Plastic bumper paints 

As every body shop knows, bumper painting is one of the most difficult application of car paint for car parts. There are three reasons why applying car paint for bumper is more complex than it seems : bumpers are plastic parts (paint has very little adhesion), they are flexible (car paint can crack or peel) and they are subject to a high level of abrasion and splatter.

Plastics are problematic materials. They are difficult to be painted. There are many types of plastics and all react differently with paints. In any case, on the lower parts of cars, PEHD, PE (Normal and High Density Polyethylene) and PP (Polypropylene) plastics are treated in the same way.

There are known techniques to prepare and prime them to ensure that the paint will adhere well.

If these techniques are not strictly followed, it is certain that the paint will come off spontaneously or after an impact.

Car paint for bumper, products and techniques

Here are our quick tips for painting PP or PE parts correctly.

1/ Retouching on already painted parts

If we need to repaint only a small area and we see that the paint does not flake off on the edges of the impact or scratches, then we have no interest in stripping the coating in place, which would force us to redo all the work from scratch.

It is therefore sufficient to lightly sand the area with water, prime it, paint it and then apply a clearcoat.

To avoid cracking on this type of flexible support, there are two rules to follow :

• avoid applying thick coats of filler and primer

• add a little of our softening additive (1 or 2% is more than enough)

2 / Painting on bare plastic bumper :

In this case, you should do what all car paint manufacturers recommend before applying the paint to the plastic bumper :

• « Flame » the surface with a blowtorch

• Scrub with an abrasive sponge and thinners

• Apply plastic primer to the bumper

• Follow with paint and clearcoat with a little flexibilizer

How to make bumper coatings resistant to stones and gravel ?

It is of course the clearcoat protecting the paint that is in the front line against the gravel continuously thrown up when the vehicle is moving.

What you should not do is apply many coats and thicknesses of clearcoat because the thickness does not make a clearcoat solid, on the contrary it will suffer more from breaks.

The addition of a small percentage of softening additive will not only allow to resist to the torsion and bending of the flexible part, but also to better absorb the shocks, without creating breaks: the too hard clearcoats are brittle !

How to apply filler and primer to repair a bumper ?

Again, the thing to avoid is a thick coat of filler or primer ! Because with the slightest twist of the plastic, the hard and brittle filler or primer layer will come apart. The putty simply needs to be present inside the scratches and the primer needs to be sanded down as much as possible so that as thin a coat as possible is present to fill in the defects.

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