I have a 2012 Chrysler 300 LE and I have been attempting to paint the fog light trim a red chrome color.
At first I tried a vinyl wrap but that did not work out at all.
Then I tried red plastidip, it seemed to work just fine. Within a year of doing that I realized how bad of a mistake it was to use plastidip.
Last year I found the color paint I wanted and tried that, in fact the directions even led me to believe it would work just fine.
I was working with the Dupli-color metalcast red chrome.
Throughout this I followed the directions on the spray cans.
I sanded the pieces down and applied the plastic adhesion spray to the plastic pieces. I then applied the base metalcast coat, it is required to make the plastic pieces look metallic. I then applied the coats of the red chrome metalcast, followed by a clear coat to help protect from UV rays and other damage.
It looked real good at first and after the first time I drove it, but a week later I noticed that the paint started to chip away. Now, just about a year later, it looks like crap due to all the pieces that have chipped away.

What can I do differently to keep the paint solid and clean and not chip away?
Worse case scenario I may go to a shop and let them wrap the trim (though I'd rather not have to spend the money to do that).

Well, ugggghhhh.....here we go again...into rattle can 1k (read that as lacquer) lowest of the low solids coatings from our good friends at Duplicolor. So if you would have done this to some interior trim you might have gotten several years out of it..... Putting it in ramming range at the front near the road surface???? I'm surprised it lasted that long.
It's like this guys.... there is a reason you have professional auto painters out there. It is a urethane base/clear kind of world on surfaces if you expect them to hold up under those kind of conditions. I go even further than that now and on my kit builds I use either a chip guard style paint system or Raptor Bedliner in those lower areas. And yes, wraps are pretty decent if the original paint is in good shape and you have someone that knows how to prep. for a good quality wrap. Only thing is now.... you need to sand/wipe off all that rattle can stuff off to "see"if wrap shop would even consider doing it...... It's either that or get ready to learn how to "really" do an automtive paint job..... wrap will be cheaper in the long run.....

DarrelK wrote:Well, ugggghhhh.....here we go again...into rattle can 1k (read that as lacquer) lowest of the low solids coatings from our good friends at Duplicolor. So if you would have done this to some interior trim you might have gotten several years out of it..... Putting it in ramming range at the front near the road surface???? I'm surprised it lasted that long.

That's the funny thing here. I did the same thing to some interior trim and had the same exact result. It started chipping off the piece of test trim within 2 weeks. I have also seen cars where they've done the same with spray paint on external parts and it did not chip off like it did with me and it's been a couple of years for them, although I am not sure what paints they used.

I feel like there is something I did wrong in the process and was hoping someone would chime in with a good process like how many coats of each part of the process, how much time in between coats (and in between each part) along with the best clear coat to use.

There are so many variables when using a product like this... Those other guys might have been using a different brand of adhesion promoter, maybe they shot down a good 2k primer first, or even epoxy. You don't know if they shot light coats, heavy coats, etc.... Heck, they might have even topcoated with a 2k urethane.... see lots and lots of variables????