Minor paint job - Boot lid & wing mirrors

Since we first set our eyes on our 5 we were always going to remove the rear wing as it was too Ali G for our liking and added unnecessary weight to the car. Well the wing was removed quite a while ago now and due to lack of filler at the time we just filled the holes with some old tile grout. In the same session we also removed our stupid wing mirrors and replaced with some scruffy items purchased off eBay, however the car was starting to look a little scruffy and I thought it was time to tidy things up.

So after a trip to Halfords to buy filler, primer and various grades of sandpaper I made a start on the top of the boot lid and wing mirrors. I've never done any cosmetic work on a car before so after viewing a couple of videos on YouTube I set about filling holes with the stinky gunky filler, overall it proved to be an easy job and I was surprised how quick it dried with not bad results for a newbie.

Next job was to sand down the whole top section of the boot lid, I really should have resprayed the whole boot lid but as we're not going for a full Concours restore on the car I went for the easy option, anything was better than some ropey old tile grout that had started to leak. Mirrors were also sanded down and now it was time to prime.

In total the boot lid and mirrors had three coats of primer with sanding down in between, quite a messy job with lots of red dust flying around everywhere, also wiping down the car in between coats of primer proved frustrating for someone with no patience and short on time but a spare afternoon sorted out the first stage of the respray.

After some researching on the internet I found Paint for Cars who will mix you any paint colour code and stick it in an aerosol, bundle it up with a can of lacquer and send in the post for just over £20. The parcel arrived within a week and now it was time to spray the car with some shiny red apple coloured paint.

The car was taped up again with lots of newspaper and given three coats of the red paint, again I was surprised with how quick it took to dry, with only 30 - 40 mins in between coats, it meant I was able to spray the car with all the required coats of paint after work one evening.

Day three - after the three coats of primer and three coats of paint it was now time for another three of lacquer and our trackbitch would be back looking normal again. This was easily applied, again one night after work and within a couple of hours it was time for the grand reveal.

Overall, we're pretty pleased with the results particularly the wing mirrors as the colour match is very good. For £1 items off eBay they look really good. The boot lid looks fine from a distance but due to the lower boot having a more professional finish than I was able to conjure up at the top, the match is not as good and there is a very obvious line between the two sections of spraying. However, the boot looks better without the massive wing and also looks better than having tile grout in four holes, so we're pretty pleased that for £40 and a few hours work the car is now looking almost normal.