- [Man] Oh no!
(muffled)
- This is the worst thing I've ever done.
- $3000 professionally installed vinyl wrap.
- Versus $535 do-it-yourself Plasti Dip.
- Is more expensive more better?
- Let's find out!
(car being transformed) (upbeat music)
(tires screeching)
We bought two nearly identical Nissan 350Zs,
and we've been modifying them to be fun, daily drivers
that you can take to the track.
- One Z gets a ton of expensive parts put on it,
and the other Z gets cheap parts.
- Then we test them to see which components
are actually worth your hard earned money.
- We've done a lot of performance stuff to our Nissans
and it's time to personalize 'em a little bit.
We're changing out the outsides of the cars
as well as the outside of us
'cause now we are officially Z boys.
If you wanna change the color of your car,
you basically have three options.
Traditional paint job,
a vinyl wrap,
or Plasti Dip.
The gloss of a concourse level paint job
is straight up intoxicating.
But a perfect paint job like that
is not only incredibly expensive,
but it takes forever.
So I'm takin' the happy medium route,
I'm gonna get my car professionally vinyl wrapped.
$3000.
- I will be Plasti Dipping my car by hand.
Plasti Dip offers many of the same benefits
as vinyl wrapping, but for the fraction of the price.
It is relatively easy to do, I hope.
The only downside is,
is that it's never gonna look as dope as a real paint job,
and it's not as durable.
But more importantly, does it look $2500 better?
- I'm leaning towards a hard maybe.
- Possibly. - Probably.
- We'll see.
(smooth music)
- [James] Besides being cheaper,
Plasti Dip has some key advantages.
The application is pretty simple.
It's way faster than getting a new paint job,
or a wrap like the Hi Car.
Also, you can take it off if it turns out poorly.
But since I wasn't even there for this,
maybe Nolan can explain better the Plasti Dip process.
- [Nolan] Before spraying,
you have to thoroughly clean the car.
It's all in the prep baby.
- So, to break it down nice and simple for you,
wash prep, mask it, and Plasti Dip it.
This is definitely gonna be a process,
but I think we got it under control.
(spraying)
- [Nolan] Oh.
(music honks in surprise)
Oh, oh.
- Did that just come off? - Yeah.
(sprays)
- Areas like this are gonna be really problematic.
Looks like the previous owner tried to cover it up
with some stuff.
Even though the Plasti Dip
is a little bit thicker than paint,
this stuff is still gonna show beneath that, so.
A little bit disappointing,
but we're gonna do what we can.
- There's a fine grit all over the paint.
We're gonna get a clay bar and get the fine grit
that we can't with this cloth.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile.
- These guys know what they're doin'.
We're goin' with the full, everything package
so that the vinyl will adhere the best.
One cool thing about being a fake rich guy
is you can have other people clean your car for you.
But like my man, Puff said, "Mo' money, mo' problems."
If you're not detailing your car,
what are you supposed to do with all the time you freed up?
- Quite cloudy.
- Yeah, we could do with some more sun.
(claps) (thunder rumbles)
So we decided to go with a professional wrap job
because everything on that car is so nice,
and it's such a good driving car now
that if Zach Jobe and I tried to wrap it,
it would just be a disservice to it.
- Are you doing FaceTime? - Yeah.
Hey buddy. - How ya doin'?
- So we're clay barring the car right now.
- Wait, are they on a boat?
- Wait.
Oh (beeps) you. (laughing)
Ah, you an asshole.
Okay. - Catering?
- Oh well, the car's gotta get detailed
and we have a couple hours to kill,
so we just decided to come hang out on the boat.
- Well, we're hanging out
at this nice shop. - Oh cool, yeah.
Oh. (laughs)
- Sorry man, Coast Guard's comin' up.
(laughing) We gotta go.
- [Man] Catering?
- It's noon and they're already drinkin' beers.
You know what?
Our car's gonna look better.
Let's make it look better, (beeps) them.
(spraying air)
Well it's not a boat, but there is water.
That's not gonna make the edit.
(spraying air)
Plasti Dip and water do not mix,
so we have to make sure every drop of water
is off of this car before we start,
otherwise it'll peel immediately.
After washing and drying the car,
it's important to carefully mask off any surface
you don't want your Plasti getting dipped.
Oh man, look at that razor work.
That's nice.
That's real nice.
Meanwhile.
- Hey, hey.
Feel how smooth this is, please.
With the Hi Car nice and detailed,
it was time to take it to the wrap shop.
It looked great.
God dang that paint looks sick!
But since we decided on our episode titles
literally months ago, we still had to go through
with changing both our cars.
So when I was in high school, wrapping was not good.
But now, it is good, what happened?
- Adhesive's gotten better, materials stretching.
Everything, how it reacts to heat, all that stuff has
become a lot better.
- Yeah you used to be able to like
look at a car and be like, "Oh, that was wrap."
But now I feel like if a car's a cool color,
they'll ask like, "Is that paint?"
- Check out this sparkle.
- Check out this black.
- I love this,
oh this is gonna look so good. - I'm really into it.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile.
- Got the car in the booth.
Let's get this thing Plasti Dipped.
(zipping)
- I feel like a Beastie Boy.
So before we spray, we have to mix the proper ratio.
- No one can hear you, dude.
- So our ratio is gonna be 50%, 50%.
So we're gonna mix one up to 25,
and the other one up to the top.
And that'll give us a 50-50 ratio.
- (muffled speaking) like the guy that we got this,
I don't know.
