Painting Plastic Trim Pieces

Has anyone had success with painting the exterior plastic parts such as the side skirts, fog light housing etc. I'm thinking of painting mine gloss black but I'm not sure how they would turn out:shrug:

I haven't painted anything on a mustang, but I recently painted the plastic parts on my xterra (front and rear bumper, door handles and trim pieces) I used the Rustoleum Universal spray paint with the 'any direction nozzle' and would not recommend that specific paint. The tip got excess paint on it and would drip and splatter big drops after only a few seconds of spraying.

There is a paint specifically for plastic that most auto parts stores carry, and I'd give that a try.

Just use some fine grit sandpaper to rough up the surface a bit then hit it with a few thin coats of the paint in a sweeping motion.

Just remember, prep work is key to make any kind of bodywork/painting look good.

Edit: I think black accents on a white car look awesome, go for it!

Tash Oh said:

I'm thinking of painting mine gloss black but I'm not sure how they would turn out:shrug:

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I haven't done it on my Mustang, but I've painted side skits, fog light housings, grilles, valences, splitters, etc.

Prep is the main thing. The issue you'll run into is rock chips. The aerosol paint is not very flexible and will chip/crack very easily.

Make sure you get all oils/fats/waxes off of the plastics or the paint won't adhere.

Use a paint made to flex with plastic, and THE CORRECT FLEXIBLE AGENT ADDED PRIMER, or you have no shot at it staying on.

Additionally, the plastic you are referring to is textured and will therefore look like crap if you paint it... so it will end up looking like super-aggressive orange peel until it gets riddled with rock chips. You may consider wrapping it, I'd just leave it alone.

PatrickGT said:

Make sure you get all oils/fats/waxes off of the plastics or the paint won't adhere.

Use a paint made to flex with plastic, and THE CORRECT FLEXIBLE AGENT ADDED PRIMER, or you have no shot at it staying on.

Additionally, the plastic you are referring to is textured and will therefore look like crap if you paint it... so it will end up looking like super-aggressive orange peel until it gets riddled with rock chips. You may consider wrapping it, I'd just leave it alone.

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Painting textured plastic isn't an issue if you want a glossy smooth finish. It just requires a little prep. That includes roughly sanding most of the texture off, spraying a high build automotive primer, wet sanding to make it glassy smooth, then spraying your color/clear/wet sanding/polish.

PatrickGT said:

....You may consider wrapping it, I'd just leave it alone.

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Yeah, wrap it or leave it alone.

You could also plasti-dip them. It's removable if you change your mind. Wrapping is probably best, it's removable too. But if you're going to wrap part, just go Top Gear on it and do the whole car, it looks best.

plc268 said:

Painting textured plastic isn't an issue if you want a glossy smooth finish. It just requires a little prep. That includes roughly sanding most of the texture off, spraying a high build automotive primer, wet sanding to make it glassy smooth, then spraying your color/clear/wet sanding/polish.

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The problem with "roughly sanding most of the texture off" is that you are.... sanding the texture off, and then leaving peaks and valleys with varying degrees of preparation.... and idk what the thinking is that someone who is posting such a basic question would have air guns and the correct tools and techniques to use that spray-on bondo (without a flex agent?)..


The good news is that it isn't my car that this is potentially happening to.

PatrickGT said:

The problem with "roughly sanding most of the texture off" is that you are.... sanding the texture off, and then leaving peaks and valleys with varying degrees of preparation.... and idk what the thinking is that someone who is posting such a basic question would have air guns and the correct tools and techniques to use that spray-on bondo (without a flex agent?)..

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High build automotive primer will fill in those peaks and valleys. Doing the initial sanding takes away most of the texture then the primer will fill the rest in. Then you wet sand to level the surface and spray more primer if you need it.

It's actually not that hard to do, it's just kind of tedious. You can achieve great results with spray cans so long as you don't make your coats too thick.

Thanks everyone for your input. I am more concerned with how the end result would look like than the actual techniques used to achieve the look. Although, wrapping does sound fairly appealing the textured surface of the plastic is fairly concerning. Would regular 3m wrap be thick enough to mask it?

Plastidip. Easy to remove if you don't like it.

I was told you can't actually wrap those plastic pieces because of the texture.

Chameleon might have the easiest solution, you could do black plastidip with glossifier.

don't Sherrod your car!

Check out RPI Designs

Tash Oh said:

Has anyone had success with painting the exterior plastic parts such as the side skirts, fog light housing etc. I'm thinking of painting mine gloss black but I'm not sure how they would turn out:shrug:

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Hey man check out RPI Designs on the internet I just bought fog light bezels for 199 bucks haven't installed them yet but they are painted same color as car and look awesome gonna install them tomorrow will post pictures after install
Regards
Jerry :ford: