Over the last couple of days, I've been thinking about tinting all of my emblems and my M A X I M A letters to a darkish color, or even tianium, if possible.

I was motivated even more by seeing ericdwong's front emblem on his max tinted with rustoleum satin black.

Has anyone done something like this before? If so, what type of spraypaint did you use? Is there any possible way to tint it titanium like on the SE-L models (btw, I saw 3 of them today! and I swear there are no maximas around here too).

Another thought crossed my mind. We have aluminum/silver colored keyholes, right? What do you guys think about painting those black? I feel like its a great alternative to shaving them off, and it gives a dark colored car an even more stealthy look.

input/suggestions are very welcome, thanks!


edit: I'm finally maxima obsessed! i wanna be a maxaholic tho lol.

 

The keyholes I painted before with touch up paint but it didnt work too well. I suppose you could do it if you scuff the surface but I didnt do it. However, As soon as you put a key in it'll ruin the paint. But for me I almost never use the keys because of the remote keyless. I may do it again to the one on the rear.

 

yeah, since I have a keyless remote, I never use the keyholes on the car anyway. Do you think that fact made Nissan shave the keyhole on passenger side of the 5th Gens' front door?

 

I don't think they will hold up to well. Buy a 5th Gen SE emblem if you can live with just the "Maxima" in black chrome. As for the keyhole, many people have painted it (even body color), and I think the conclusion was that it looked good but didn't hold up well and you can't use your key in it. Plus you need to sand it down a little to paint it well so you cannot undo it.

BTW, this is a shining Ruby Pearl...


-Cyrus

 

It looks like eric's "black chrome" emblem will hold out. I just don't want to run the risk of the paint running.

anyway, I guess it's a battle of the Ruby Pearls huh? My hood is actully in very horrible condition. I bought it from a guy in SF (he's friends with Matthel I think, Turbo95Max) and it seemed like the road conditions over there were horrible (typical bay area conditions, rocks flying everywhere...)

edit: looks like you beat me on a shiny max. i saw the pics on your cardomain site and they look fabulous. kudos

the pics on my site were taken before i detailed my car. i just wish i had a digital camera to take pics now. scanning is not fun...

 

I know the feeling... my front bumper was shredded to hell from 60k miles of following 18-wheelers on the highway. But I had it repainted last month and all is good. It's much better paint too, so I don't have to worry about chipping anymore. As for the hood, why do you think I have a bra on the car.
-Cyrus

 

while we're on the subject of "blacking out" chrome pieces, why don't you black out your chrome door trims and such? I think it would compliment the look of your car even more.

btw, how much was it to repaint? I want to repaint my hood, front bumper, and rear bumper, because they're pretty torn up.

 

That's one of my future projects... only instead of painting it black I am going to paint it Ruby Pearl. The hard part is taking it out though.

As for the paint, here's my shops prices for a 4th Gen Maxima. Keep in mind this is very professional painting where the bumper is completely sanded down and any chips/cracks filled. every part of the bumper that was painted from the factory is repainted, not just a cheap spray ontop like some places do for $100.
Front bumper - $325
Rear bumper - $250
Hood - $400

-Cyrus

 

Sorry for the unclear pic...my scanner is only so-so and I don't wanna kill non-cable non-dsl users.

anyway, anyone else try the mods I'm thinking about doing? thanks

 

Just a thought.... not quite sure but maybe the spray paint or whatnot used to "smoke" bumper lights may work on the emblems... i'm not sure about anyone else but i see Mad Dhan has smoked blinkers in his sig. Perhaps u could use the paint he used...

 

Hey, that's a good idea.

I tried to "touch up" the keyholes with touchup paint. It didn't look too nice with just one coat, so I just took it off. I'm pretty sure I could get it looking really nice with 3 coats, but I'm thinking now that black would look just as good and would be much easier, as I could just use some automotive primer, and spray a few coats on there, with everything else masked very neatly.

I'll post results tomorrow.

I also want to go to home depot to see if they have any nice looking chrome/titanium/smoke spraypaint colors.

 

sweet let us know how it goes!! and if possible, post pics when you're done thanks!

 

well, you wanna know what really happened?

One one side, I masked off the appropriate areas, and spraycanned the keyhole with primer. Then, I painted it with ruby pearl touch up paint. Result? A brush doesn't work too well. The paint came out a little uneven, and I didn't like it. So I scraped it off with some random tools in the garage. I wish there was Ruby Pearl spraycan (wait, is there?)

Anyway, I say a spraycan would've been easier because I primered the other side too, and then spraycanned it flat black. Result? The black keyhole didn't look as good as I thought. I mean it looked alright, but not close to how clean I would think it would've looked. I think the only option now is to paint those body colored, but until I get a spraycan of my exterior color, it'll have to wait.

 

testing

 

I painted my hamburger up front about 2 weeks ago with Krylon weather guard paint. Its glossy and it matches my black max pretty much perfectly. It hasnt chipped yet or anything and it looks different. I say go for it and see what you think.

 

doesn't the ae of our 4 gen comes with smoke emblems in the back?? at least I thought I've seen one on a red max ae.

 

pics? and procedure? did you remove it, or mask off areas you didn't want painted?

 

I dont have a digi cam and my camera is getting the film developed but it was pretty easy to do.
I started my masking off everything but the chrome hamburger. then taped some plastic bags around it to stop the over spray. Then i just sprayed right onto the burger (about 3 coats of krylon)and let a fan blow on it to set it faster. The paint dries in about 10 minutes. It cleans up the front end, makes it look different. ll get some pics soon

 

Im petty sure the 99 SE-L comes with colored badges. Looks nice i think

 

I remember seeing someone spray paint a few coats of black on their factory emblems, and then use tape and an exacto knife to tape the outlines around the 'NISSAN' letterring, and then use chrome paint w/ a brush to do the insides of the letters. Basically a reverse of what they look like from the factory. If you take your time, and top it off w/ lots of clear coat IMO it looks pretty good on a dark car.

 

i was thinking about painting my maxima logo in the trunk to black. i hav ea white car with tinted windows. i just dont know the paint. can someone giv eme quick e-mail if they know? thanks