Planning to repaint mirrors and hub caps

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Aug 5, 2002
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97 Integra, white with black mirrors (plastic mirror "cover", factory black paint mirror "arm"). Silver plastic hub caps on steel wheels.

So the mirror "arms" and the hub caps paints are both peeling, and I'm thinking that if I'm going to do some rattle can paint, might as well paint them white to match the car (Duplicolor has an OEM matching color paint you can order, like $20), it looks like if I spray paint stripper then scrub, lightly sand, and 4 layers of rattle can primer and 4 layers of rattle can top coat, it should be "good enough" to match the rest of the car. Sure it won't be factory shine but at this age matching flat white would be good enough.

So the question I have is, if I'm going to paint the hub cap using the same color, it will save money (assuming I can either finish all 4 hub caps and 2 mirrors with 1 can of white), however the only white wheel I have seen is the Type R and on a base model it may look weird. If 4 hub caps would need 1 can of paint anyways, there would be no saving using the same color.

So, how much paint would I need to do 4 hub caps? Will white hub caps look ghetto?
 
"I always heard that white was the hardest color to match...but that's on car bodies. Your accessories will be "removed" enough to where it won't matter.

A friend bought NAPA mix-in-store spray cans of paint to fix his mirror and sill scrapes and the color was a dead on match and the gloss on the rounded mirror housing (very evident) was superb.

How big are your hub caps? They're not wheel covers?
 
White hubcaps will look ghetto. Go silver.

Regardless of the quality of paint you choose, even with the best prep work, it'll be difficult for them to hold the finish up up long term as nothing you buy will be as durable as the factory finish.
 
Guys, it is a "beater", I'm not planning to restore to factory condition just fixing the peeled paint on mirrors and hub caps to "blend in" to the rest of the cars, and not trashing the neighborhood. Goal is to make the car looks like a normal 15 year old car, not perfect. Goal is to keep the paint last as long as the rest of the car's paint, so hopefully till 2027-2030 and by that time this car would probably be worn out and crushed (30 year old by then).


Hub caps are 14", they are physically fine other than paint peeling. Same for the mirror arms (painted black) but the mirror itself is bare black plastic. I was also thinking that white hub caps look ghetto but then Type R has white wheels, so I guess it is like yoga pants, you look sexy if you are sexy but if you are overweight you look overweight, regardless of yoga pants or not.

So I can't repaint the mirror arm silver, they are peeled to currently some beige primer under the peeled top coat. If I have to repaint them anyways it would be either black or white (factory frost white, my bumper is actually a taaffe white swap after an accident), the rattle can from duplicolor on amazon is frost white so at least it will match the car when new, on a mirror it is probably "close enough" to blend into some 20 year old paint, will intentionally skip clear coat to blend in to the dull paint.

How many coat and hub caps can one rattle can last?
 
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I don’t think one can is going to be enough to do hubcaps and mirrors with any decent amount of coverage. I’d go silver on the hubcaps or leave them off altogether before painting them white. Just my $0.02.
 
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