Honey, I Painted the Car

A few  years back, some auto makers started using plastic to make bumpers and trim on their cars.  I imagine this was a way to significantly lower their cost of producing automobiles.  The only problem is this plastic fades over time from going through car washes and being exposed to the sun.  Our 2002 Ford Explorer is one of the makes that has the plastic trim.  It was looking really terrible.  So I had the idea to use the new plastic spray paint that came out a few years ago to give it new life.  Honestly, it couldn’t have made it look any worse.  And I was actually pretty pleased with how it turned out and thought I would share what we did.

The before pictures...

The paint we used is Rustoleum for plastic.

We taped off the trim using “Frog Tape.”  This is the latest in paint tape and sticks much better than the old blue kind.  It gives really cleans lines and doesn’t allow the paint to seep under the tape.

We started off taping and using newspaper.  I would recommend this method if you are not a proficient spray painter.  Spray paint oversprays quite a bit and the newspaper keeps it from getting on the metal part of the car.

I ended up being impatient and just used the tape around the wheels.  There was obvious overspray when I took the tape off, so I used one of those dandy Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to get rid of that.  Those things are nothing short of amazing.

After two coats of spray paint (it took nearly two cans to cover), we have a brand new-looking truck.

Thanks for reading!