Exterior plasti-dip on trim after 3 years (or why plastidip is like a wrap and not paint)

After covering up the chrome on the itnerior of my personal truck so I wouldn't have sun glare constantly getting in my eyes, I decided to do the same on my work truck. Not wanting to spend money on blackout overlay or replacement pieces for a vehicle that I don't own and am less cocnerned with appearance than functionality though, I decided to have a go at the interior trim with a $4 can of plastidip.

At some point in the above thought process my brain decided it didn't like the exterior chrome either (despite literally none of it being visible while driving), and I ended up going to war on the exterior chrome parts with the remainder of the can of plastidip I had bought for no particular reason.

This was back in early 2021, so with close to 3 years and 100K miles of the plastidip being on I've decided to document exactly how everything has fared over time should anyone be interested in seeing a long term test (albeit a mostly unplanned one).

tl;dr version: Plastidip is more akin to doing a vinyl wrap than repainting. It's faster, cheaper, and easier to do than repainting. It isn't permanent and can be changed out while leaving the original paint intact, but also will wear out over time and need to be removed and redone eventually, so it's not a substitute for replacement blacked out or painted trim pieces; unless the part in question is prone to damage and would benefit from being easy to retouch.


picture heavy section follows:


On the front I blacked out the chrome surround and center logo, the latter of which is just a plstic cutout since the truck doesn't have the forward safety sensors. The emblem has fared pretty well and the outside trim held up for around two years, but over the last year or so has begun to flake off due to the effects of wind, water, and road debris. So pretty much what I expected to happen given the front of the truck is so exposed.



The bumper caps have a bit of wear around the edges where the plastip isn't as well anchored and dirt gets in, but otherwise have held up surprisingly well over time. A side benefit I found which I hadn't planned for is that scrapes and scratches on the bumper caps are very easily sprayed over with plastidip if they are damaged. The photos show the caps after being touched up with plastidip to cover up the following: 1) an impatient idiot at a traffic light scraped the left cap trying to squeeze by at a traffic light 2) I snagged the right bumper cap on a traffic sign while making a tight turn and popped it off entirely after snaping all the plastic push pins holding it to the bumper frame 3) a laborer on a project site I was consulting on accidentally cracked part of the cap when he clipped it with his truck (visible at the far right of the cap in the top photo)


(I still have to straighten out the part of the bumper frame I bent in the second photo though)

The two side mounted SR5 emblems haven't fared so well over time, with both peeling on the leading edge of the emblem facing forward. The bottom, less worn emblem has peeled even more since I took the photos a few days back too.



The Tacoma emblems on the side however look very good on the other hand. My guess is that these are shielded from debris and wind from the front because they are recessed in line behind the front fender and wheel flares, unlike the SR5 badges and the grille. The V6 badge on the back also fared similarly, I just forgot to get a photo of it to show. For point of comparison, the plastidip has fared better than the vinyl company logos also on the doors that were put on around 6 months before the plastidip, and people have thought these were OEM black emblems.


On the interior, I put plastidip on the steering wheel emblem, and it has held up great, likely since I don't have much need to touch that area at all. If you are in the habitat of driving like a soccer mom with one hand on the horn button though I suspect more wear on the plastidip would occur. Note that the whole background is also glossy black because I only taped off around the edges of the emblem, whereas an overlay piece would only add a new black layer over the emblem itself.


I originally ran plastidip on the vent rings as well just to get rid of the interior glare off the chrome on them, however these quickly began flaking and peeling, likely due to me brushing them often with my hand as I go OCD over the directions of air flow constantly. I ended up sanding these down, applying primer spray, then using spray bedliner coating instead, the appearance of which was a byproduct by which has grown on my over time.


I did something similar on the center console surround, although the bedliner here is wearing down and has some chipping despite the tougher coating due to this area receiving a lot more abuse than the vent rings do. Since the chrome and associated vision-impairing glare is still gone though, I'm not too bothered about this. The morsel of bread I noticed hiding in the shifter boot after uploading the photo though will need to be addressed.



Conclusions and Thoughts

Most of the Plastidip lasted around 3 years and nearly 100K miles, much ebtter than I had predicted. Less exposed sections held up near flawlessly, while other more exposed areas suffered inevitable peeling and flaking over time.

if I just wanted to get rid of the chrome with as little effort as possible, I'd get the blackout badge overlays for the badging and replace the whole grille; in my view, I'd rather pay a bit of money for the overlays instead of time and effort spent to properly do plastidip that will eventually wear off in some bits. Were it my truck, I'd probably just remove most of the badging, except maybe paint just the V6 badge black on the tailgate, but I would likely paint the bumper caps still because both my personal and the work truck have taken scrapes and hits on those parts, and being able to just touch up the work truck with a can of plastidip is much easier and far cleaner than trying to use colored spray or touch up paint.

Overall, I'd say plastidip is more akin to doing a vinyl wrap than repainting. It's faster, cheaper, and easier to do than repainting. It isn't permanent and can be changed out while leaving the original paint intact, but also will wear out over time and need to be removed and redone eventually. A great option if you want a cheap and low commitment way to test out a look, but no substitute for a quality replacement painted trim part.