Spraying plastic bumpers

[SimonR]

Having had success with respraying the tailgate of A335 I'm going to stretch my expertise yet further and tackle the peeled paint on the front bumper.

I've tried to find a photo but can't as of yet, however there is one really large area on the lower part where the paint has come away and there are also many other bits, about 5p sized all over the bottom section. Perhaps I'll take a photo later on today, if it's any help.

If it were metal, I'd know what to do: just rub it down, prime and paint. The problem is that If I just prime it and respray it'll turn out lumpy and I'm guessing that the plastic is softer than the paint so rubbing it down will remove plastic, which is a bad thing. I'm also concerned that if some of the paint has peeled then the rest might be waiting to follow!

What's the best way forward? - should I remove all the paint and start again?

Bear in mind that I'll be using Holts aerosol paint for this so maybe doing the whole thing isn't adviseable although I've found that with lots of thin layers and a little rubbing down I can actually get a very good finish.

As I guess you'll have appreciated, I'm doing this car on a budget as the cost of F153 has been fairly high and I can't afford two Maestros like that!

[John S]

Halfords plastic primer is excellent from my experience, and with it there should be no worries about how much you rub down a GRP or plastic surface. Problem is I can only get it in smaller cans and not 500ml ones, making the task a little more expensive than it really should be.

John

[Jack]

As I understand it, paint for painting plastic is different from paint for painting metal (hence the Halford "plastic" primer). This is due to the fact that plastic is more flexible and so the paint has to be flexible too to prevent cracking.

However, if you ise the plastic primer, you may have success with a normal topcoat. The question is: are you willing to risk having to do the whole job again or would you rather pay more for a paint supplier to make you a plastic paint in the right colour and put it in an aerosol, but have it actually stay on?

Having metal bumpers on my clubman diesel I don't have this problem. Leccy windows? Who needs 'em. :)