i'm jealous with the older coupe's bumper and the older sedan's rear bumper. its easier to plastidip than the 2010 rear sedan.

 

I did it to my grill and chrome piece two days ago and i LOVE the results. I had an estimate done about a week ago to get my grill, chrome piece, and front lip and it came out to $850 . That was discount price too because my neighbor hit me and I was getting an estimate for that. Still need to get my lip painted but definitely saved a lot of money from plasti dip.

 

sanding the chrome is a big deal... you cant really go back after sanding it. if you apply plastidip, and dont like it.... you can just, literally, rub it off and proceed to sand it. i doubt sanding it or not is gunna make a difference, though.
the way i see it, plastidip isnt really permanent. lint and cloth gets stuck to it (kinda annoying) but its really good at giving you a hint about how your car would look if you were to, lets say, paint it black.

yah, its quite easy to remove.
i wouldnt have it on permanently though... read above.

 

jujubii, looking good!

If you sand it, plastidip becomes semi-permanent and you'll have a very hard time peeling it off.

Depending on how bad your rock chips are, it may or may not be a good idea to sand those small areas to level things out. I had some on my grille, the smaller ones seemed to have just been filled-in by the coating while the larger ones are somewhat visible depending on the viewing angle.

I haven't had problems with it catching lint or whatnot, then again after a wash i only wipe down with a chamois and don't really hit the plastidipped grille when using my mf towels when detailing.

 

Fyi if you don't spray it thick enough it'll be a pain to come off.

 

Well my grille is already painted black. I would just be repainting it with Plastidip this time.

 

Is this stuff pretty durable? I'm curious if it'd need to be touched up often if say used on the grille.

Do bugs put a dent into it?

 

+1

Bugs won't put a dent on it, and seems fairly easy to wash out using soap/water. However, don't use bug/tar spray or remover on it as it seems to react with the rubber. (i.e. dissolves it)

 

I don't understand how you got the color to match

 

This is what i don't get. If you plastidip you can peel it off and its like it never happened, except if you sand it! Once you peel it off it will look like poo. I like to paint stuff, but i just sand,prime,paint,clear. JM2C

 

that's what she said

ty, sir! i just got the valence done. honestly its a pain in the A. taping it wasn't that bad; taking it off was hell. you kinda have to use a blade to run along the edge where the plastidip and tape meets so you get a nice straight line. but if you apply too much pressure you may cut the clear coat. that's what happened to me (and i applied really little pressure) so i improvised and used my thumb press against the plastidip as i pulled off the paint and it came out really crooked.
buy bluebat's overlay and save yourself the hassle LOL

got the same question for you soundmike, as i have not done the grille haha. a bug DID decide to chill on the paint before it dried. so it died and got stuck there... i tweezered it out though. ahhaha.
the texture is sorta stickyish... itll attract alotta lint. ive yet to wipe it down with a chamois (its at home, and im at school >.>)

when you sand you apply little holes (prolly mircoscopic) to the material. liquid, plastidip in this case, will fill it and get stuck there.

 

It's going to have to be on big a** bug to do any damage so no I wouldn't worry about it.

Jujubii...I have been debating on whether or not to do my valance and only havn't because of the taping and worried that I wouldn't be able to make it a straight line or good curves. As far as taking it off, if you remove the tape before it gets a chance to dry then it will 100% easier. Once it dries it will try and stick to the tape. Unlike paint, this stuff kind of makes a sheet and becomes one piece so getting to it while still wet is your best bet. Looking out the window at my valance right now...hmmmmmmm

For the others with all the questions, go get a can for $7 and try it on something else before so you can see how easy this stuff comes off a painted surface if you're not sure about it.

 

good point! didnt really thing about that.
i applied ~3 coats with 30min intervals between each and gave it a good 4 hrs before i peeled it off from the last coat.
i guess ill try 1 HEFTY coat next time, cause i noticed that even if i got berserk with the "wet look" on the first coat... i always manage to not completely black it out by the second (theres like some tiny missed spots here and there)

 

You just have to keep in mind that this is not paint, it's liquid synthetic rubber (or of that type) so the method of approach is different.

Yeah, that was the issue i had just playing around with it on stuff lying around in the garage. Then i figured i'd likely be "dipping" entire pieces so it's not much of an issue. On my grille, i did have to use an Xacto to remove the mask off the Infiniti logo, but unlike paint there's not much to damage there. Kudos to you for being brave enough to try it on the rear valance. (I've got bluebats overlays there, wanting to remove and replace with plastidip but couldn't do it because of the issue you went through above).

The roof would be another great place to try this out since all sides have a gutter or gap separating it from the rest of the car, so the blade can cut through the mask in those sections without damaging anything.

Not sure if it's okay to remove the mask while it's still wet though. With llayering and the cure time between layers, my tests showed that you'd still need to run a blade to take the mask off. Maybe i waited too long?

 

^^Yeah, I wouldn't wait that long. When I did my wheels I removed the index cards when the pd had dried for just 30 mins and it tried to stick. Did it again and removed when still wet, like 5 mins later and no issues.

Man, if I had a steady hand I would be out there taping right now. Old man shakes and too much coffee is not conducive for straight line taping.