Warranty & Care

Vinyl is not paint — and even paint doesn't last forever

We are not writing this because anyone has given us a hard time. We are writing it because we would rather tell you up front what a printed graphic actually is than have that conversation for the first time three years from now, standing next to something that has gone wrong.

A wrap is printed film with a laminate over it — the whole stack is about four thousandths of an inch. For comparison: the clear coat that protects your truck's factory paint from the sun is roughly two thousandths. It was sprayed in a climate-controlled booth, baked on, and bonded to primed steel. And Ford still warrants that paint for three years or 36,000 miles, against defects only. Their warranty says, in plain words, that it does not cover “deterioration of paint, trim, and appearance items that result from use or exposure to the elements.” Nissan and most other makers write it the same way.

That is the honest frame. Good film from a good manufacturer, installed properly and looked after, is rated to do better than that — which is why we buy cast film from 3M, Avery Dennison, Arlon and Orafol instead of the cheap stuff. But nothing applied to the outside of a vehicle in North Dakota is permanent, and we would rather be straight with you about it now than be vague and sort it out later.

What Ink Spot covers

For 12 months from the day we install it — or from the day you pick it up, if you are installing it yourself — we cover our own workmanship. That means anything that went wrong because of how we printed, laminated, cut, weeded or applied your graphic:

• Edges or corners lifting where the film was applied
• Seams separating, panels misaligned, or overlaps failing
• Bubbles, wrinkles or tunneling that did not come out
• Printing defects — banding, misregistration, color that does not match the proof you approved
• Laminate applied incorrectly, or the wrong laminate used for the application
• Cut vinyl that was weeded or masked badly

Inside those 12 months, a workmanship repair costs you nothing — including our travel anywhere inside our normal service area. Call us, send a photo, and we will schedule it.

If you installed it yourself

Decals and cut vinyl we print and ship are warranted as material. If the film or print is defective, we replace it. We cannot warranty an installation we did not perform, and we cannot warranty film applied to a surface we never saw. That is not us being difficult — nearly every adhesion failure traces back to surface prep, temperature or technique at the moment of application.

What the film manufacturer covers

We do not manufacture vinyl, laminate or ink. We buy premium cast films from 3M, Avery Dennison, Arlon and Orafol, and each of them publishes its own warranty on its own product. When a material defect shows up — delamination between the film and laminate, adhesive breaking down, abnormal fading, cracking — that is a manufacturer claim, and we file it on your behalf.

Three things are worth knowing about how those warranties actually read, because they surprise people:

1. Horizontal surfaces get far less coverage than vertical ones

A hood, roof or deck lid takes sun straight down all day and runs much hotter than a door. Manufacturers price that in. 3M publishes its durations as two numbers — vertical first, non-vertical second — and where only one number appears, there is no non-vertical coverage at all. 3M counts any surface more than 15° off vertical as non-vertical. So a film rated for several years on your doors may carry one year, or nothing, on the hood.

This is not the film being fragile. Look at any ten-year-old truck in town: the hood and the roof chalk out and the clear coat lets go years before the doors show anything. Same sun, same physics — and that is factory paint. Vinyl simply arrives there sooner, because the sun does not care how much the finish cost.

2. Coverage requires a matched system

Manufacturer warranties apply to their film under their laminate, printed with an ink and printer they have qualified. Mixing one brand's film with another's laminate voids the manufacturer's coverage even if both products are excellent. We build matched systems for exactly this reason — it is one of the things you are paying for.

3. The clock starts at installation, and it covers material only

The warranty term runs from the day the graphic goes on the vehicle, not from the day the film was made. And when a claim is approved, what you receive is replacement material. No film manufacturer in this industry pays for removal, reinstallation, shop time, travel or your vehicle's downtime. That part has always been between you and your installer.

This is how durable goods are warranted generally — a water heater is a familiar example. Rheem and A.O. Smith both publish a long tank warranty alongside a much shorter labor warranty, and once that labor term expires the plumber's bill is yours even though the tank is replaced free. The HVAC trade handles it the same way, which is why extended labor coverage is sold as a separate paid plan. Our 12 months of covered labor sits at the generous end of that range.

What is and is not covered

One clarification first, because it gets stated wrongly all over the internet: damage from abuse or improper care is not covered — it does not "void your warranty." A brush car wash that scuffs your hood does not cancel coverage on a door panel that delaminates on its own. Each failure is judged on what caused it.

A note on paint

Vinyl is only as sound as what is under it. On a repaint, a panel with rust bubbling, a bedliner coating, or certain low-surface-energy plastics, film can lift through no fault of the film or the installer. If we see a surface like that we will tell you before we quote, put it on your order, and wrap it if you want it wrapped — but the adhesion on that panel is not something we can stand behind.

Care: four rules that keep a wrap alive

Almost every premature failure we are called out on comes back to one of four things. None of this is difficult, and following it is the single biggest factor in how long your graphics last.

Pressure washing limits

Each figure above is the strictest number published by any of the manufacturers whose film we use, so following this list keeps you inside all four warranties at once. Sources are linked at the bottom of this page.

If something goes wrong

Call us, or send us photos right here. Do not wait, and do not let someone else work on it first — once a graphic has been patched or partly removed by another shop, neither we nor the manufacturer can determine what failed.

What helps us move fast:

• Photos — one of the whole vehicle or sign, and one close-up of the problem area
• Where it is — which panel, and whether it is a vertical or horizontal surface
• When you first noticed it, and anything that changed around then (a new wash bay, a repaint, a fuel spill)
• Your invoice number, or roughly when the work was done

We will tell you honestly which bucket it falls in. If it is our workmanship and inside 12 months, we schedule the repair and that is the end of it. If it looks like a material defect, we file the manufacturer claim and keep you posted — those take time, and we will not pretend otherwise. If it is damage, we will say so and quote the repair.

A word about removal

Vinyl left on well past its rated life gets progressively harder to remove and can take clear coat with it. If a wrap is approaching the end of its term, talk to us about pulling it on schedule rather than waiting for it to fail. Removal priced in advance is always cheaper than removal after the adhesive has gone brittle.

Sources

We would rather show you where these numbers come from than ask you to take our word for it.

Figures on this page reflect the bulletin revisions current as of November 2026. Manufacturers revise these documents, and 3M in particular reissues its maintenance FAQ periodically. Where a current bulletin for the specific film on your vehicle differs from this page, the manufacturer's document governs the manufacturer's warranty. Our own 12-month workmanship term is ours, and it does not change.