Has anybody painted the interior of their car...like the door handles, etc. I would get a dash kit but I haven't found anyone that are just a color. If you have painted what kind of paint and do u have any picks? (Or if u know where any good colored dash kits are)

-jon

 

Call a good local auto interior shop. They can paint the parts for you and do a great job. I used to work for Award Auto Interiors in Boulder, CO and we did em' all the time. They usually turn out great. And if you pull the parts to be painted off yourself then you save a TON of $$$ Good Luck!

 

How much does it cost to get it professionaly painted like that? how much more or less than a body kit. I want something different...but i'm cheap too .

 

Hehe, we usually charged between $200 and $300 depending on how much was being painted.

 

do u know what kind of paint it was? i'd be willing to ruin the interior temporarily of my car to do it myself if it saves me 100 bucks.

 

Body paint usually. I would STRONGLY suggest taking it in to get it done though. It's a HUGE pain if you don't know what you're doing. Good luck if you try it yourself though.

 

Also try: http://www.autodash.com/

They have some really nice solid color dash kits.

 

Does it turn out like that high gloss painted plastic on base model Bimmers?

 

Painting is easy...but time consuming. Don't just use any paint, some will dissolve plastic. I reccommend using a primer and not just paint. I used Krylon, it's good stuff - you can buy it at Walmart. put on a couple of coats of primer and sand it flat then paint. Krylon is one of the best I have seen. Other things you need to be careful about are temperature and keeping the can shook well.

Auto paint in general is OK, just be careful you use the right one. The plastic you spray is ABS and is not metal. If you use the Krylon primer first, you should be fairly safe

 

would u recommend putting clear coats over the paint or not?

 

I DO recommend clear coat. It looks better! Oh apply thin coats to get a nice shine!

 

I've done mine and it costed me less than $10. I purchsed some "Bond-Aid" Adhesion Promoter, Dupli-Color High Performance Silver Wheel Paint, and some rubbing alcohol. Prepped each piece with rubbing alcohol, sprayed 4-5 light mist coats of adhesion promoter, waited a half hour and sprayed 7-8 light mist coats of the silver paint waiting 15 minutes between coats. I chose the silver wheel paint because it lives up to its name of being heat-resistant, fade-proof, and chip-proof. My interior has a nice metallic look, but I chose to not spray any clear coats because I didn't want a glossy look. Check my sig and homepage for pics.

 

$10? Wow that's cheap! After I was done it was at least $15. I bought primers and sandpaper too! I didn't really like dupli-color stuff cos I had really bad experiences with the nozzles. They get clogged very easily and spray lumpy. Too bad your link doesn't work, i would've liked to have seen the results

 

Yea, I thought about primer and sandpaper, but I thought my pieces didn't have any chips to be filled in or anything like that. Yea, I can understand people not choosing the dupli-color products, but I was able to work with it. My link doesn't work?, it should be working now. Try it now.

 

Nope ... still no luck on the link!

 

Looks great. i did some of my interior too. but i can't get that piece around the vents out. i tried prying it out. but did not try that hard. i did not want to break them. how did u get them out?

 

By interior painting do you mean that you can change the color of yur interior? Ihave tan interior. If I buy custom black seat covers , can i get the other parts painted black too?

 

Which vents are you talking about? I have done the center console vents, not the side vents. I can probably help you with the centers.

 

You can paint as much or as little as you like. It just takes work to pull stuff out, primer it and paint it. I have only done the center console and didn't mess with the textured stuff, but you can easily do that too if you want to put in the effort.

Oh one more tip for you, spray in a dust free environment. It ticks me off having to sand and respray for little specs of dust. I'm **** about that!

 

i am talking about the side vents. thanks for your help though..

 

I did my doors acouple months ago, its a cinch. Just take off everything you want to paint, i did the window/lock switches, handle backing, speaker grilles, hand grips, and that long piece that you can put maps in. I also did the rear speaker grilles and vents in the rear deck. i used silver primer, sliver metallic chip paint and the same brand clear coat. I first did it in candy apple blue and added metallic dust paint. IT WAS SO SICK, but i realized that it went horribly with my black interior, so i re painted everything with my silver metallic spray, about 8-10 light coats. Make sure to let it dry. and then another 8-10 coats of clear coat. the final product is awesome combined with a blue LED swap. next up is the dash, which is going to be a B!^CH, because some of the pieces dont seperate (vents, etc). You can E-mail me @ MTL2@bryant.edu w/any questions.

Someone please email me with instructions on how to post pics, and i'll put some up.