Miata Rear Bumper repainted at home | DIY

Here's the end result first to show you that it went well!

I have had my car bumped into a handful of times from the rear and it messed up my rear bumper over time with cracks and chipping paint. The bolts also came loose over time as a result of the bumping. As you can imagine, tbus adds more weird sounds to the orchestra that it already produces. I don't own a garage anymore so I had to take off my bumper, and bring it in the loft to do all the prep work in my living room area. Since prep is the majority of work spent on painting something, I ran my car without a bumper for a solid 2 months.

I used 2 paint matching rattle cans and a 2 part clear coat /hardener. I got those through automotive touch up and it was reasonable but still pricey. I would recommend going out and seeing if any local shops near you can mix some cans for you instead. I used to use a NAPA auto shop in santa Cruz but they closed down. Tips for anybody planning to respray any part of their car at home like I did: - temperature matters. Make sure wherever you are spraying isn't too cold/hot - wear protection. Unless you want to irritate your sinus, lungs and eyes, wear protection. - DO. All the sanding you can. The end product will only look as good as your prep work. - if you have a cat, don't dry your bumper where reminents of floating cat hair can stick to your paint. - read instructions of paint methods on the cans you use. - take your time. Full amount of money spent on materials: $85.59 Time it took, end to end: 2 months (spending a few minutes every other day sanding a little bit.) Would recommend this process if you don't want to pay a shop to paint it for you. I personally got quoted ranges of $250-500