Cheaper to paint or wrap a bus?

[the7exp]

Hello,

Is it cheaper to paint or wrap a 40 foot school bus to change the color from yellow to white?

Thanks

[dbsoundman]

My wife looked into this, you can only put a wrap on a vehicle that's totally rust-free, which even for nice southern vehicles is not usually the case. Also I think it was going to cost upwards of $8000 to wrap a 35' bus.


So I wouldn't recommend it. Take a weekend to prep, mask, and paint the bus (from what I've seen 80% of that time will be in the prepping and masking). We're planning to do ours next year, likely using a paint sprayer with Rustoleum or similar paint with an added thinner and hardening agent.

[mhaisten]

We painted our 35 food bus with Rustoleum Industrial paint. Less than $100 in total paint cost. We put it on with rollers and nobody can tell it was not sprayed.

[o1marc]

I was quoted in the $4500 range for a wrap in my area.

[Danjo]

I wouldn’t wrap it. It won’t last. All those rivets make it hard to lay down a long lasting film. If you look closely at wraps on transit buses and delivery trucks, you’ll see that often the film isn’t applied tight around the screws and rivets. Over a relatively short time the film is going to fail there.

[Rucker]

My shuttle bus was wrapped professionally when it was in it's first incarnation as a DMV bus. It took months to peel the faded and aging wrap off, and I'm still not done in places.

I doubt if it looked good when fresh, and it definitely didn't age well.