Ambient Graphics

I just had an order completed of color transfers (rubdowns). They are organized and are one of the only places offering these services that has a functioning website with an FTP site to drop your files. I’m used to having to show up in person at some hole in the wall place with flats.
Anyway, the cost of rubdowns here is very very high by industry standards. You really pay a premium to be able to get things quickly. The quality is good and they only glue the back of the letters so it’s easy to get a clean rubdown. I had a hard time transferring to a cold press paper, these rubdowns seem to need a lot more pressure applied to them than what I’m used to. This is something I’d consider for a last minute job but will stick to my local vendors when I can as it’s hard to justify the cost.

I got my car wrapped by them on June 19^th of 2008. I asked about care instructions and they said I needed to hand wash it from time to time, but that was it and it should last 3 years. They also told me the wrap would protect the paint of my car. About 6 months later I started to get a weird yellowish tint on the white parts of my car and went to get it washed a couple of times hoping it would go away. It didn’t. About a month later, the yellowish coloring turned into a thick orange, rust-​like film. It was so gross and it looked as though it was going to spread.
I contacted Ambient and they first said they had never heard of this. I told them I would send a picture and I did. Once they got it, they came back and said oh, its acid rain and there is nothing I can do about it but they wanted me to bring it in to see if rubbing alcohol would take it off. They also suggested that I keep my car covered. Wow… I do have a garage, so it had only been rained on a couple of times.
I brought it in, and the owner was there… their immediate reaction was «wow». The owner proceeded to tell me that he isn’t one of those owners that will say «oh, this has never happened before.» He told me he has seen this time to time and couldn’t figure it out. He also stated an example of a blue wrap they did and instead of it looking rust like, it was purple bacteria. He then told me they did receive a warning memo in July about California weather affecting their wraps and gave care instructions. They never contacted me.
Instead of them taking care of the problem… they want to charge me $ 1200 to fix it. I was livid. Maybe if they would have warned me I wouldn’t have gotten the wrap as it was $ 3000. OR, if they would’ve contacted me to let me know how to take care of it, I could’ve done so to have avoided this.
I took my car into a certified car wrap place to get their opinion and they were shocked to hear not only did I have this on my car less than a year, but the condition that it was in. They said they hadn’t seen anything like this (their cars have been wrapped for years and they even admitted they don’t wash them as much as they should — and I do!!) and even got their cameras out to take pictures. Obviously the wraps Ambient uses are not suitable for California. They told me I need to get it off as the bacteria is probably ruining the paint of my car.
Ambient will not rewrap my car and they won’t give me my refund. Going into this, I thought this was going to be a great investment for several years as they stated. I am so pissed off. Don’t go there…

I always look for businesses that do large format printing. I think its cool that they do vehicle wraps. If you need in store graphics, this is the place. They do color transfers and hand comps. We needed a portable signage system so we used them for an event display at a conference because they have experience with exhibits/​trade shows.