Painting plastics

[Monkeythree]

My car is going to need a full respray and in the course of the work that i have been doing, I've already removed the rear "splitter" and bumper and the front bumper module will inevitably need to come off. So my question is, should i prep these plastic parts for painting and have them done off the car at the same as the bodyshell or should I consider them to be "self coloured" and therefore not necessary to paint them? My worry would be that even vigourous cleaning would be unlikely to return the plastics back to their original colour and that they therefore might not match the freshly painted body. But in the same breath, i'm not that keen on painting them because I would anticipate the paint would easily crack on the flexible plastic.

What have others done when faced with this dilemma?

 

[T3rra]

Are you talking about the black rubber trims? If you are don't paint. Rubber care product will restore them. Auto glym stuff works great.

If your taking about the bumpers and rear defuser get them painted off the car. No colour match issue then. Bumpers should be prep with a flexible primer to stop cracking and splits in your new paint. Ideally want to be taken back as best as poss

 

[JSHammond]

Yep I agree with T3rra, don't paint the rubber/plastic.

I often use Einszett Gummi Pflege for rubber care and Amour All for plastic trims.