal shape, is it just the adhesive residue that is the issue???

 

Do you know what the OEM is made of?

 

I gotta tell you, My CE stripes have been on for over 6 weeks and I have had no problems. While my car is not a daily driver, it is driven often. I will admit that the sun here in New Hampster is not as strong as your burning TEXAS SUN, My stripes look as good as the day I put them on. If anything, They have improved. Is It possible that the folks having problems with them did not follow the application instructions? Is it possible that they didnt strip all the wax from the car before putting them on? To answer the other question. these are not a 3M Product, they are a top of the line Avery product. Bottom line here folks, I couldnt be happier

 

There was a thread here recently that mentioned it, and the vendor told what the problem was and how to avoid it. Now that it allegedly works, try the search feature.

 

These vinyls are high performance vinyls from the top vinyl company called Avery. If people knows vinyls, you know Avery vinyls are the most expensive vinyls so I don't sell cheap vinyls but the best one.

This is my very first time applying vinyls as well so I've used wet application to save installation fee. However, when some of y'all do wet application, y'all may have squeezed the vinyls too much so it's stretched out the vinyls so when the vinyls're dried up, it tends to go back to its orignal shape and that why you see a bit of adhesive edge. Goo gone from Home Depot should clear those up without damage any paint.
To sold this problem, do not squeeze too hard but just try to get water out of it or you can do premask which will require a professional shop.

For the C5 that has one peice completely came off because he peeled it off since when he installed, it was in a hurry to go to BG last month. So he got too much dirt underneath of the vinyls. I was suppose to deliver the vinyls for him tonite so he can install them tomorrow but I got something caught up and cannot deliver. He will pick the new vinyls up tomorrow morning.

Thanks BobsY2Kvette and TheDarkKnight for the great feedbacks. Only true users giving the true feedbacks

 

Shrinkage is the main reason I haven't done these stripes. I had vinyl stripes in the past on another Vette and I had the same problem. Over time they did tend to look pretty bad so I had them removed and painted on which is the way I'll go next time.

 

I hope we can get a concensus on what's good and what's crap before I buy.

 

mike, that makes sense about the stretching issue. thats why i brought it up, cause i wanted to know if they were shrinking from teh size they were cut at, but never thought about the shrinkage issue. yeah, i agree about bob's hurry to get his stripes on. his car weighed more with the dirt under there hahaha (just kidding bob) anyway, glad to hear its probally gonna be ok after all. hopefully once the adhesive is cleaned off the cars it will look good as new again. heck, we have thick vinyl decals on our patrol cars and after a while it starts shrinking too but that was after it was out in teh sun for years (provided they dont get new body panels from getting run into by drunks etc). anyway, mike, hope it all continues to go well with teh stripes.

 

Mine shrunk in the 2 months since I have installed them, however, they don't look bad at all - so far. I removed the visible glue residue with goo-gone as indicated in the thread earlier. My car is garaged but I use it as a daily driver to work.

 

I have Mike's CE stripes on my Z06 ( Electron Blue ) with black stripes.

I have some shrinkage on my stripes and the reason that is, is because I ran the squegee (SP) over to get rid of the water from the wet application.

Chad the shrinkage you seen on the stripes is because the three sets you seen I applied.

Mike sells top quality vinyl and STANDS behind all his products.......

The residue that you seen was from my error in the install proc. not from the stripes.

The adhesive residue comes off very easy with wax and grease remover.

The CE stripes hold the shape and are the best cosmetic mod I have done to my car.

I also replaced Bob's roof stripe today and it came out GREAT......

Chad, what's up with the loud mouth's?

When they where on my car they used to SCREAM.

They sounded muffled, are you running cats?

Darwin.

 

I haven't become a user yet. Still trying to decide if it's worth the 150 buck risk to try out MY stripes on black. I'm kinda on the fence, but only due to appearance, not quality. Just trying to help out with the little bit of knowledge I posess.

 

darwin, my foot isnt as heavy as yours is. ahha also, the newer ones have one less cat from what ive heard and since mine is a 97, thus the reason mine is quieter. the A&A mod'd system i had on my car is louder on my parents 2002 for the same reason.

 

To all who may have concerns:
The shrinkage mentioned is due to the application - not the stripes (as stated above). We all installed these together, and used a rubber "squeegee" to smooth out and pull out the water. This caused us to stretch the vinyl too hard, as the squeegee really stuck to the fresh stripe. The stripes didn't actually shrink, they simply dried down to the original size. We stretched them by pulling too hard while applying. The residue left was easily removed using 3M #08984 adhesive remover (or any other light solvent).

one of the members even has one piece that came off entirely from his roof
The roof stripe was off my car because I removed it to reapply the new one due to our mis-application. It had nothing to do with the quality of the product! (Chad - you must have forgotten that I told you this on Friday night????) Saturday morning, we successfully reapplied the two stripes on my car that had a lot of dirt under them (from being in a hurry). The new ones came out GREAT! We found that using a soft spreader (like you would use for body filler or spackling) got the water out and smoothed out the stripe real easy without "tugging" at it as before. This seems to be the easiest way to apply them?

I would recommend these stripes to anyone interested. They REALLY make your car stand out, and add a nice "O.E." type look while differentiating it!