I inherited a low mileage Civic EF that i'm currently in the process of fixing up. I may be getting ahead of myself here but once I've done all the work on it, I want to get it looking, you know GOOD! I think I might get it detailed and see how much shine can be got out of the current paint but I'm also considering a re-spray. Having zero experience having a car painted before, is it feasible to re-spray only certain areas, a touch up if you will or do you need to do the whole thing to avoid mismatching paint/shine? My hood and back end seem good but the paint on the sides is a bit faded and there is also small patches of black paint on the doors where it looks like someone re-sprayed the black moulding while still attached.

I also have damage on one side. I've ordered a new fender which is probably the worst of it, so if I get that painted it's just the passenger door i'd need to replace but I think that might be tough to find and wondering if a good shine, polish and spray might make it look at least fine until i do find a new door?

With regard to the black moulding, how can I get these black and new rubbery looking? Should i remove them and paint them with a fresh coat of black or can these usually be restored with special plastic cleaners/polish? Any recommendations of paint type and style of black for those mouldings would be appreciated if thats my way to go.

I basically want to have this car turning heads and shining like new once I'm done and ready to put it back on the road but I'm pretty new to this and so don't know the presumably usual do's and don't in achieving that, hoping someone can gives me some pointers!

 

 

Realistically if i was having the whole car painted could I just tack on the moldings to get painted too? I'm just thinking that I might get a better job if done by a professional?

 

I would say have it done by a professional. Painting a car is not easy if you want it to look original. I was gifted a very low mileage eg sedan from my grandfather and I had a reputable body shop repaint and repair a couple of panels due to some rock chips and a careless driver in a parking lot. They blended it to the original paint so well that you would never know it was repainted. It also costed far less than I thought it would. So if I were you I would go get some estimates from body shops and have it done professionally. After the paint is fully cured(about 2-3 months), you can compound and polish the whole car and it will look like new.

 

 

You can have a body shop re-spray the moldings but they will spray them separately. If you base and clear with moldings on the clear will attach to the molding so if you ever had to remove the molding it would pull the clear up with it.

Don't have to wait 3 month to cut and buff you can do it the next day. If you have a high solid clear you can cut the next day but wait a couple days to let the paint breathe before compound and polish to avoid shrinkage. Typically you don't want to wax clear until it's cured because it traps the solvents.

You can depending on the base you choose for example a PPG Chromobase they not only mix the base off you paint code but you vin number because they can match up the specific batch based on that. If you use a PPG Omni or something like that the paint match isn't perfect but close. Now if you plan on mixing your own paint yes that takes experience.

Blending is more challenging and takes experience but I've had quarter panels that were in perfect condition and using a good PPG chromobase have painted a door without having to blend and it looks great.

OP depending on the condition of paint it sounds like a fresh coat of paint is what will most likely work best.