My front bumper has become a little faded. What's a good spray paint brand to cover this up?

 

Dupli color makes a paint just for this (I assume you're referring to the end caps ?)I just did all 4 bumper corners and the side moldings.
Not ready to remove the moldings so they might as well look nice until I do .

 

Ditto on the Duplicolor! Duplicolor Trim Paint

http://www.duplicolor.com/products/trimPaint/

I removed my front and rear bumper end caps to paint them and the side moldings I masked off.

End result looks like new but I will share a couple of things I learned.

Since I installed a front hitch I had the front center valence to experiment with before doing the end caps and side moldings and I am glad I did.

First step, Clean, Clean, Clean. I used Simple Green and a scrub brush on the textured plastic to get rid of the dirt but I also wiped the whole thing down with Grease and Wax remover. The trim paint will fish eye if your part is not free of any oily or silicone contaminant.

http://www.duplicolor.com/products/greaseWaxRemover/

Next thing I learned was to NOT apply like I would traditional spray paint. I tend to want to hurry things along and and apply heavy coats of product, it doesn't do well in heavy coats. Especially the first coat, just mist it on and do not go for complete coverage. On a warm day it dries really fast and I was able to re-coat in about 15min. I did not have complete coverage until light coat number three. Heavy coats will build up and take away the texture of the plastic. I ended up with five nice even light coats and was exceptionally pleased with the outcome.

Next is regarding over-spray. It was a calm day without a breeze and I thought 6inches of masking tape above and below the side moldings would be adequate, it was not. The over-spray was not very noticeable but it was there. My Jeep had a fresh coat of wax and the over-spray came off OK but it was still a wake up call. If I had it to do over, I would mask the side moldings and then tape newspaper from the side molding to the door window bottoms and from the side molding to the rockers. The extra 10minutes of prep time protection would have saved me over an hour of cleaning the over-spray off and re-waxing the doors. The Wax & Grease remover product is a solvent but it won't harm the paint, it took the over-spray right off but also my nice wax job.

Mine has been done for a few weeks and shows no signs of degrading. I have hand washed and been through the automatic car wash and it still looks great. I do think it would be just as vulnerable to the white residue problems if you got hand wax on it.

Last note, I did re-do one bumper end cap. I had re-installed the rear end caps and then decided to do a little touch up work on the rear bumper center section. I masked off the newly painted end cap and when I removed the masking tape it took some of the new finish off with it. I did this within a few hours of painting the end caps so I am not sure if the product wasn't cured enough or if it would still come off now with masking tape... I used good 3M branded painters tape and it was only on the end cap for a about an hour so I don't think it was a the tape's fault.

Hope that helps and enjoy your new fresh appearance of the black plastic trim on your Jeep.

 

Anyone have pics of their finished bumpers?

 

I used engine paint on mine. Good strong paint I'm happy with it. Nice smooth finish
Only pic I have now I'll take more tomorrow of the rear also.

 

Overall pic and some closeups to show texture. I used the duplicolor rattle can bedliner on the bumpers and endcaps. Two hints...clean/prep x3 and LIGHT coats. Really looks good.

 

^That does look really nice! My bumpers, and door guards will be in better shape than my paint! lol

 

I used spray bed liner on my fender flairs and they came out prtty nice and it will out last regular spray paint.

 

Spray on Bedliner is by far the best. Also if you want to turn bluing plastic black again really cheap and easy, use "cuir" for leather shoes. It comes in really easy to apply sponge top bottles. makes em look like new if that's the look you want.

 

Plastic dip rattle can turned out really good on mine. no cracks. had it on for a few months now. Cool thing is when its faded or chipped peals off real easily and re spray.