Painting your interrior Options

[sincerelyseb]

so ever since i got my celica ive wanted to paint my interrior plastic but everyone around me keeps detering me from doing so...now ill be soon be finishing the exterrior and itll be time to get the celica on the road, so i need to make but my mind, so if anyone could share their experiences with painting the interrior, any tips tricks or anything to help me make up my mind...
thanks everyone

[95CelicaST]

Like, the center piece and the window switch panels and stuff? Or the whole dash?


I painted mine a long long time ago and after a couple of weeks I hated it, and wanted to go back. I ended up buying some dash pieces off of here to go back to stock.


With that said, if you still want to paint your stuff, pull it all out of the car (naturally), give it a once over with some sandpaper, spray on a couple layers of primer, then at least 3 or 4 layers of color. Once it has hardened you can sand it and install, but I would then suggest spraying a few layers of clearcoat on it, sanding to a smooth finish, and then installing. There are a few how-to's floating around on this forum for how to do this. Take a few minutes and search.


But my personal opinion is that painted dash pieces are silly.

[SwissFerdi]

I agree...I love the 6GC's all-black interior sexyness.

[enderswift]

dont do it. in my opinion the whole painted interior thing is beyond tacky. There is no way anyone is gonna confuse the painted parts with the interior of a rlly rlly expensive exotic (which im assuming is the general goal of painting these things in the first place)

read some quality articles on modifying your car and spend your money on performance stuff instead. buy some good tires and stiffen up the suspension for a little autocross or something.

but hey, its your car do what you want. its not like any of us will have to live with it everyday

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 25, 2009 - 12:46 AM

[alaNi]

I wouldn't do it because I would be "that guy" that makes fun of you for being a ricer

[garin]

i did mine... it adds to the interior, but at the same time the sock black is great too. it depends if your going for a "high class" look, or a "tuner" feel in your car. if you do paint sand the plastics down a little and do numerous light coats from about a foot away.

[delusionz]

3 OEM pieces of a 1998 JDM Celica are painted silver from the factory. They look no different to a decent spray job. The paint even wears back to black.

Don't let these guys deter you, just don't go overboard.

[vile_v]

I painted mine with a super shiny black, almost like a mirror finish. I hated it like one week after I did that because of the reflection from the sun. I own a convertible so of course you the sun hits it directly when the top is down.

I ended up replacing every part I painted black.

[vi-tuyen]

how about carbon fiber? are they nice or just leave it ?

[sincerelyseb]

so i decided to try painting the plastic but im going to start with a piece that isnt highly visible, now when i go to use clear coat, i dont want it to fisheye, sanding inbetween every coat with prevent that right? and should i sand between every paint layer also?

[Mstoochn]

the left and right vent insert and the trip around your center panel, if u paint just those it looks pretty nice, i did mine in a pearl black, looks AWESOME! its the same look but it makes the interior more sleek/new

This post has been edited by Mstoochn: Jul 26, 2009 - 7:44 PM

[trdproven]

I personally don't like painted interior, it looks cheap like you're trying to trick someone into thinking it is expensive interior. It gets trendy and old, you will pray to go back to stock once you get tired of it.

[2bcelica]

I second that - after a while it gets old and looks ugly. OEM is better or carbon fiber

[jjbenzo]

dont do it. in my opinion the whole painted interior thing is beyond tacky.



but hey, its your car do what you want. its not like any of us will have to live with it everyday

I agree. Leave it black. However if you want to alter your interior, don't do some tacky paint job. Spend some money and buy a real dash kit...not one with 30 pieces..but one with just a few of the main areas. Carbon fiber or satin nickel look good, way better than taking a can of spray paint to it.

This post has been edited by jjbenzo: Jul 27, 2009 - 12:29 AM

[Spider77]

I can totally agree with alot of these replies. I painted mine, and now I am in the process of getting some C/F and doing it that way. The only thing im really pleased with as far as color changing my interior is my headliner. And soon the seat covers. But hey, its your celica.

[GriffGirl]

I painted my center dash radio trim thingie and I'm still not sick of it. I think part of it is the color - I actually chose a very silvery bronze color for mine. I had first painted it silver to match my exterior, but that I found to be obnoxious and it just didn't flow well with the rest of the interior. Of course the bronze contrasts with the black, but as a color in and of itself it's subtle and tasteful. It also looks more like silver than bronze, unless you compare it to the exterior, then you can see the warm tones in it. I also purposely did NOT clear coat it, as it was important to me that the texture of the painted surface matched the texture of the non painted surfaces. Rather, I primered it really well, and then sprayed probably 5-6 light coats over the course of a day, allowing the coats to dry well in between.

