I own a 2004 forester and recently purchased a front lip for it, which will likely just scrape off, but besides that I was curious if anyone had any experience with painting plastic like like this before. The lip is just too shiny next to the 17 year old faded bumper so I was thinking either a matte black spray paint or even plasti-dip might help. I found spray paint that says is for plastic online but do I need to prep this somehow prior or will spray paint just actually adhere to this? Any insight is appreciated thanks.
The paint should adhere. But ideally, priming it first and then painting would be the method to go with. But with it being a lip that will see a lot of abuse, paint should be fine.
Is it brand new (aka, raw plastic) or has it been coated with something before? That will help determine if you can just spray right over it or not. Otherwise, if you're gonna just spray bomb it and aren't totally concerned about it being mint looking when finished, I'd say just scuff it up good with a scotch brite and make sure you wipe it down really good (wax/grease remover).
Just buy on Rust-Oleum that is made for plastic (Menards or Home Depot) and follow the directions on the can.
The only thing with raw plastic is sometimes you need a special chemical in the wash stage in order for the paint to stick properly. It's been too long since I did it last so I don't remember off the top of my head what it's called, but when I did the front clip on my bugeye I had to prep the new bumper with something special. It came in a sealed package and was a sponge that was soaked with this special cleaner. I can try to Google it if you're interested. I worked at a body shop at the time so had access to all the cool stuff back then. Again, if you're just gonna spray bomb it you can probably skip all the craziness and just scuff it and shoot it. But plastic is also a crapshoot sometimes.
California is such an absolute sh!t hole that they just blame anything and everything for the cancer. Haha.
I used Bulldog brand adhesion promoter on my side skirts before painting them and they turned out good, no flaking. ymmv
1) Cali is far from a ****hole lol. It is a real nice place. 2) Everything does cause cancer 3) The US would be ****ed without California's economy
