***Motors Chat Thread*** Round 1

conzy

colm_mcm wrote: »

You'd be able to pass him in a TDI though,

knowing that I could unleash a biblical surge of torque and complete the pass in half a second would give me the confidence to pass him on a wet windy road at night :P

andyseadog

As some of you may or may not know about me. Myself and my girlfriend a few months back set up a small auto vinyl business and lately, things are going very very good

not a shameless plug or the likes but we just finished another big order tonight and the feeling of self satisfaction is great. you wouldn't pay a mortgage with it or anything but you get the idea :pac:

Just feels like its been coming together and getting serious lately

*twas just auto related and on my mind

Osborne

andyseadog wrote: »

As some of you may or may not know about me. Myself and my girlfriend a few months back set up a small auto vinyl business and lately, things are going very very good

not a shameless plug or the likes but we just finished another big order tonight and the feeling of self satisfaction is great. you wouldn't pay a mortgage with it or anything but you get the idea :pac:

Just feels like its been coming together and getting serious lately

*twas just auto related and on my mind

Fair play to you both.

It's in times like these that we need people doing something proactive and positive in such a bad economy.

Sounds like you have just completed a substantial order therefore indicating a quality product at a fair price.

I wish you the best of luck!!

andyseadog

Thanks! feedback seems good this far for the most part. Just enjoying the whole experience really. She does the intelligent part, buying/ selling etc i'm just the monkey slave who does the practical stuff but the order numbers are growing and just on a bit of a high mood :P.

its a wonder i dont have a stickerbombed glanza :pac:

fasttalkerchat

andyseadog wrote: »

As some of you may or may not know about me. Myself and my girlfriend a few months back set up a small auto vinyl business and lately, things are going very very good

not a shameless plug or the likes but we just finished another big order tonight and the feeling of self satisfaction is great. you wouldn't pay a mortgage with it or anything but you get the idea :pac:

Just feels like its been coming together and getting serious lately

*twas just auto related and on my mind

Do you do full wraps or just the advertisement type?

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

great to see that take off well for yourself

it only takes one company to tell a friend and before you know it you can't handle the work !


best of luck.

andyseadog

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

Do you do full wraps or just the advertisement type?

oh just advertisement type. not that large scale. its a spare room operation as of yet. mostly targeted at the younger market, the "stickerbomb" style although we are able to produce much larger.

the majority this weather seems to be parts places etc buying 1/200 vinyls of "www.boardsmotorsparts.ie" to hand out with purchases for advertising i asume.

fasttalkerchat

andyseadog wrote: »

oh just advertisement type. not that large scale. its a spare room operation as of yet. mostly targeted at the younger market, the "stickerbomb" style although we are able to produce much larger.

the majority this weather seems to be parts places etc buying 1/200 vinyls of "www.boardsmotorsparts.ie" to hand out with purchases for advertising i asume.

Ah, I looked into doing the full car wraps myself. Was going to do a few then see if I could make money doing it for other people and maybe make a business out of it.
Problem is that the really high quality wrap (3M) that lasts more than 12 months is so expensive! There is a crowd in Westmeath who had just set up around that time, not sure if they're still going.
Its popular in Slovakia and there's a few videos of it being done in the US on youtube... looks great if you want to spend a few hundred euro!

andyseadog

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

Ah, I looked into doing the full car wraps myself. Was going to do a few then see if I could make money doing it for other people and maybe make a business out of it.
Problem is that the really high quality wrap (3M) that lasts more than 12 months is so expensive! There is a crowd in Westmeath who had just set up around that time, not sure if they're still going.
Its popular in Slovakia and there's a few videos of it being done in the US on youtube... looks great if you want to spend a few hundred euro!

at face value anyway the price of good vinyl does seem nuts. we were very fortunate when we were shopping around starting up we done a great deal on a big bulk buy of vinyl from another company downsizing, 5 year weatherproof. Got a lot from a place there near the Red Cow too but the name escapes me now.

its a fantastic idea wrapping whole cars but having applied asome even a meter long i can only image doing a whole car is not for the feint hearted or impatient. did you follow it up in the end?

fasttalkerchat

andyseadog wrote: »

at face value anyway the price of good vinyl does seem nuts. we were very fortunate when we were shopping around starting up we done a great deal on a big bulk buy of vinyl from another company downsizing, 5 year weatherproof. Got a lot from a place there near the Red Cow too but the name escapes me now.

its a fantastic idea wrapping whole cars but having applied asome even a meter long i can only image doing a whole car is not for the feint hearted or impatient. did you follow it up in the end?