On the other hand, I personally don't like interiors where like everything including the oval thingie on the door cards has been painted. I definitely think less is more, especially with a small interior.

[manphibian]

I think it looks good as long as you go subtle. Dark metallic grey or something.

As soon as you go bright silver or red or something it looks tacky imo.

[black13]

I've seen good ones and bad ones. Yea I don't think bright colors work very well at all. Dark colors like grey/bronze/red seem to work alot better.

This post has been edited by black13: Jul 27, 2009 - 6:55 PM

[GriffGirl]

Okay, so the majority (not all) of the replies in this thread are completely useless. This kid wanted some tips and for us to share our experiences with painted plastics on our interior, not our opinions necessarily (unless they might lend themselves to being helpful). So with his permission, I'm posting the PMs between he and I, since he felt that he wasn't going to really get much help through this thread. My hope in doing so is that other people looking for similar help will see this thread and comb through the b.s. to get to the actual info.

since youre the only one thats replied to my post in a some what more positive way to painting plastic
i was wondering a few things
how long have you had your stuff painted? has it chipped or flaked?
i want to do my interrior black and white, most of my plastic is in bad shape
and with a new exterrior paint job coming, i want the interrior to match in shapeness

In what way are your plastics in bad shape? Like, paint-wise, or is it unpainted and the plastic has deep gashes in it? If it's just surface scratches, you can always lightly sand it before priming it. If it's deep gashes, truthfully, your best bet, in my opinion, will be to try to replace the damaged parts so you can start our fresh.

I've had mine painted for if I remember right, a little over a year now. I painted it silver before that, so I guess in all it's been closer to 2 years. The silver didn't hold up as well as the current bronze has, but I think that was due in part to me not using enough coats of the silver, and the quality of the paint wasn't that great to begin with. The bronze I've got on there now is holding up great though. I'm pretty careful not to scratch it or anything anyway, but there's maybe one spot where it got nicked by the clock. Otherwise, it's not faded, worn or scratched and looks really good.

I think you'll achieve the most success if you take your time and use the right materials. Buy Krylon paint and primer that's intended for plastic, it'll hold up the best. (My paint isn't for plastic but the primer was universal, including for plastics). Use light, even coats, let them dry in between, and use several coats. Don't over-do the clear coat if you opt to go that route. You could also buy matte finish clear coat if you feel you must clear coat but don't want it to be glossy.

With your permission, I'd like to copy and paste this PM into the thread. I know you were looking for some genuine help, and it's true that a lot of the responses weren't at all helpful. Maybe by posting our PMs into your thread, it'll be able to help someone else with similar questions as yours. Screw the haters - it's your car!

my plastc just has alot of surface scratches, and i know once you sand plastic even with a light grit you still get that white look, and also the guy who owned the car before me didnt remove the plastic to paint it blue so the clock and a few buttons are sloppy, and i got that adhesive promoter and some duplicolor vinyl and fabric paint, as for my clear coat im going to have to get a piece of plastic to test the look of it...and yes you can post this in the thread

Well since you're getting the exterior of your car painted, what I'd do in your place is remove everything that you're going to paint and/or that looks sloppy, and either replace it or clean it up. The clocks can be found on here for sale pretty easily, as can some of the plastics. As for the "white look" if you sand it, if you're going to paint it anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. Just be sure to clean the surface really well after you've sanded it, so you don't get debris in the paint. Just be sure to primer the surface - it really will make all the difference in the appearance and durability of your paint job. You could even get a thicker primer that's sandable, to help fill in some of the scratches if they can't be sanded out. Just be sure to spray light even coats with it, too; don't glob it on or else it'll look like sh1t when you're done.

Good luck and post pix up when you're all finished so we can see the final results!

[95CelicaST]

I would also highly recommend a product called "plasti-dip". It is a flexible, synthetic rubber coating that is moisture and abrasion resistant. The Subaru guys paint their stock silver trim with this stuff to get a factory-looking matte black finish. It comes in black, red, yellow, or white.