I hate the interior door handles (wished they were brushed aluminum). I also think the climate control dials are boring. I was thinking about taking them off and painting them. I don't know what type of paint I would use though. And how about blue for a daytona blue car? What other interior improvements have you guys done/plan on doing? I'm replacing my OEM stereo. I couldn't see wasting 800 bucks on a shitty bose system. So I got the OEM one.

 

Phile,

I was thinking about doing the same thing you are. The biggest concern is that once you start painting things, you lose your labels on the parts. However, if you do want to paint them, just go to your local modelling store and pickup oil based metallic. Testors is the first thing that comes to mind, but there are tons of brands and every shop will sell you something different. Just make sure if you do want to paint these things: SPRAYPAINT! Don't dream of brushing it on, it'll look retarded.

Also, are you thinking about doing the whole climate control pieces, or just the rings around the edges (thats what I'm leaning towards right now)?

Good luck.

 

go for it, spray paint it as he said, and be sure not to get runs and drips or anything, itll look horrible. I personally dont think itll go well, and have repeatedly been told how cool the interior is, but... your car, if you want to do it, just be sure you do it right.

 

Yeah i'm leaning toward painitng the rings. I'm not really sure about the rest. And I really want new door handles. Why couldn't they have used the same material they used for the interior door handles in teh Jeep Liberty?

yeah the interior is pretty cool. But it's SOOO plasticy.. i just want to get rid of tht look as much as possible. Now the g35c has a really nice interior IMO

 

paint is better than plastic?

anyway, still trying to get around to asking a shop to make some handles(inside and out) from aluminum or something. along with some other parts.

 

Your exterior door handles are already made of aluminum. When you tap then and feel them, they may not sound liek it, but they are.. and as i'm sure you know aluminum is VERY light.

And yes, if i painted the dials to make them match the brushed aluminum door handles, that would look alot better than dark grey plastic.

 

A great illustration of my point is painting a urethane body kit. Urethane is basically plastic. Would you buy a body kit and have it painted, or leave the plastic look?

 

sorry man, the outside handles are not metal, that has been verified. actually, NOTHING that appears to be aluminum is real with the exception of maybe the shift patern on the ****.

if you want to investigate the handles, bend them, twist them, theyll give a little(dont break them) and they will rebound. metal has memory, it would take whatever shape you bent it into, assuming you could bend it.

 

hey you never commented on my point about the paint Anyways, I read in the Z brochure that the door handles were made of aluminum. If they aren't, then they lied. Bummer... Maybe the handle is plastic and the rest of it is aluminum?

btw, i thought the passenger side door arm thing had a brushed aluminum plate on it..?

 

cant say for sure about the part around it, but Id bet its plastic as well. there was a blurb on it in that Z book, and it said it was coated in some sort of special metal paint that makes it cold to the touch and feels like metal.

passenger side is also fake as far as I know. not sure where you could find out for sure... maybe a service manual would tell it for sure. or somehow see if peices conduct electricity. grab a extension cord, put wires into the sockets and scrape one side, if it sparks its metal.

 

I think its already painted, and think it blends well into the rest of the interior. a blue **** on the faux carbon fiber dash owuld look wierd. cheap... if the whole thing was blue, it might have a theme, but personally that would look silly, the paint isnt really my problem with it, gotta match tho, and I cant think of another color to paint it that would make it blend any better.

 

well theres an easy test (2 actually) to see if the handle is metal or plastic.

scratch or burn

can try to scratch the paint off if it comes off its plastic.

or touch it with a soldering iron. If it melts its plastic, if not metal.

There is also the cont. test with a multimeter. But there have been know cases where it went off due to the metalic flakes in the paint.

For the dials, you can go to hobby stores and look for letter decals or shapes, so you can paint over the dials, add decals and seal it.

 

if its aluminum it would scratch too, in a different way, but yeah...

burning... hmmm, better hope its metal. Im 99% sure its not.

 

if you read my third post or so, you'll see that i wanted the dials to match the brushed aluminum passenger door arm (i said door handle). You don't think an aluminum light greyish colored know woudl lok good if done right?

 

I had heard that the interior door handles are manufactured out of cast aluminum. Cant say for sure on the outside handles. It is so damn hard to tell becuase even the real aluminum has some special coating over it to keep it from oxidizing. It all looks fake, even whats real....
We use high grade aircraft quality aluminum at work, and the stuff looks nothing like anything on the car.

Perhaps we should refer to it as alumesque... lol


Josh

 

Wrong Wrong Wrong!!!!!!

As someone who used to build detailed models, Do not use oil paint. Model paint is smudged by the oil in your fingers, no matter how long you have let it cure. If you do this (particularly on areas that are touched frequently such as HVAC controls.) The paint job wil just begin to get sticky and wear off. This is best case scenario. Worst case scenario, it eats the plastic and you have to buy a whole new control toggle.

 

Okay, if the exterior door handles are plastic... WHY DO THEY SHOCK ME EVERY TIME I GET OUT OF MY CAR???

Frankly, everything inside the car that looks aluminum really does seem to be aluminum to me. Plastic isn't dense and cool to the touch like the interior components. I'm almost certain the interior door handles are cast aluminum.

They look about like the aluminum casts I made in high school with melted Coke cans

 

So, in your experience; what kind of paint do you suggest?

 

I am sorry I do not know. I just had to speak up. The thought of someone using model paint on a Z makes me cringe!

 

I ordered paint from http://www.paintscratch.com in BMW Titanium to paint the interior of my Eclipse. It is a nicr brushed aluminum color that looks kind of texturized, and looks very good. I personally love the interior of the Z and wouldn't want to mess with it.