There are a bunch of us who are interested in this so i wanted to start this topic so that if anyone has done it they can offer some advice or pictures or how too..Ny long island mini owner would love to do this ....anyone any info is good info.

 

great topic...
as another LI ,NY MCS owner...I would also like to understand how to paint the plastic wheel rims.

Peace,
D

 

I'm in SLC, UT, I had all of the visible black plastic bits painted to match my car. It actually looks really nice. At our local mini meet a few people thought I'd bought the Aero kit. I have the Aero grills installed into the stock bumper.

My cousin shares space with an Auto body shop. They charged me $590 dollars. I'm not sure how well it's going to hold up over time but, the guy who owns the shop made a specific point of telling me that he called the paint manufacturer that he was shooting onto plastic and that if any problems did occur that it should be covered.

If you need any other info let me know. The only part of the process that the paint shop and I discussed was painting the original running board area. Since the black plastic wraps into the passenger compartment, he tapped off the area just past the chrome foot pieces and sprayed up to that point.

Jon

 

I recently had my factory plastic painted! :evil: Waht a mess!!! I unfortunatly took a recomendation from the dealer I bought the car through and I should have stuck with the shop that I have known and trusted for years. The dealer said they had painted the pieces before.......I later found out I was the guinee pig! The process is tricky in that the pieces must be sprayed with a special plastic primer and then painted with a lot of paint in preferably several coats. The job was so bad the first time I made them do it again. Second time was better but still far from perfect. I have noticed already several chips in the front chin spoiler. A 3m kit might help but I am not sure they make a piece for the lower section.

Advice...Choose you shop wisely and be prepared for less than perfect results as the pieces are hard to paint. I will probably take the factory aero side skirts and painted plastic pieces off and go to an MS Kit http://ms-design.com if I can find a US Dealer. Any one out there know of one.

I will post pictures of my Chili Red / White Top MCS after my magnaflow install next week.

Scott

 

I had all the black bits painted for my Aero Kit MINI and the results are great. I have some idea how they do it, but I'm no expert. I am basically writing to say that I highly recommend doing it if you can afford it. Although I the money is probably better spent on new wheels or tyres.