3M™ Cooling Film Installation in Hollywood, FL
The roof is the hottest panel on your vehicle, the one nobody wraps, and the one you have never been able to do anything about. That just changed.
3M rates its new Cooling Film at over 85% solar reflectivity and 91% thermal emissivity, with cabin temperatures up to 10°F cooler — using no power, no wiring, and nothing that can break.
Your Fleet Has a Heat Problem, and It Is On Top
Think about how a commercial vehicle actually spends its day in Broward County. It faces a different direction every hour. It parks wherever there is room, which is never the shade. Its sides catch the sun at an angle for part of the day and none of it for the rest. But the roof — the roof faces straight up at a sun that is almost directly overhead for the hottest six hours of every single day, twelve months a year. There is no season down here where that stops.
And the roof is the one panel that gets no attention at all. Every dollar of a fleet graphics budget goes to the sides and the rear, because that is where the phone number goes and that is what customers see. The top is bare metal or bare composite, absorbing everything, all day, and radiating it down into whatever is underneath: the driver, the passengers, or the cargo you are being paid to deliver in the condition it left in.
Until now the only answers were the expensive ones — bigger HVAC, more idling, a reefer unit working harder, or just accepting it. 3M™ Cooling Film is a different kind of answer: a film you apply once to the surface causing the problem, that then works every daylight hour for years without being plugged into anything.
No off-season
South Florida solar load runs all twelve months. A passive roof film works every daylight hour the vehicle exists — including every hour it is parked and nobody is paying attention.
Nothing to break
No wiring, no compressor, no controller, no sensor, no software. The failure mode of a passive film is that it eventually needs replacing. That is the whole list.
Your branding is untouched
This lives on the roof. Sides and rear stay exactly as designed — same livery, same colors, same phone number, same everything the street sees.
Reflect the Sun. Then Throw the Rest Back at the Sky.
Most people assume a cooling film is just white paint in roll form. It is not, and the difference is the entire product. Cooling film does two separate jobs, and the second one is the one you have never had access to before.
01
It reflects what arrives
3M rates the film at over 85% solar reflectivity. Most of the energy hitting your roof never gets absorbed in the first place — it bounces. This part a good white surface does reasonably well, and it is the half people expect.
02
It radiates what it absorbs
3M rates thermal emissivity at 91%. The heat that does get absorbed is re-emitted as infrared and shed back toward the sky rather than conducted down through the panel. This is the half ordinary white vinyl does poorly, and it is why this film is engineered rather than merely light-colored.
Together, those two mechanisms are what the industry calls passive radiative cooling — the surface sheds heat on its own, with no energy input, for as long as it is installed. There is no controller, no duty cycle, and no efficiency curve that degrades with use. It is doing its job at 2pm on a Tuesday in August in a parking lot with nobody there.
3M's published outcome for a fleet vehicle is an interior up to 10°F cooler. Our honest gloss on that: treat 10°F as the manufacturer's ceiling figure and your own vehicle as the real test. What the physics guarantees is a direction — less heat in, more heat out — not a specific number on your dash.
What 3M Publishes About the Film
Every figure below is 3M's, taken from their product literature and their September 2, 2026 launch announcement. None of it is a Wrap Trap measurement, and we will never present it as one. When we have our own numbers from real South Florida installs, we will publish those separately and say plainly which is which.
Solar reflectivity
Over 85%
Share of incoming solar radiation bounced off the roof instead of absorbed into it.
Thermal emissivity
91%
How efficiently the film radiates absorbed heat back out — the half of the trick plain white paint does not do well.
Cabin temperature
Up to 10°F cooler
3M's published interior figure. Real-world result depends on the vehicle, the roof area, and the day.
Thickness
6.6 mil
Substantially thicker than print vinyl — this is a durable exterior film, not a graphic.
Widths
48 in and 60 in
Wide enough to cover most van and box-truck roofs with minimal seaming.
Power required
None. Ever.
Fully passive. No wiring, no compressor, no controller, no maintenance schedule, nothing to fail.
Expected performance life
7 years
3M's stated expected life. Listed by 3M as expected performance, not as a warranty term.
Manufacturer warranty
5-year 3M™ MCS™
3M's own warranty program, with 3M's own conditions. See the warranty question in the FAQ below — we do not oversell this.
3M™, MCS™, Comply™ and Controltac™ are trademarks of 3M. Wrap Trap is an independent installation shop and is not a certified or authorized installer of any film brand — we say so on every page where it could matter.
If It Has a Flat Top and Bakes All Day, It Qualifies
3M built this for transportation and equipment surfaces, and the application list is broader than most people assume. The film is flexible enough to conform to curves, corrugations and rivets, so a ribbed trailer roof is as viable as a smooth van roof.
Last-mile delivery vans & box trucks
Named by 3M as a launch application. The roof is the largest uninterrupted surface on the vehicle, it faces straight up, and it is the one panel no livery design ever uses. On a Broward route with sixty stops a day, the driver opens that box into whatever the roof has been building since 9am.
