Need advice on grille/surround, bumper and flare coating

I have color matched flares (BSP). I've got new matte/satin rims to put on and wanted to tie the rim finish in with parts of my truck. My question is should I just satin black paint the flares or use the Rustoleum rattle can bedliner? Also want to do the bumper and grille/surround. I like the "rough" finish of the bedliner stuff but afraid bug splatter will be a "B" to get off.

 

You'd be right lol. I repainted my grill and my bumper on my 2nd gen with rusto bed liner and clear coated it with rusto x2 clear. I had already done my wheels in this combo and had learned at least to sand down the bed liner with light grit sand paper to knock the texture down so that dirt wouldn't get trapped in the valleys of the grit in the paint as easily. I just hit it with a light coat of black to get the color uniform again before using the clear. The down side is that I can't wax or really use a lot of elbow grease to clean off bird poop and bug splatter like you mentioned. The good news is that I can always repaint it if it gets ugly enough to prompt me to do so.

I recently used rusto professional rattle cans to paint the undercarriage and sliders on my first gen and this paint is basically the same as bed liner but with smaller grit making the texture. I like it more for this sort of thing. It seems to not have dirt stick to it as easily. You might want to buy a can and test it out on some scrap first. I don't think I'll go back to using the bed liner now that I've used this stuff and had good results with it. It's glossy and durable enough I don't think I'll need to clear coat it either - it's holding up where I walk on my sliders to get in the vehicle and wash the roof and top of the shell.

 

Exactly which product did you use on your 1st gen?

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...akes-funny-sounds.472706/page-3#post-15423461

There's a picture of the can in this post.

 

Is this stuff gloss?

 

Yes. Not as glossy as regular paint because of the texture - you can pick it up at Home Depot for less than $6 and it's worth having around the house. You could buy one and sample it to see if it's too glossy for your tastes. Worst comes to worst you can always spray satin clear over it, but it ends up being more work (obviously).