Painting our mirrors??

[offthahook]

I want to have my car mirrors painted white (se-i style). I painted the car taffeta white, which is a 1998-2003 BRIGHT white. MAACO will spray them for $50 if I bring them in to them. Having heard good and bad about MAACO, what should I do to ensure that they are done right and will hold up/not peel. I'm thinking there has to be some flex agent added and they need to be shot from a couple angles to cover the whole mirror. Also, on white only, can pretty much any bright white be used and it would be really hard to tell the difference?? If I get there and dude says "I have some bright white for GM whatever; it should match...." Should I go with that or insist on using the honda color code?

Also, do you prime plastic??? Do you clearcoat white on plastic?? Please hook me up so MAACO doesn't get over on me and I end up with mirrors that look like a kid painted them with model paint. I know MAACO can do good work, but it seems if you act dumb, they do bad work. Lemme know. TIA.

[YK86]

If you have a place that mixes paint, take the color code to an auto store and buy a can of matching paint (acrylic enamel leaves a nice gloss and you don't need to spray clearcoat after). About $15 a can and you'll have tons left over. Prep it with wax remover and adheasion promoter. If you are still going to take it to Maaco, make sure to just clean it with the wax remover and do it a bunch of times. No flex agent in the paint I used on the mirrors but they haven't chipped or anything and it's been one year.

[offthahook]

Originally posted by YK86
If you have a place that mixes paint, take the color code to an auto store and buy a can of matching paint (acrylic enamel leaves a nice gloss and you don't need to spray clearcoat after). About $15 a can and you'll have tons left over. Prep it with wax remover and adheasion promoter. If you are still going to take it to Maaco, make sure to just clean it with the wax remover and do it a bunch of times. No flex agent in the paint I used on the mirrors but they haven't chipped or anything and it's been one year.

Sounds good!!!

[TeKKnoTeKK]

I painted mine myself....was pretty easy actually. I used SEM bumper paint, painted all my trim with it as well.

[Pico]

Ok old thread, really old thread 4 years old to be exact.
But I want to paint my mirrors to match the car, has any one current on the forum done this and if you have did you have to take the mirror apart to paint it...
If anyone here can help me it's going to me one of us here...
And offthahook did you ever get yours painted....

[guaynabo89]

nope you dont have to take apart.

tape off the mirrorand thats it.

[RamThis]

I just painted one of my car's mirrors with some satin black trim paint and it looks great.

I started with a good wet sanding with some 220 sandpaper, knocked out any rock dings, and just cleaned up the surface in general. I blew it all off with the air blower, and let it dry out real well (couple hours) I then came back and wiped it down with DuPont Final Klean, it's a wax/grease remover and readies the surface for paint. Since I had sanded the surface and was using a good quality trim paint, I just shot it right on the mirror housing. I did, of course, tape off the mirror glass and used an Xacto knife to trim the tape around the edge nice and clean, so even the thin band around the mirror glass got painted to match too. Results look outstanding!

Of course, now that I have that done, I have since thought of color matching the mirrors. Oh well, I have a full set extra to do that to LOL.

And I would make sure to use whatever paint is on the car. Even one or two shades off will be pretty visible, I see cars everyday on the road that you can see one half or the other is a different shade, or the clearcoat was poorly shot and polished compared to the factory finish. Really sad that "professionals" do crappy work like that and the owner never even noticed when they got their car back. And it's work bad enough I can spot it on the hiway at 70+ MPH too!! Just make sure if you have them painted, tell them you want the mirrors wet sanded, plastic promoted, basecoated in matching white, and clearcoated with three coats. Might cost extra but it will look great.

[RamThis]

Or you could just ship em to me with your paint code and I can paint them for you....

[Pico]

Or you could just ship em to me with your paint code and I can paint them for you....

I'll let you know on that. At the moment my wife has the extra mirrors that I have and is giving it her touch at painting them

[nskforlife]

i took my mirror completely apart and reinstalled them. they look awesome!!! and it's not hard at all to take them apart, just remember where the screws go on it. the main reason i took them apart is because i'm kinda a neat freak when it comes to painting.