Painting Outside Trim Pieces?

[nosbocaj]

Does anybody have any experience painting the plastic outside trim pieces? I want to paint the door handles, black trim, and possibly the side view mirrors. Basically everything black that's on the car now, I want to eventually paint white. Thanks for the help.

Here's picture of my car now:

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2008/03/SideView-1.jpg

[Plays_with_Toys]

I did it once. May I suggest you invest in good masking tape. This stuff left residue crap on my paint here and there. I painted black using duplicolor trim paint, for you it'd be getting the color match right. Someone on here did paint their white car all white, and it's in the DIY section... Do a little searching and you'll find it...

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8466/img2634pk8.jpg

[Huffer]

You can remove the door handles, but the bump strips are very hard to remove.

I had a paint shop do mine on my Impreza, they painted the handles off the car.

[shazapple]

I painted all those pieces white.

I wouldn't suggest removing the door handles. That a pain in the ass. They never fit the same either. Same with the mirrors. The one that was painted the best was definitely the one I left on the car.

I taped everything up with painters tape and covered everything (otherwise you WILL get overspray and its a pain). Sanded and cleaned everything with alcohol, and then sprayed it with some primer made for plastics (helps the paint adhere better) I used a HPLV paint gun with a base and then clear coat. I'm sure you can get that in a spraycan form if you don't have access to a paint gun. Don't get the off the shelf crap, go get them to colour match it for you. There was little fading for me.

Basically just follow the instructions on the paint can when it comes to time, don't rush. If you haven't painted much before the practice and make sure to start and end your spraying half a foot on each side of the piece.

[d1giPhux]

^ Damn.. i need to get the plastic pieces under my door handles painted.. so those are a huge pain in the ass to take out you say?

[nosbocaj]

Thanks for the tips everyone. Hopefully I can get this project done sometime soon.

[Huffer]

I actually think the car looks good with the black pieces.

[nosbocaj]

I actually think the car looks good with the black pieces.

Yeah, I like it too. I'm just weighing my options.

[Huffer]

FWIW, I'm thinking of going black with my handles & bump strips this summer... helps to break up the white a bit. :)

[shazapple]

^ Damn.. i need to get the plastic pieces under my door handles painted.. so those are a huge pain in the ass to take out you say?

Do you mean the other part of the door handle, or the 'bumpers' that are lower down the door?

The door handle is all one assembly, but has two rods going to it that control the lock and opening mechanism. Those aren't bad to get off, but theres a bolt in there holding the handle assembly on and you need to cram your hand and a wrench up there, or remove the entire window assembly. After I removed the handles and tried to put them back in there was a little gap that I could never fix all around the door handle :( If anything I would suggest just loosening the bolt so you can get some tape in behind. Also stick something up into the handle part so it is somewhat in the open position and you can get paint everywhere evenly

The bumpers are impossible to remove as far as I can tell. Even if you could remove them it would not be worth the effort. They have sticky tape, screws, and plastic break-if-you-look-at-them snaps. Way easier just to slip some tape down in the gap between the bumpers and the door. You can remove that little triangle piece on the front fender though. it just slides backwards or forwards (I cant remember)

Don't forget to paint that little black thing in front of the rear tires. Everyone asks me why I didn't paint that :lol:

[d1giPhux]

This is the piece I'm talking about that needs to be painted on my car soon:

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2008/03/carpaint4png-1.jpg

Also, I actually think the little black thing by the bumpers looks good unpainted..
I think it would be weird painted.. hah. Maybe its just me :lol: