Has anyone painted their cladding before?

I had the bumper replaced with a generic black and rather than painting it the silver metallic color which costs more, I would rather paint the rest of the cladding and rear bumper black. But I'm not sure how it will turn out. Would I need primer for something like this and have to sand? If so, this would maybe be too time and money consuming. I prefer the accent color to be black to give it a more modern look but it IS an old car and of course there's always the risk of making it worse than it looks now. I would be using spray cans as I don't own and have never air sprayed.

 

Consider the scope of the work and cost.

New front bumper [installed/uninstalled] : Smoothening (needed or not?), prime and paint
vs
4 door claddings + rear bumper: [uninstall/insitu] Smoothening (needed or not?), Would you still paint the new bumper to match?, repair/prime and paint

I sense you want to change the look and have a larger project to test/develop/hone your skills. The worst outcome is you will need to repaint. All black cladding will give the RX a rugged look while the silver(ish) cladding gives a more refined look. All in the eyes of the beholder. If you are driven by the resale, changing it will make it less desirable in open market.

I would definitely advise that if you decide to paint over claddings do them as a pair (each side). The least amount of work and cost is to work with the front bumper only.

Salim
PS: You may have to search for the right color for bumper/cladding. The color code was not easy for me to find [Midnight-Pearl (body)+ greenish-silver (cladding)]

 

I wasn't gonna remove the bumpers nor cladding because couldn't figure out how and didn't seem worth the time when i could just paint them attached (and if i don't have to prime or sand very much then it helps a bit). why do you think changing the look would affect market value?

Another thing is that I already have the black paint and the silver cladding paint costs a lot more than the black. I also am a bit more worried that painting with silver might not turn out as well as painting with black.

The color is quite easy to find. The sites that sell paint even tell you the common color combos for body/cladding with paint code. i'm not sure about cladding but i belive the body color is listed on the door panel. if you search for it should be easy to find along with matching cladding. mine is white pearl/silver mettalic.

 

so it seems the bumper is already primed because some black color rubs off when wiped. since the black trim is extremely faded i could use the black paint on that and just paint the front bumper silver.

Though I think black cladding would look quite nice. Although not matching, even just the front bumper being black doesn't look terrible.

 

I think you already have a preferred plan. Go ahead follow through.

Market/sale value can never be predicted. Desirability can be predicted, specially for Lexus ... stock appearance is what appeal to most.

I don't know much about paint, but if the black is rubbing off, anything you apply on top will not bond. So imho, scrub the new part, chem wipe [diluted alcohol?], prime, paints, clear-coat.

Share pics when you are done.

Salim