My Plasti Dip experiment

[wolfpet]

DipMyCar.com doesn't ship the stuff to Canada, so ordered from plastidipit.ca. In 3 days I had the sprayer and 3 cans of black plasti dip in my garage. The process took a day, mostly preparing the car (washing, drying, masking some parts and waiting between coats). Here's my "new" car ;-)

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[mnx]

DipMyCar.com doesn't ship the stuff to Canada, so ordered from plastidipit.ca. In 3 days I had the sprayer and 3 cans of black plasti dip in my garage. The process took a day, mostly preparing the car (washing, drying, masking some parts and waiting between coats). Here's my "new" car ;-)

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You did the whole thing? Wow!

 

[Kalud]

I think this thread deserves more pics Awesome work!

 

[wolfpet]

I think this thread deserves more pics Awesome work!

Thanks ;-) More pics:

I gave the car an alcohol bath and then masked it with plastic and tape:

Then I started spraying the stuff all over with 25 minutes gaps between coats.
Here is coat #1:

After a few more coats it started to show the final colour:

The door handles:

And then I peeled off the rubber from the headlights, etc:

 

[Morristhecat]

So is this some sort of a rubber coat? Very cool! Can you give more details on this product? Sounds like a spray on DIY alternative to paint armour and wrapping in one???

 

[DieAbetic]

Wow that looks nice! Yes please provide more info on the product, price, application, etc.

Thanks!

 

[Johan]

Will be interesting to hear how well it lasts. Very cool look!

 

[Brightonuk]

How do you remove it?

 

[wolfpet]

So is this some sort of a rubber coat?

Precisely. Plasti Dip is essentially a liquid rubber. After it dries out it becomes a regular rubber, same as on your tool handles:

Can you give more details on this product? Sounds like a spray on DIY alternative to paint armour and wrapping in one???

Well. I'd say it's more like an alternative to the vinyl wrap. It's much cheaper and like a vinyl wrap it's completely reversible. It will protect the body from small stones, salt and exhaust contaminants, but it's not an armor by itself. You can apply it on top of your paint armour, however.

Yes please provide more info on the product, price, application, etc.

There are various form factors depending on the type of a job. For the entire car I got 3 gallons, about $80 per gallon. You can also buy a clear coat and add all kinds of metallizers, pearls and flakes to achieve all kinds of colour effects including glowing in the dark (hehe, I'm not kidding) ;-) I have never used this stuff but some videos I saw look pretty cool.

There are videos on youtube on how to apply plasti dip properly. I would start with this playlist. The guy seems to know well what he's talking about and there are all kinds of projects from emblems and wheels to the entire cars. Saying that, I would highly recommend trying on something other than your Tesla first. I dipped my wife's Infinity G35 first and made some mistakes that I learned a lot from. But any metal sheet would do. Basically the idea is to hold the sprayer steady on a proper distance from the surface. And clean the surface properly. And put enough coats. that's pretty much it.

Will be interesting to hear how well it lasts.

The stuff has been around for years (I had no idea though) and it seems like it lasts for years. And you can easily peel it off any time, but only if you have a thick enough layer of dip.

How do you remove it?

Here is a 30 seconds video that shows it best:

 

[pete8314]

Very impressive. Would be interested to see how well it holds up to stone chips, and general washing, bird poo, etc etc. Nice work though, your finish looks exceptionally smooth and even.

 

[green1]

Just to clarify, when masking, you didn't bother masking headlights, license plate, etc? you just plasti-dipped them and then peeled it off afterwards?
If it was relatively easy to do that, are you worried that some of it will peel on it's own later (due to stone chips, scratches, etc)

Cool effect, I was never a huge fan of the black, but I'm starting to really like the "stealth" look you came up with.

 

[VCanucks]

I've had plastic dip on my wrx for a while now so I can help answer questions. It peels off really easily, its much easier to just spray more and peel it off than to mask some of the harder parts. After about a week its set well enough to pressure wash! But yet you can still peel it easily, the videos show this better than words. It is more susceptible to stone chips, my wing mirrors are rough after one year, but respraying a panel, or repairing a tear with rubbing alcohol isn't hard at all. Basically you liquify the loose dip at the scratch then spray over it with a top coat.

 

[wolfpet]

Just to clarify, when masking, you didn't bother masking headlights, license plate, etc?

I'm only going to answer this part since @green1 answered the remaining questions. Yes, you spray everything except the large areas like windows to avoid wasting the thing. Then you peel it off from headlights, etc. You can drive in 24 hours but it takes a week to fully settle. Then it's ready for abuse.

 

[Tacket]

Always wondered what door jambs look like after dipping. Would you mind snapping a picture if you have a chance? Car looks great btw!!

 

[wolfpet]

I didn't do door jambs - they are still shiny:

 

[green1]

The advantage here is that you plati-dipped the same colour as your original finish, so it doesn't look so odd (just shiny vs matte). If you'd plati-dipped black with a white car those door jambs would probably look mighty odd.

 

[wolfpet]

Yeah, there are many issues with changing the colour and this is one of them. I wouldn't dip in a different colour personally.

 

[scaesare]

So.. how are things like air intakes, louvers, etc... affected by this?

 

[wolfpet]

So.. how are things like air intakes, louvers, etc... affected by this?

I covered the air intakes with the masking tape prior to dipping. They are matte black anyway. There is also an option to cover the actual radiator while dipping the grills as shown in multiple videos I linked above. With Tesla it's a bit more tricky as there is no easy access to it. You don't want any rubber to end up on the cooling fins of the radiator. I dipped the louvers and then ensured that they still move freely and there is no rubber bonding happened anywhere. Another option was to mask them or peel the rubber after and expose some chrome on the front.

 

[avallee]

@wolfpet, you wouldn't happen to bein Kitchener by chance? That picture looks very much like one of the Teslas in the parking lot at my office.