after getting wrapped, issues galore

Sorry I can't add any value to your problems but satin white is one of my favorite wraps and I've seen it on another California and it looked amazing. Can't wait to see pics!

 

the normal car reaction to white wrap. The obstacle is the wrap.

 

It's the battery. It's not effective to guess at the state of charge by verifying that "everything seems to operate fine". Your car sensors obviously are not operating fine. Some circuits are more sensitive to voltage/amperage deficiencies.

Use a voltmeter to check the voltage of the battery. You can also do a load test on the battery if you are familiar with the procedure. If it's 12.2V or less, you have a problem. It should read 12.4V or higher. After checking the voltage, plug in your battery tender and keep it on for at least 12 hours. Then check the voltage again. The battery tender supplied by the factory is marginal and only meant to keep the battery topped-up, not recharge it from a discharged state. OTOH, a heavy-duty CTEK battery charger is cheaper than a trip to the garage.

 

Try holding the unlock button and the trunk open button at the same time for 5s.

SV

 

Sorry. Just realized the trunk likely still works. Have you tried a full reset by removing the battery power?

SV

 

Did they wrap the backup sensors? The top mechanism uses the backup sensors to see if anything is close enough for the rear moving deck lid to hit. When I picked up my first Cali in 2010 I set my camera bag just behind the rear of the car and it refused to put the top down, all was well after moving the bag.

 

When the top goes down, the trunk of the car tilts backward, so the parking sensor checks to make sure there is not something there that the trunk could hit -- like another car, pedestrian, etc. If they covered the parking sensors with the wrap, there's your problem. They should cut them out and it should work again.

The other stuff is likely the battery ... keeping it on the charger is a good idea if you're not driving it constantly. And making sure you wait the few seconds till the check lights tick off before hitting the start button, because that will cause all kinds of failure warnings that are not really failures.

*edit* Dang, Rick, beat me to it : )

 

And I only put mine on the charger if I'm for some stupid reason not driving it after two weeks of sitting or know it will be more than two weeks. The Cali T gets more driving in the summer but like today even though it is warm out the FF was the way to go ... had to get my V12 sound fix .

 

Bryan, I'm glad you sorted out your problems. I'm not sure covering the sensors caused the spurious warning messages but it does appear to have caused the roof obstacle warning, which incidentally was NOT spurious at all in retrospect.

I just checked my car and my clear wrap is cut around the sensors and does not cover them. You might question the expertise of the folks who wrapped your car. And perhaps you should verify whether 3M does indeed say you can wrap over the sensors because it appears not to be true in your case. This would also be an issue if your wrap is dramatically different in colour from the paintjob underneath as you would have to live with sensors in contrasting colour.

As for the use of battery tenders, it actually does not matter if you drive the car every day or if you hook up the battery tender every day. What matters is the original state of charge of the battery BEFORE you started using the battery tender and how hard and long you drive the car BETWEEN engine restarts. The cheapo chargers that come with our cars cannot recharge a depleted battery (which can still start the engine... a couple of times before quitting) and driving our cars everyday can and will actually kill the battery if we are just running short trips.

 

Hey Bryan - the concept of wrapping is new to me. What is the point of wrapping and what kind of cost did it entail? I too have a 2010 California.

 

be careful with stone chips on the parking sensors, can cause all sorts of the same bizarre electrical issues

and if there is any question the battery is an issue, just replace it -- cheap insurance in the grand scheme of things

 

I had my car wrapped a few months ago and I also had a bunch of problems to the point where the guys who wrapped my car left me with a bunch of roof issues.....

Funny thing is that i also wrapped the car satin white....

 

yeah funny isnt it

 

As I indicated earlier, the sensors on my wrapped car were not covered over by the wrap and my car has not experienced any sensor faults. Here's a photo of a front sensor on my car. I apologize for the bug strikes and dirt but I'm doing a final long drive tomorrow probably in the rain before putting my car away for the season.

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You can see clearly, the vinyl was trimmed around the sensor. Since I was just wrapping in clear vinyl and not changing the colour, the installer didn't bother to wrap the sensor itself. However, when a car is wrapped in a different colour, the sensor needs to be removed and individually wrapped, as shown in this sequence of photos showing a very-well-executed wrap of a BMW in the UK.

This type of sensor uses ultrasonic sound emissions to gauge distances to objects; in a manner like sonar echoing. Notice also that there is a rubber grommet separating the sensor from the bumper. When the sensor is operating, it actually vibrates. So I am wondering if the wrap accidentally covers both the sensor and the bumper, whether the wrap may be inadvertently transmitting vibrations to the bumper... which then immediately "echoes" back to the (adjacent) sensor causing the sensor to believe there is an obstacle immediately next to the sensor.

The sensors must be effectively insulated from the bumper or else the sensors will detect the bumper and think it's a very close obstacle.

If I were you I would complain to the people who wrapped your car. They either did not bother to protect you from this problem or maybe they were simply amateurs and ignorant.

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Looks great. Love satin white with black roof.

 

Your wrapped Cali looks great Bryan. I should do that with mine sometime.

Curious that your installers didn't do the sensors properly as the rest of the wrap looks really good. Perhaps you might shop around next time and ask the installers how they handle the sensors, AFTER they give you a quote.

Enjoy!

 

If you don't mind me asking, where are you located and where did you get your car wrapped? I got mine wrapped in satin white as well, but am having so many problems with bubbles. They just did not do a great job, and this place was recommended by my Ferrari dealer.

 

Very cool wrap...what was the original color?