my passenger side door molding has faded. I've used mothers back to black and it did pretty well, but it didn't last long. So my question is, when painting the door molding right after the sanding process, does it have to be primed or can i just apply the paint after i sand it? the car color is charcol gray, and the paint i bought from autozone its dupli-color charcol gray metallic autospray. is this a close match or is there any other paint that matches better (not buying online, only from local autozone or advance autoparts). I repainted the rear bumper with the charcol gray metallic color and even though its close, its still not as dark as the charcol gray color.

 

Painting sucks...


Seriously Good luck with that. Paint matching is hard, very hard. I would try in a less visible area to see how it matches. Under bumper


If it was me, I would just repair rust, prime and save up to a full paint job.

 

have you tried compounding then waxing them? it wont last for ever but will probably last longer than the grease stuff from mothers. use a heavy buff compound then use a good long lasting wax.

 

The trouble with these door mouldings is that they usually fade from within. The plastic usually degrades and the paint falls off because of that. When I redid my door moldings several years ago, you could buy them new in your original paint color. Then you remove the old ones, clean off the adhesive, and just peel the backing off the new ones and stick them on like postit notes.

 

Just take them off because it looks better that way anyway .

I will answer your primer question this way. I have said it many time on here...primer is used for filling small inperfections such as sand scratches or blendin body work or pealing paint. It is not used as a paint adhesion.

SO if you have some small inperfections you need to sand out then use primer...sand...prime again...sand etc. until its nice and smooth then paint.

Whether you use primer or not your final sanding should be done with 600 grit paper most of the time but with rattle can being so thin you may need to go up to 800 so you dont have any scratches show threw.

That paint will not match...unless you have the paint matched or buy some of the paint that uses the actual paint code (like paint scratch) it is not going to match. Even the stuff from paint scratch or other places that mix it to the paint code will probably not match perfectly because of fading or slightly different painting process as the factory.

So yea your best bet is to just take them off

 

how do you take the door moldings off?

 

uhhh... all i know that its hard lol

 

painting with a rattle can is like cuttting the grass with a weedwacker, it works, but never looks right.
get something behind the molding and pull. it's just adhesive. then get some goop and take the adhesive off the door. your door will be brand new looking under the moldings, so you may want to compound the doors afterwards to bring out the shine.

 

if you dont have the time or money for perfection then it'll match the rest of the imperfect car . screw the inspectors
and the ones who wanna put dents in your armor shortly after its perfect

 

I took a plastic like spackling spatula and work it underneath and peal it off like a bandaid. I got a rubber pinstripe removal wheel that I put in my drill to get off most of the adhesive. I got it at an auto paint shop and it just erases off the adhesive. Then I used some 3M adhesive remover to get the rest.
These new rub strips are just peal off the backing and press on.

 

i have a few scratchs and dings all around my car, nothing too noticable but things id like to fix. my question is should i just get touchup paint from a dealer and use that, and if so what prep needs to be done to apply the paint (i.e. sanding, priming? etc.) or should i use another method?

 

follow instructions on the bottle or can.

 

ive done lots of quik rattle can jobs
if they take too long or materials are too much then it will become not worth it so i do it quik and try to be neat
it looks better than the pooo