Body work - Paint

[tkswan]

I have a black 2002 LS V8 sport package. The car does not have that chrome strip around the trim of the car. The rear bumper under the trunk opening has started peeling. The bad areas are paint less and white in color where the paint is gone and is showing the real surface of the bumper. It actually looks like looks like its pitting from moisture that got under the original paint job.

How do I go about resurfacing and repainting this area to make it match and look nice?

Thanks

[shorod]

That's a difficult question to answer on a forum. There are books written on the subject, and entire DVDs. The short answer would be to purchase paint to match from a professional paint store. They should use paint chips or an electronic matching thingy to account for any sun fading that may have occurred, as well as the slight variations from one factory to the next. You'll probably find you need both base coat and a clear coat as well as a polypropylene primer. Many of the modern clear coats are flexible enough and do not require a flex additive.

Once you have paint and a decent spray gun, you will need to remove the rear bumper cover and properly prepare the surface for new paint. This is probably the most critical step.

Once the surface is smooth and properly prepared, you mix the paint(s) and spray per the directions. The technique here also requires skill and patience. You'll want to feather the base coat in, possibly progressively mixing more clear in with the base as you feather the edges. Once you've achieved good coverage with the base coat, you transition to clear coat. Some paint systems prefer feathering the edges by using a high temperature reducer to "melt" the new paint into the old. You could also clear coat the entire bumper cover, or you could gently transition in to a tape edge, then wet sand the edge and buff.

-Rod