For an electric truck that’s been touted as the perfect vehicle for the apocalypse, the Tesla Cybertruck is proving to be a bit of a snowflake in the real world. Since deliveries of the electric pickup started, Tesla’s flagship has been damaged by water, slippery accelerator pedals and even an angsty YouTuber. Now, the truck’s bodywork is being permanently damaged by vinyl wraps and stickers that are being stuck to its precious panels.
We already knew that the stainless steel bodywork that Tesla fits to the Cybertruck wasn’t really stainless, after trucks were delivered with rust marks picked up in transit earlier this year. Anyone who owns a “stainless” steel kitchen appliance knows that the “stainless” part is bullshit. Now, it turns out the delicate panels of the truck can be damaged by the very wraps and stickers that owners are plastering all over the trucks to protect them.
A Cybertruck owner in the U.S. took to Twitter X this week to warn his fellow Tesla owners of the issues he’s run into with stickers permanently staining his precious truck. Aaron Cash took delivery of a Cybertruck in March 2024 and immediately covered it with stickers promoting his business, reports Inside EVs.
After eight months driving around showcasing the work of A Better Theater, which apparently has ways of improving your car’s stereo, Cash decided it was time to take the stickers off his truck and give it a proper clean, as Inside EVs explains:
According to Cash’s X account, he had his business name put on his electric pickup for eight months–simple vinyl lettering on the front and rear of the EV. Yesterday, he decided to take down the lettering to try a cleaner design for his advertisement, but after removing the vinyl, the letters were still imprinted on the stainless steel body.
“Lettering was applied right after delivery 8 months ago,” Cash wrote on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum. “Removed yesterday and detailed with Windex and microfiber. Not surprising the stainless is now etched.”
Cash posted images of his attempts to clean the front of his truck on X. In the posts, the outline of the text remains clearly visible on the front of the truck, even after the stickers have been removed and numerous cleaning solutions were attempted.
Now, the Cybertruck owner says he’s turning to Bar Keepers Friend and a Scotch Brite Zero Scratch sponge as a last resort to try and get the truck looking factory fresh once again.
The cause of the staining is up for debate, but some Cybertruck owners believe it could be due to corrosion of the metal bodywork or because of oxidation of the vinyl stickers that are being applied to the stainless steel trucks, as Torque News explains:
The first is that although it’s called “stainless” steel, “stainless steel” does rust, just at a slower rate than non-stainless steel. This means the area covered by the vinyl wrap might have experienced less corrosion than the rest of the vehicle, causing the discrepancy in the finish.
Another possibility is that the chemicals in the vinyl wrap might have slowly bonded with the stainless steel, causing the blemish and discoloration.
The second possibility is more in line with the experience of other Cybertruck owners who completely wrapped their trucks and said that once they removed the vinyl, the truck looked discolored everywhere.
Either way, the degradation in the finish of these near six-figure trucks shows off just another reason why almost every other automaker out there elects to paint their cars before they leave the factory. With paint on the panels, rust in the bodywork wouldn’t be a problem and staining as a result of oxidation of the vinyl would almost be a non-issue.
We’ll file this one away with slippery gas pedals, an aversion to water and issues driving on snow as problems that almost exclusively hit Tesla’s flagship Cybertruck.
