onthemove
Member
- Car
- 2003 FX35 AWD
- Name
- Michael
I met with the owner of a great body shop today. Nice guy. Waiting on an estimate. I doubt the cost will steer me away because this place does good quality work. They're backed up until the 1st week of December. 70 cars. My intentions were for a total re-paint but he thinks that's way overkill and was surprised how well maintained it is. For a total repaint, they disassemble everything on the exterior, everything.
He said they'll buff the whole car out and address the minor issues which are a few dings, replace some molding and trim and deal with road rash on the front end and side mirrors. They'll do whatever I want with the lower black plastic. He likes the idea of matching it to the body color and has done this many times with many colors. I've got 4 scenarios;
1. Gloss black grill and lower plastic, as it is now, just primed/filled/smoothed, sanded and painted.
2. Body color grill and gloss black on lower plastic.
3. Gloss black grill and body color lower plastic
4. Gloss black or body color grill, rocker panels and both bumpers black and mud guards and wheel well trim body color.
Either way, the chrome strip at the bottom of the doors will stay. If the rockers are painted the body color, we might remove the black rubber "not so weather sealing" weather seal strip that's on the bottom of each door. The black trim on the tops of each side window is not painted metal and is faded, so those will get replaced. Looks fine from a distance but not up close and drives me nutz. Painting the plastic body color, whether it's everything or just the mud guards and wheel well trim should help my shitty little 18's and soon-to-be 29" diameter tires out a bit, helping to fill up the wells.
These photos are all I've come up with so far. I know there's more, there's gotta be, but I haven't found any yet. Dude from Saudi Arabia has a silver FX with plastic below painted silver but no mud guards. Didn't respond to my request for photos of his ride
. It'd be great if you guys can point me in the right direction.
Is it just me or does the FX look really odd without rails and mud guards?
I'm thinking about this area that is black, from 1' past the exhaust tips on either side. If everything were painted silver, I wonder how it would look with only this section painted black? The outline is already molded into the bumper. They'd paint it from point to point. The molded outline fades away as it travels to the underside of the bumper and they'd just follow it with tape and paint everything in between black.
He said they'll buff the whole car out and address the minor issues which are a few dings, replace some molding and trim and deal with road rash on the front end and side mirrors. They'll do whatever I want with the lower black plastic. He likes the idea of matching it to the body color and has done this many times with many colors. I've got 4 scenarios;
1. Gloss black grill and lower plastic, as it is now, just primed/filled/smoothed, sanded and painted.
2. Body color grill and gloss black on lower plastic.
3. Gloss black grill and body color lower plastic
4. Gloss black or body color grill, rocker panels and both bumpers black and mud guards and wheel well trim body color.
Either way, the chrome strip at the bottom of the doors will stay. If the rockers are painted the body color, we might remove the black rubber "not so weather sealing" weather seal strip that's on the bottom of each door. The black trim on the tops of each side window is not painted metal and is faded, so those will get replaced. Looks fine from a distance but not up close and drives me nutz. Painting the plastic body color, whether it's everything or just the mud guards and wheel well trim should help my shitty little 18's and soon-to-be 29" diameter tires out a bit, helping to fill up the wells.
These photos are all I've come up with so far. I know there's more, there's gotta be, but I haven't found any yet. Dude from Saudi Arabia has a silver FX with plastic below painted silver but no mud guards. Didn't respond to my request for photos of his ride
. It'd be great if you guys can point me in the right direction.Is it just me or does the FX look really odd without rails and mud guards?
I'm thinking about this area that is black, from 1' past the exhaust tips on either side. If everything were painted silver, I wonder how it would look with only this section painted black? The outline is already molded into the bumper. They'd paint it from point to point. The molded outline fades away as it travels to the underside of the bumper and they'd just follow it with tape and paint everything in between black.