Refrigerated trailers & TRU box bodies
Also named by 3M at launch. Heat entering through the roof is load the refrigeration unit has to remove. Less intrusion means less cooling demand and less heat exposure for temperature-sensitive freight — 3M's framing, and a sane one.
Transit buses & passenger rail
3M calls out passenger rail vehicles specifically. Same physics on any people-carrying box: a cooler roof means the HVAC starts its day from a lower number instead of fighting a heat-soaked ceiling.
RVs, food trucks & mobile units
3M lists recreational vehicles among the target surfaces. Anything that parks in the sun and then asks a small AC unit or generator to fix the difference is a candidate — food trucks and mobile service units included.
Refrigeration units, electrical boxes & mobile energy
3M's application list runs past vehicles entirely. If it is a horizontal surface in the sun with heat-sensitive equipment underneath, the film does not care whether it has wheels.
Work trucks that store anything in the back
Not on 3M's list, but the same problem: adhesives, coatings, medications, electronics, produce, tools with plastic housings. If the cargo has a temperature it dislikes, the roof is where that temperature comes from.
This Is Not Window Tint. Different Film, Different Surface.
Worth saying plainly, because "heat rejection film" means two completely different products depending on who is talking. Cooling film is opaque, white, and lives on the roof. Window film is transparent, tinted or clear, and lives on glass. They fight the same enemy from opposite directions, and neither one substitutes for the other.
Cooling film (this page)
- ✓Goes on the roof — opaque white
- ✓Blocks heat entering through the largest sun-facing panel
- ✓Nothing to do with visible light through your glass
- ✓No Florida tint statute involvement whatsoever
- ✓Fleet, reefer, RV, bus, rail and equipment surfaces
Window film (different pages)
- ✓Goes on glass — transparent
- ✓Blocks heat and glare entering through the windows
- ✓Regulated by Florida VLT limits on vehicles
- ✓Also does privacy, fading and security work
- ✓Cars, storefronts, offices and building glass
On a delivery van that lives outside, the honest answer is often both: cooling film on the roof, tint on the glass. Looking for glass instead? Automotive window tint and Florida's legal limits → or commercial window film for your building →
We Measure the Roof, Then We Give You a Number
We are not going to publish a price range on this page. A sprinter roof and a 53-foot trailer roof are not the same job in any respect, and a range wide enough to cover both would be useless to you. Here is exactly what we are pricing when you call — so you can see the quote coming instead of receiving it.
Roof square footage
The dominant factor. Film is sold by the foot in 48-inch and 60-inch widths, and roof area is what determines how much of it your vehicle drinks.
Obstructions to cut around
Vents, AC units, roof hatches, antennas, skylights, solar panels, cargo tie-downs. Each one is a hand-cut detail. A clean roof and a cluttered roof are different labor days.
Surface prep required
Film bonds to a sound, clean surface. Oxidized paint, old adhesive residue, existing graphics or a failing coating all have to be dealt with first, and we tell you that at the measure — not after.
Fleet quantity and scheduling
Ten roofs booked as a block is meaningfully more efficient than ten separate visits. Volume changes the number and so does letting us sequence the work around your routes.
Start with one vehicle. Seriously.
This product launched in September 2026. If you run a fleet, the smart way to buy it is a single unit first — install it, run it through a South Florida week, and measure the difference on equipment you already know the baseline for. Then scale it, or do not. Any shop pushing you to do forty roofs on a manufacturer spec sheet is selling harder than the evidence currently supports, and we would rather tell you that than be that shop.
Measure. Prep. Lay It Down. Back On Route.
Cooling film is a dry application using 3M's pressure-activated adhesive with non-visible air-release channels — it slides, tacks, repositions and snaps up instead of fighting the installer, and it conforms over corrugation and rivets rather than tenting on them. That is the material doing us a favor, and it is why 3M frames this as a quick professional install.
01
Free roof measure
We get up on the roof — or walk the yard, if it is a fleet — measure the usable area, count the obstructions, and check the surface condition. You get a firm quote on an exact scope. No obligation.
02
Prep and scope sign-off
We tell you what the surface needs before film touches it, in writing, along with which warranty terms are 3M's and which are ours. Nothing about the coverage is left for you to discover later.
03
Scheduled install
Fleet work runs in planned blocks so you never lose more of the road than you agreed to. One vehicle or a sequenced batch — we build the schedule around your routes.
Aftercare is short: wash the roof. 3M recommends cleaning it at least quarterly for peak performance, which is simple physics — a reflective surface covered in road film stops being reflective. Add it to the wash cycle you already run and the film handles the rest.
Common Questions
3M™ Cooling Film FAQ
More of what film can do — office glass, interiors, marine, floors — lives on our Discover page →
Cool the Roof. Keep the Livery.
Free roof measure, a firm quote on an exact scope, and a straight answer about what this film will and will not do for your vehicles.