How can you protect your vehicle graphics this winter? If you live in the northern hemisphere and experience snow, cold, and ice there are precautions you should take to protect your vehicle graphics investment. If you live south in warmer climes, you have other vehicle graphics maintenance recommendations, but that’s another blog post. Here’s how to protect your vehicle graphics this winter.

How to Protect Your Vehicle Graphics this Winter

Don’t scrape it

Never use ice scrapers or snow shovels to remove snow and ice from the body of your vehicle. Scrapers and shovels can damage both paint and adhesive vinyl graphics. Use a soft bristle broom or cloth to remove the snow and ice.

Keep it clean

Allowing road grime mixed with snow and ice to build up may allow contaminants to seep into and stain or discolor your vehicle graphics.

“It is recommended that vehicle graphics should be cleaned on a regular basis or whenever it appears dirty. Ideally, a vehicle wrap should be cleaned every 2 weeks. Spot cleaning of surface contaminants like bugs, bird droppings, tree sap, and tar is required immediately after it appears, as it can stain and damage the PVC film. This is also true of gasoline and other fuels.” — Avery Dennison — Cleaning and Maintenance of Vehicle Wraps

Get rid of the salt

Don’t wait! Get the salt off the vehicle as soon as possible. Road salt left to its own devices causes corrosion, which can lead to all sorts of havoc. A complete cleaning should include washing the salt from beneath the vehicle before it develops into rust. Adhesive vinyl graphics don’t stick well to rust.

“Don’t let salt accumulate on your vehicle. Adhesive vinyl resists salt, but if it’s exposed to salt over long period’s damage could occur. Salt is extremely corrosive, and even vinyl protected with clear coat could eventually show signs of wear from extended exposure to salt.” — FAQ: Will Road Salt Damage my Vehicle Graphics?

Avoid build-up

Try not to let snow sit and turn into ice, which may stick to the vinyl graphics becoming difficult to remove without damaging the graphic.

Park it in the garage 

Okay, everyone doesn’t have a garage. However, even if you don’t you can maintain and protect your wrap from the winter cold by following the steps listed above. And one more thing, park your wrapped vehicle in the garage in the summer as well to protect it from the heat and harmful UV rays.

How to Protect Your Vehicle Graphics this Winter? It’s as Easy as One, Two, Three … Four

Knowing how to protect your vehicle graphics this winter doesn’t mean it will always be easy. Getting out in the cold and snow to clean and protect your vehicle isn’t always the most pleasant task. Washing a car in sub-freezing temperatures may not be your idea of fun, but protecting your investment is important. If you’d like to learn more about vehicle graphics care, go to How to care for Vinyl Vehicle Graphics, it has pointers for our warm weather friends too!

How Can We Help You? 

If you’d like fleet graphics designed to capture attention, printed on state-of-the-art equipment, and installed by expert certified installers, we’re here to help.

If you’d like further information or advice, be sure to Contact Us. 

Would you like a free estimate for your fleet or vehicle graphics? If so, you can Request A Quote.

TKO Graphix has been a national fleet and vehicle graphics company helping customers since 1985. We provide full-service graphic design, digital printing, screen printing, graphics installation, and removal of large format graphics.

We’ve been helping businesses, large and small, brand their fleet of tractor-trailers, service trucks, and company vehicles for more than 35 years.

Whether you have a fleet of thousands or a few vehicles, we are here to lead you through the vehicle branding process., large and small, brand their fleet of tractor-trailers, service trucks, and company vehicles. Whether you have a fleet of thousands or a few vehicles, we are here to lead you through the vehicle branding process.

TKO Graphix is a Certified 3M™ MCS™ Warranty graphics manufacturer. Our installation crews are 3M Certified and are employees of TKO Graphix, not sub-contractors.