Never did
I did a mini-business plan to help myself consider everything. The biggest issue was the level of investment needed to make it a viable business. You need to have every inch of the car spotless so you would need all of the equipment for a professional car wash and on top of that a dust free room to do the work. Then you need to buy the rolls in bulk to get anything close to a good price, but customers want choice so you need bulk amounts of each colour! You also need someone else working with you because it takes 2 or even 3 people to do the wrap (2 to hold the wrap and 1 with a heat gun and edging tool).
Away from the technical issues, financially, wrapping a car does preserve some of its value but not enough to justify the outlay so it would only be for people who like to look, not for car hire or fleet companies etc. so you're limited to private individuals.

I concluded that if I had the money to do it right and a few similar business in Ireland were willing to buy bulk wrap with me that it would be viable; but starting up by wrapping a few cars at cost price then growing into a full time business wasn't viable.

andyseadog

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

Never did
I did a mini-business plan to help myself consider everything. The biggest issue was the level of investment needed to make it a viable business. You need to have every inch of the car spotless so you would need all of the equipment for a professional car wash and on top of that a dust free room to do the work. Then you need to buy the rolls in bulk to get anything close to a good price, but customers want choice so you need bulk amounts of each colour! You also need someone else working with you because it takes 2 or even 3 people to do the wrap (2 to hold the wrap and 1 with a heat gun and edging tool).
Away from the technical issues, financially, wrapping a car does preserve some of its value but not enough to justify the outlay so it would only be for people who like to look, not for car hire or fleet companies etc. so you're limited to private individuals.

I concluded that if I had the money to do it right and a few similar business in Ireland were willing to buy bulk wrap with me that it would be viable; but starting up by wrapping a few cars at cost price then growing into a full time business wasn't viable.

Your were right in your estimations i'd say. mainly because of the prohibative cost of vinyl. even when we were setting up, between buying tools, software, plotters, printers etc, we still spent more on a good (yet limited) range of vinyl than everything else put together.

you also dont realise the "link" needed between the 3 people laying the vinyl i'd say, the way each one has to know by the feeling and reaction of the other two when he needs to push and pull etc. i know we have found this hard when laying on some vinyls that as im setting it down with a glamourous squidgee i find she sometimes loses the intuition to know when to feed it or hold it tense :pac:.

it must be very hard to run a business doing full wraps in ireland, in fact i wonder does one even exist for the amount of trade it would(n't) get. i know a lot of companies etc get vans wrapped by signage firms but any i've seen are very rough around the edges.

fasttalkerchat

andyseadog wrote: »

Your were right in your estimations i'd say. mainly because of the prohibative cost of vinyl. even when we were setting up, between buying tools, software, plotters, printers etc, we still spent more on a good (yet limited) range of vinyl than everything else put together.

you also dont realise the "link" needed between the 3 people laying the vinyl i'd say, the way each one has to know by the feeling and reaction of the other two when he needs to push and pull etc. i know we have found this hard when laying on some vinyls that as im setting it down with a glamourous squidgee i find she sometimes loses the intuition to know when to feed it or hold it tense :pac:.

it must be very hard to run a business doing full wraps in ireland, in fact i wonder does one even exist for the amount of trade it would(n't) get. i know a lot of companies etc get vans wrapped by signage firms but any i've seen are very rough around the edges.

