Well I tried this a couple months ago and it failed miserably, both to my own ineptitude and the cool temperatures. I gave it another shot last night and it came out much better than before, but still not perfect (or even great). The front end of my 5 is pretty chewed up from bugs and road debris since I drive quite a bit. The hood especially has quite a few chips in the paint from rocks and whatnot while the front bumper cover is mainly bugged and lightly pitted. I don't have a machine buffer to work any of these things out. In any case, Mazda USA doesn't make a front bra for the 2012+ Mazda5 so I went about making my own from Plasti Dip. I picked up four rattle-cans at Lowe's for $6 each. My local Lowe's is stocking black, white, grey, blue, red, yellow, and glossy now so there's quite a good selection.
I taped off the headlights, front grille, and part of the hood in an attempt to extend the mask over the most commonly struck sections of the front end. I didn't mask off the fog light sections since I don't have fogs and don't plan on putting them in (at least for the foreseeable future). I didn't spray the grille with Plasti Dip since I didn't go to the trouble of opening up the top and bottom behind the front bumper cover in order to put cardboard over the radiator. I plan to do so at some point but I didn't have the energy or time to do it yesterday. The dip on the hood is still the bane of this since I have yet to figure out how to get nice, clean lines. When I pulled up the tape it tore the dip with it, so I just ripped that whole hood section off. I'm going to give it another go this weekend I hope, maybe the grille, too. The streaking you see on the grille right now is left over from car wash, so ignore that as it's not related to the Plasti Dip. The dip on the remainder of the front end isn't completely even but it's passable. Sorry for the low-quality pics but it's the best I was able to snap after work today.
I taped off the headlights, front grille, and part of the hood in an attempt to extend the mask over the most commonly struck sections of the front end. I didn't mask off the fog light sections since I don't have fogs and don't plan on putting them in (at least for the foreseeable future). I didn't spray the grille with Plasti Dip since I didn't go to the trouble of opening up the top and bottom behind the front bumper cover in order to put cardboard over the radiator. I plan to do so at some point but I didn't have the energy or time to do it yesterday. The dip on the hood is still the bane of this since I have yet to figure out how to get nice, clean lines. When I pulled up the tape it tore the dip with it, so I just ripped that whole hood section off. I'm going to give it another go this weekend I hope, maybe the grille, too. The streaking you see on the grille right now is left over from car wash, so ignore that as it's not related to the Plasti Dip. The dip on the remainder of the front end isn't completely even but it's passable. Sorry for the low-quality pics but it's the best I was able to snap after work today.
