[Guest]

i was wanting to paint my tail lights and was wondering if anybody has done this before and what kind of paint and primer they used.

 

[ND4SPD]

personally, im not sure they would turn out as well if you did them yourself with regular paint

your car's paint is shiney because of all the processes they go through... regular paint you buy at the store just wouldnt turn out the same...

me? i have them too... but im going to get the body/paint shop to do them when i get a new coat of paint on the car.
that way it all matches

 

[reptar]

Matt's right, I learned from experience. I ended up getting a pretty good color match, but the paint doesn't have the same shine that the paint on the rest of the car does. I'll likely get mine repainted when I go to the body shop to get my hood scoop done.

 

[Guest]

thanks for the help. we have quite a few paint shops and hobby shops with similar paints to stock. i am going to redo the paint eventually any way. i worked at one of the best body shops in our area for over 2 years in the paint shop and detail dept. i work on call for them once in a while so i'm hoping to score on some discounts!

 

[reptar]

OK, if you're going to try it, I'll try to highlight what I did.

1. Remove tail lights.
2. Mask off everything you don't want painted. I would recommend painting the area around the keyhole on the right light. I masked it off, thinking the paint would scratch if I missed with my key, but I always use the remote anyway, so I wish I had painted it now. You can see it on the picture.
3. The moment of truth... lightly sand the unmasked areas. I used a fine steel wool, it seemed to work well.
4. Clean off any debris left by your sanding.
5. Apply a few THIN coats of primer (I'm assuming you're using spray paint of some kind). Let each coat dry before you do the next.
6. Lightly sand the primer, I used the steel wool again. Clean up any dust again.
7. Apply a several THIN coats of paint. Again, make sure to let each coat dry before applying the next.
8. Now, I think the clearcoat stuff I had told me to sand again, I don't recall if I did or not. I'm thinking I did though.
9. Apply a few coats of clearcoat. This may be where I screwed up, maybe I didn't put enough on, I don't know. You at least need enough so that you don't scratch the colored paint underneath.
10. Remove the masking tape. Be a bit careful here so that you don't lift up any paint that you want to stay.
11. I then waxed the painted part of the light a few times to try to get it to shine more, but it didn't really help.

Like I said, I don't think mine look bad (from a distance), but up close, they certainly don't look perfect either... I suppose you can judge from the picture.

Picture