Painting door handles

[ChefCarnivore]

The external door handles on my boxster have paint worn off around the edges. What would be the best way to paint these?

Option 1 take them off and have paint shop paint them.

Option 2 leave on and paint them my self.

Also can I get away with one of the paint sticks or do I spray it the traditional way?

[23109VC]

my door handles had some white resideue on the edges - I determined it was wax or some other substance that had built up and left a white chalky coating.

some qtips, elbow grease, and some nonabrasive cleaner took it offf.

are you actually having paint flake off or could it be some substance just stuck onto hte paint that might be removed? jus a suggestion before you go to the trouble of painting.

point of clarification - do you mean the flat part that you see when you look at hte handle - or do you mean the skinny edges that are somewhat recessed inside the door mechanism when the handleis not being pulled? if it's the latter - that's an area that never gets touched - but m ight have some rubbing against the door mechanism as it's opened/closed.

if you wedged it open, you could probably brush it with some kind of paint pen, touch up system, and let it dry thoroughly before you unwedged itg and let it go back to it's resting position. but i'd want to make sure you only put a small coat of paint and let it dry thoroughly so you dind't get too much paint built up that would smudge/smear when you let hte door handle go back down...

any pics of this problem?

[ChefCarnivore]

Originally Posted by 23109VC

my door handles had some white resideue on the edges - I determined it was wax or some other substance that had built up and left a white chalky coating.

some qtips, elbow grease, and some nonabrasive cleaner took it offf.

are you actually having paint flake off or could it be some substance just stuck onto hte paint that might be removed? jus a suggestion before you go to the trouble of painting.

point of clarification - do you mean the flat part that you see when you look at hte handle - or do you mean the skinny edges that are somewhat recessed inside the door mechanism when the handleis not being pulled? if it's the latter - that's an area that never gets touched - but m ight have some rubbing against the door mechanism as it's opened/closed.

if you wedged it open, you could probably brush it with some kind of paint pen, touch up system, and let it dry thoroughly before you unwedged itg and let it go back to it's resting position. but i'd want to make sure you only put a small coat of paint and let it dry thoroughly so you dind't get too much paint built up that would smudge/smear when you let hte door handle go back down...

any pics of this problem?

Here is the picture of the door handle on the drivers' side.

[23109VC]

that's more severe than I was imagining.

it doesn't look "that" bad, but I agree, I'd want to fix it.

the scratch around the key hole can be probably fixed partially by plugging it with the door plug from www.bumperplugs.com

they make bumper plugs fro the front license plate holes, and they make a little plug that you can shove into your key hole. i have one on my car - it plugs up the key hole so that it is filled iwht a small flat circular disc that is painted to match your paint.

i'd consider either trying touch up paint - or getting a can of your exact paint color from paintscratc.com and then mask that section off and spray it. it's a really small area - you might be able to sand up the door handle itself - then primer it, and spray it.

some of the painting experts here might give you their consensus on whether the end result would look better if you sprayed the handle vs use touch up paint.

i used the paintscratch kit to paint my bumperettes and they turned out really nice. it was somewhat time consuming, but I was amazed at what a nice job I was able to do for being a total beginner/novice at painting.

you could likely mask off the whole door area, and just leave the door handle itself exposed, sand it down, prime it, then spray it. you then let it dry a day or so and clear coat it.

spraying it would give you a nice even coat of paint, but there's a chance the color/shade could be slightly off. the touch up paint would only hit the sections that are chipped - but that stuff never dries totally flush/flat. i've found touch up apint to be good for really really small spots, and sections that are not high visibility - like down low to the ground, etc.

how did it get so scuffed up? my car is alost ten years old and that particular area of the car seems pretty clean/unchipped. i can see the key area getting chipped from sticking the key in the car, but the area around the door pull itself is chipped pretty bad.

fyi - that door plug thing covers up your keyhole so you hae to use the wireless entry to get in/out. as a result, you no longer get those scuffs around the keyhole from keys going in/out...

i believe the door plug is pretty cheap. i'd recomend it. it makes the car look better too.

here is a pic off the bumperplug site of the door plug. this won't 100% fix your problem, but I think it might help it. it's only $13.95.