Front bumper is fading

[Sean37]

My front bumper is getting faded kinda bad. I've tried Zaino and Meguiars polishes/waxes but nothing is helping. Is there any way to brighten it back up? I don't really have enough cash for a repaint at the moment. I was thinking maybe buffing it with rubbing compound might help. Here's an older picture of my car. It has gotten a little bit worse since this picture was taken.

http://members.fbody.com/slickblack6/Front1.jpg

You will probably have to cut and paste that link to see the pic.

[EVILFACE]

If its fading, not much can be done about it besides repainting it. Generally around $500 for a good paint job. You could throw a bra on there till then ;)

[Only4U]

i repainted my fender (pic is in sig). not that hard to do. just mask off everything that isn't the color you are painting and then get at it. don't mask any part of the car off that is the same color as what you are painting because you want the paint to fade itself out rather than giving the paint boundaries and having lines when you finish. it's really not that hard to do.

after you paint it, use a lot of gloss over it. then a day or two after that, buy some really good car polish/wax and wax that thing down as best as you can. it will never get the original shine that it once had, but it will look brand new besides that. and the fender isn't usually something that shines so much anyway.

[Everglades W68]

I was going to say no way to Only 4U, but he's right - especially with black or white cars.

You should be able to extend the usable life of your car's basic paint considerably by doing what he suggested.

The bumper cover paint is always the first things to go.

[Sean37]

Only4U - Do you mean to paint right over the existing paint? I thought all the old paint had to be taken off, then primed, painted, and clearcoated. Wouldn't it just chip off within a few months? I'm kinda interested in doing this because my dad has painted cars before and he'd be able to help me do it and it would probably come out pretty good.

With the exception of the front and rear bumpers, the rest of the car looks very good for 5+ year old paint. I'm gonna put some ground effects on it tomorrow, and I think it might look weird to have the hood look all shiny and black then the bumper looks kinda brownish black and then the ground effects will look very shiny and deep black because they were just painted. I want to get the bumpers to match the rest of the car a little better, if that is possible.