At this time, it's worth pointing out two things.
One, we got the wrong spray gun for this job.
And two, we didn't order our Plasti Dip on time,
so we had to use some that a friend had in his garage.
It turned out to be 10 years old.
I didn't know that.
What you're about to see is not the Plasti Dip's fault.
Comin' out pretty good, so far (laughs).
We're learning this on the fly,
none of us really know how to do this.
(machine humming)
I think that's a little better.
(machine humming)
Oh.
I think this is a mistake.
First impressions, man, I dunno, it doesn't look,
I mean it's runny.
That might be on my part.
Probably is my part.
(beeps)
I feel like this is a mistake.
Even though the first coat looked a little rough,
it usually takes a few layers before it starts evening out.
At least we did a good job masking.
- We're screwed.
- [Nolan] No I still got faith man.
- Yeah, that's only the first coat.
We'll see what happens.
- It's real thick, you know? - Yeah.
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Thank you, Butcher Box.
- Back at the wrap shop, the guys were working hard.
There's varying degrees of wrap quality.
And that's not just the actual vinyl material itself,
but the install as well.
The Vaderwerks team completely disassembled Hi Car.
They wrapped all the bumpers and trim pieces individually
to ensure the best possible coverage.
This ensures that Hi Car is gonna look sick
from every angle.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile.
(machine humming)
- We're three coats in.
It looks better than it did.
(laughing in background)
- [Man] Oh my God.
- What?
(laughing in background)
- Oh, Christina's laughing, that's not good.
- As they say in body work, if the paint's (beeps) up,
just keep on paintin', baby.
At first it was hot garbage.
Now it's at mile trash.
We can get it to junk, (laughing).
Well guys, it's up to me.
I have to save this paint job.
- After two beers, one boat ride,
and some grocery store charcuterie,
it was time for the big reveal.
Oh!
Damn.
Dude, 3507!
(smooth music)
This looks really really good.
Let's go see Nolan's car.
From what I've heard,
it's not great.
(laughing)
- Oh my God.
- [Woman] Your car looks so bad.
(laughing)
- [Man] Oh no!
- Dude.
It was a team effort, man.
Don't worry, I'm not gonna
let you burn by yourself. - Team effort, bro.
- Thank you.
I'm beside myself.
This is the worst thing I've ever done.
- This car could not have looked any worse.
(paper peeling off)
That's a good line.
(paper peeling off)
- Well you could sand it down.
Right, you could like, you could sand it down.
- Paint? - Yeah.
If it was like (laughing).
Nevermind (laughing).
I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry,
it's so funny, like (laughing).
Despite how funny our ordeal was,
the Plasti Dip can actually look really good.
So we wanted to show you guys
what a well done Plasti Dip job looks like.
You know, we spent a lot of time masking,
and then I think just got too eager
and just blasted through the painting.
Having seen a Plasti Dip car that's actually done well,
I think Plasti Dip is a great option.
It just requires the research and practice
to get it done well.
I'm just thinkin' of what could have been.
But you what, there's always next time.
I'm sure we'll Plasti Dip on a future season of HiLow.
(smooth music)
- Oh, it looks a lot better than ours.
It looks amazing (laughing).
- It sure wouldn't have if we did it (laughs).
- You guys ready to go check out ours?
- Yes. - Yeah.
- [Man] C'mon in.
- No, it looks pretty good from afar, right?
It looks good from afar.
(laughing)
- We wanna show you the good side.
So if you guys wanna come on this side?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It looks a little better on this side (laughs).
- That's textural.
- Careful, don't scratch it. - Yeah, yeah.
- A little run action.
- The vinyl's what's up.
- To our credit,
there is no over spray. - No (laughs).
- [Man] True, look at the wheel wells.
- I honestly think we did a professional level masking job
on this car. - Yeah, that's,
I mean, super important,
but then you have to be able to like...
- Paint it. - Yeah.
- So.
Does more expensive mean more better?
(laughing)
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- 1000% yes.
This seems like it was the worst day of your life.
Every once in awhile, you have to be humbled.
And boy was I humbled.
If you're gonna Plasti Dip.
Definitely practice first.
When it's done well, it's pretty sweet.
And I would like to get there eventually, but man.
That was a rough day.
- On the other hand, I am pleasantly surprised
at how good the wrap job came out.
My previous opinion on wraps
were that they were sort of cheap
and not as good as paint.
Well I still think that they're not quite as good as paint.
I was really impressed with the thoroughness
that the dudes who wrapped the Hi Car went through.
I think the lesson learned from this
is find a car with nice paint and detail it.
Watching the footage back, I'm like,
"Huh, kinda miss that car bein' silver, or..."
I definitely miss your car being white.
- It's such a nice pearl, arctic white.
Eventually we're gonna peel that stuff off.
We'll keep some blue elements
because I really do like the color,
the shade of that blue.
But I'm really lookin' forward to going back
to the white color eventually.
Thank you. - Next week!
We have a very special episode.
I'm gonna get a twin turbo kit on Hi Car,
and Nolan went with a big ol' honkin'
60 trim Ebay turbo kit.
- Stay around for that one, that one's gonna be so much fun.
- We started a car club!
So many of you guys hit us up in the comments last week.
Let's keep it goin', #BoostCreeps!
We're gonna make jackets.
- Follow James on Instagram @Jamespumphrey,
follow me, @Nolanjsykes, and follow Donut @Donutmedia,
be nice?
- I love you.
- See you next time.