Hey guys, my trunk on my SC300 lost pretty much most of it's clear coat and it's probably the worst part of my car. I know I want to paint the car later, but I want to vinyl it as a substitute for the moment. I wanted to ask how vinyl over flaky clear coat would look.

My friends tell me I should at least try to wet sand it to a smoother surface, but I want to know what I can do to make the vinyl stick better while not being as noticeable. What do you guys suggest?

 

Smooth out the surface. Lay down the vinyl and thats that. It should look fine. Shouldnt have any problem adhering to the surface either. Just the imperfection can show through. Thats why smoothing it out would look good.

I did the top of my friends Mazda3 and it looked good. His car is white but he wanted the top to be black so we laid down black vinyl.

 

Unless you have a really good deal on vinyl, why not just get the clear wet sanded and buffed and/.or resprayed where need be.

 

This is true too. Even with a respray it shouldn't be to bad in cost

 

Well my whole car would use a paint job, but I don't have funds for that and the trunk just bothers me that much lol. I plan on painting the car after I finish everything and my fender paint is all chipped out.

 

What grit sand paper should I start off with and finish with?

 

If you are just trying to level the paint to put vinyl over it I would wet sand it with 600 to take down the clear. If you're not familiar with paint work I would start with 800 wet so you don't burn through the paint.if you are planning on re-clearing your panel just wet sand it with 800 then 1000 and spray your clear.

 

I can't tell but is your car black or jade green? What color would you wrap the trunk with? Do you have a spoiler?

 

No spoiler, OEM black

 

what they said. anyways just throwing it out there. painting cars isnt nearly as much as people think it costs.

IE if youre going to PREP for vinyl, you probably have the dedication and attention to detail ( i hope) to prep the entire car and spray it yourself. you can do a QUALITY paint job for well under 300 as long as youre not using high end colors.

rent compressor, buy an hvlp gun, and im sure youll be happier with that than with vinyl which would probably take...1/4th the time? vinyl is a PAIN to do right.

 

This isnt really correct

If the clear coat is gone and all that is left is chalky powdery paint, that's not a very good surface to wrap vinyl over... You can't stick vinyl to something that isn't really stuck to your car and expect it to stay there very long. Plus you need to sand back the flaky transition/edges of te clear assuming there's clear in some parts and none in others

A light sand and a $1.99 rattle can of some enamel paint with a couple of light coats would be an ok surface to give a nice firm adhesion

 

Yea man painting yourself is very cheap and you can do a fairly decent job.

If you really wanted to cheap out and its just temporary just sand the clear down on your trunk and buy a can of automotive clear and give it a few coats.

Cost about $15.00 for sandpaper and clear

 

Regardless of which method has been mentioned the best would be to have it painted with real automotive paint by a professional. The vinyl would work for a while. Don't see why it wouldn't. The rattle can would work too. Either way you look at it the cheap way will get a cheap look. The professional way would yield the best look.

 

How about just saving your money and getting the whole car repainted one time
Instead of painting it in sections, that's saving you time and money but that's just my 0.02

 

Well I personally know a guy that does vinyl and he told me I could get it from him for real cheap (less than $30) for the trunk. I'm not losing much money doing this, I just wanna make sure I'll do it right. I know I want to paint my car later, I stated that earlier above, I just want a little cheap substitute for now at a cheap price.