I understand what you mean about the link, putting a bed sheet on is challenging enough for me and my other half to co-operate on sometimes :D:D

I've seen a few rough examples in real life but there are some amazing jobs being done in other parts of the world. Preparation and practice make all the difference!

Anyway, great to see you having some success with your business!

MugMugs

OSI wrote: »

80 kmh through village.. :mad::mad:

Where?

That the limit?

andyseadog

OSI wrote: »

80 kmh on perfectly clear 100km/h dual carraigeway. 80 kmh through village.. :mad::mad:

oh i know the sort. their car only has one speed, "moving" or stopped.

they hold you up on the motorway but you cant catch up with them through towns. usually in a ten year old saloon. you were hardly driving between Enniscorthy and New Ross were you :P

Ardennes1944

Just home after finishing my exam repeat, went well. Hadn't done that much study for an exam since my leaving. Hopefully now I'm on the way to a masters in computer science!

Ardennes1944

The setting up of intranets and computing systems in companies, or the area of e-commerce is very interesting also so I'd like to branch off. I don't really like coding but that is more to do with having a sh!te lecturer so hopefully that will change. I'll also be improving my German so I can get a job somewhere in Europe more easily.

Hal1

I done a CS course in '99 it was very basic by todays standards. We had a lecturer who was saying ah PC's will be done away with in another 10 years. A few of us wanted to be computer technicians. We all got jobs doing what we wanted to do after that. We were lucky to have a few old pc's and bits of hardware dot matrix printers to mess around with .

OSI

OSI wrote: »

Yeah, you see CS (well, kinda depends on the course, but most) won't give you the knowledge to do that. ........

A masters in CS defo won't anyway.

Well done on the repeat anyway Steve.

Ardennes1944

I'd be interested in anything IT related to be honest. My cousin did the course and he creates intranets and computing systems in businesses now
Anything that gets me out of the country that i find interesting will do me

Hay_man

Just wondering when you add a new petrol station to pumps.ie does it take long for them to validate the new station?

ShadowHearth

Some of you will hate me for it, but I booked my car for full valet on Saturday. I am working all week and I cannot be ****ed to do it myself.

I have a scooby family BBQ on Sunday, so car has to look Nooooiiiiice!

Nissan doctor

andyseadog wrote: »

oh just advertisement type. not that large scale. its a spare room operation as of yet. mostly targeted at the younger market, the "stickerbomb" style although we are able to produce much larger.

the majority this weather seems to be parts places etc buying 1/200 vinyls of "www.boardsmotorsparts.ie" to hand out with purchases for advertising i asume.

Fancy doing a sticker bomb/graffiti type design for an Astra bonnet?

Marcusm

Overtook a mint 1990 Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 4x4 today. Looking on the stats on the car, it must be fairly light compared to a modern saloon, 162bhp producing a 6.5 0-60 time seems speedy.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

service today, yay

new radio put in, yay

being told my front tyres will need replacing soon

CianRyan

Less safety and luxury extras so it would shed a lot of weight compared to it's modern equivalents there.
It'd say it's great to throw around a track being that light.

Nissan doctor

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

service today, yay

new radio put in, yay

being told my front tyres will need replacing soon

Maybe if they spend less time spinning faster then the car is actually moving you might not have that problem!:)

ShadowHearth

Nissan doctor wrote: »

Maybe if they spend less time spinning faster then the car is actually moving you might not have that problem!:)

OUCH!!!


*though i kind of miss a wheel spin in 4wd car. not often thought

Marcusm

Marcusm wrote: »

Overtook a mint 1990 Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 4x4 today. Looking on the stats on the car, it must be fairly light compared to a modern saloon, 162bhp producing a 6.5 0-60 time seems speedy.

162bhp?

for the turbo ones?

Big Nasty

RoverJames wrote: »

162bhp?

for the turbo ones?

Rhetorical question?

MCMLXXV

MCMLXXV wrote: »

Rhetorical question?

Well it seems looney low but I'm not sure so not exactly rhetorical.
I'd be amazed if they were that low when Opel and rover etc had 200bhp 2.0 turbo yokes back then.