I'm planning on taking my '04 X-Type to Maaco to get it reblacked (I know it's not the most respected paint shop but that's my budget) I want the entire thing black, including the chrome trim and grill. I was wondering if this is a good idea? Will the paint adhere the same, and will it look the same as the body paint?
thanks for the help

 

Corey, can doing what you want be done and look right while lasting a long time. YES. BUT!!!!!! Maaco is probably not the place you want to do that at. The chrome needs to be sanded down and then primered with a special primer. ONly then will the paint stick to the chrome properly. Even then, I think you are going to find that the paint will chip fairly easily.

I did what you are talking about and at first things looked great. But, with time, the front of the car got chipped up on the the whole surface. The chrome against the paint is going to stand out pretty significantly.

 

What would you recommend I do? Ever other paint shop in the area charges 3000+ for painting

 

You could always prep the plastic chrome pieces yourself before the car is painted. You might want to take them off the car and sand them down and primer them yourself. Then you would be taking responsibility for how those pieces turn out. Also, talk with Maaco and see what they recommend or how much more they would charge to prepare those items. Once painted they will look like the rest of the car. You could also plasti dip the pieces or wrap them. Not sure how good that would look or how well it would match the paint. Short of that, I don't know what to tell you.

 

COrey, this is where painting chrome pieces is a PITA. If you look in my gallery, you can see pics of the front end of my car with what you have in mind. If you look at the later photos, you can see the paint chips on the front end.

One thing you can try is getting yourself some heat lamps. You can do what a paint shop would do and "bake" the paint on the car. In short, what you will do is place the heat lamp a few feet from the car and turn on the lamps. You are then going to let the surface of the car heat up to around 150F (look online for more details about the exact temp). This will cause any volatiles left in the paint to bake out and therefore make the paint harder and more tolerant to stuff hitting it. I won't say that it will make it bullet proof, but it should make it more tolerant.

Another thing that you can think about is why are you repainting the whole car? If you are doing it just to make sure that the black is the same color all over, modern day paints maintain their color really well. So, you can spend say $100 on paint (quart of color, quart of adhesion promotor, quart of clear, half pint of hardener for clear, and quart of thinner/reducer), you can paint the pieces yourself. Worst case, you have to spend another $100 on a spray gun and $40 on a small air compressor (3 gallon, 125 psi max, found on e-bay). There are lots of videos on youtube to step you through painting items. The big thing that I can tell you is that cleanliness is of utmost importance. Then you can guarantee that things will be done correctly and you will have paint left over to do some other touch ups should it be needed.