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Painted wheel arches is one of the coolest Mini mods ever. I've never seen one in person. I faintly remember that one of the special Mini models came with them painted at the factory, but I can't remember which one. Someone said it cost them $2000 to have done, maybe that's the reason it's so uncommon. I've thought about having mine done in Chili Red but that may be overdoing the contrasting red thing my wife said.
I believe all painted arches are custom jobs. It's a rubber like plastic so paint doesn't stick too well to it. It requires special care.
But the worse is that they get beat-up pretty quickly.
Aside from that I like it a lot most of the time and thought of doing this... but then I think of where my wife drives the car and tell myself, nah...
I did this on my genI car and it was a very tedious job because of the graining in the plastic and the amount of "cheese" colored dust that was created during the prep.
Gen II cars have a smoother grain and are much easier (but NOT easy) to do.
I've done this and the end results are very much worth your efforts.
ISAMIN
You could get kits with primed arches to be painted in the JCW body kits. You can still get the primed arches themselves. It was a factory part in the Gen 2 MINIs.
I believe all painted arches are custom jobs. It's a rubber like plastic so paint doesn't stick too well to it. It requires special care.
But the worse is that they get beat-up pretty quickly.
Aside from that I like it a lot most of the time and thought of doing this... but then I think of where my wife drives the car and tell myself, nah...
lol, takes lots of priming and sanding to remove that grain. It will be my next mod, but will buy new parts and do at my leisure. Then have the body shop put "flex additive" into the paint before spraying with a generous amount of clear/sand/clear steps should keep them from getting beat up too badly.
Years ago I had a shop do mine. $300 Just for the 6 arche pieces. Would be more now I'm sure. As mentioned above it is labor intensive to do correctly. Sand, primer fill, sand, primer fill sand, paint...and they have to be very careful not to flat spot it anywhere...That pic came in small huh? Let me try another
Wheel arches and lower cladding does look pretty nice painted. Would cost a lot to do right if tried around here. Price to do anything like that is pretty outrageous in northern New England. DIY probably the most cost effective way to go. I like the painting of the new parts idea that gRay mentioned above.
Yeah. professional paint is pricey no matter where you go. I strongly believe it has to do with the car collision business. For the majority people have paint done when damage occurs. So the shops have found that it's good business to charge high prices the insurances will pay. They want top notch quality and doesn't really hurt the insurances since 1. they want quality job for the customers, and 2 the totality of customers will pay for it in their premium. In terms any side jobs have become too pricey for most hobbyist. It's pretty sad really...
I have factory colored arches. Very smooth - I don't think they used the regular part and just put something on it to smooth it out. Mine is the only one I've ever seen with this option, but I'm sure there were plenty of them.
I first saw a MINI with painted arches in 2002 ..... one of the first owners I met had his two MINIs done immediately after delivery .....
If you decide to try this do NOT try with your existing parts unless your car is NEW. Once some sort of "blackener" or "treatment" or "ArmorAll" knock off has soaked into the pieces you REALLY should buy NEW parts and go from there else you can have problems with paint sticking (I've done some auto painting)
SOME MINI models (GEN2?) HAVE had painted arches as an option (I have factory colored arches. ) and as I recall there are DIFFERENT part numbers for those arches. I recall seeing them on MiniMania but their site appears to be down as I type this so can't confirm.
But hardtop arch parts and Roadster arch parts would be the same ......
Thanks for the compliment, ECS. It was a really impressive mod that affected my decision to buy this car four years ago. I thought someone must've really cared about it to do that. I didn't know at that time that factory painted arches were an option.
Yep on certain body kits and models can option for that in the middle years of gen 2 MINIs, hyper sport body kit (which you have) and the JCW Aero full painted kit. Other than that would do at the dealership level back in the day. Which was much rarer for the gen 1 back then.
"Factory Orginal 'Smooth Finish' unpainted fender arch replacements. These are the fender arches that get painted to match the body color. Sold each. These Wheel Arches are for US models only."
