After learning what salt does to bare aluminium last winter I want to protect the alluminium sides and floor of my car before the gritters try to resurface the roads with salt.

I have riveted on the side panels on from the sides (for that battle ship look). What do people rekon my chances are of vinyl wrapping the sides over the rivets and it looking good, common sense kinda says it aint gonna work
I do have access to 3M sign writting vinyl through work but I feel It might not be up to the job. would comercially available vinyl be any better.

If it ends up looking like it does on our buses it will look cr#p over rivets
Sorry

will look rubbish

Sadly i can see movement, tears, trapped water, the works.

It can be done, you need a heat gun and a 1/2" paint brush, trick is to get the vinyl hot over the rivet, then seal it round with a brush, Ive not done it myself, but have watch vinyl wrappers do it, they make it look easy, but I bet its not

Cheers for the responses, I was looking at the rolls of sign writting vinyl at work thinking it would be spot on if it worked but it sounds unlikely.If it involves spending money on anything then I will go down the painting route.

Cheers for confirming though folks

If you use a 7 or 10 year vinyl it should be ok but will take some practise with the heat gun to get it right. I have done it in the past with good results (ex signmaker)

Its all in the preparation
To get longterm adhesion to the rivet area, it has to be perfectly clean.
You need to clean rivets with old toothbrush and soapy water and left to dry.
Try a test piece (the bits from work) see how it goes.
Eventually the movement of body against rivets will have some bearing on success long term.