Can I paint exterior vinyl shutters?

[dennis thompson]

We would like to change the color of the shutters on our beach house, they are white & we want to make them charcoal gray. We thought about new ones but I got an estimate for them (9 pairs) & it was about $1500, installed, more than I want to spend. So I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on painting vinyl shutters?
Thanks
Dennis

[Dale Cruea]

I have painted vinyl shutters on my house. I bought the paint able type when I bought them. I think there is some spray paint that is for plastic/vinyl. I don't know how it will stand up outside. I don't know of any latex paint that will stay on vinyl if is is not the paintable type.
Check with a local paint store.

[Kerry Adams]

I changed the color on my vinyl shutters two years ago with Shermin-Williams Duration. They look great-no issues

Kerry

[Matt Meiser]

I used the Fusion plastic paint to paint a bunch of the mounting buttons for ours a few years back when we had to pll them down for window replacement. I can't say I'm overly thrilled with the result as it was pretty glossy and has chipped in spots. But the fading of the original color (maroon) has been more rapid than the paint so they also don't match very well either. Replacing them is on my wish list. Ours are the style with open louvers so painting would be a real pain too.

[Larry Edgerton]

Use a base coat of Sherwin Williams adhesion promoting primer. I paint a lot of Azek and I have not had a failure in 15 years. I follow with Grahams Ceramic. Ceramic cleans easier than conventional paints.

If you really want it to stick get some of the adhesion promoting primer that is used for urethane bumpers. I use it in commercial applications. I think you could paint greese with that as a base. Kinda pricy, but a quart would do all your shutters. All it needs is a light coat.

Larry

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I painted the vinyl shutters on our house. They have held up better than the same paint on the cedar siding.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Zinsser Bullseye 1*2*3 Interior/Exterior primer is made for priming surfaces such as vinyl.
Top coat it with any Acrylic Latex exterior paint.

Vinyl's coefficient of expansion is too great for most oil based finishes, so keep that in mind when selecting a top coat.
You need something with a lot of give & take.

& yes - I repainted my 27 year old vinyl shutters last year. They were a light cream color & I put a coat of 1*2*3 on them and two coats of latex gloss trim.
They looked like brand new.
I really can't say how well they held up though!
Menards ran a sale on dark blue shutters and my wife decided ours should be dark blue and not cream colored!
W/Menards generous rebates & sale prices, the final cost of 3 pairs of shutters was the same as a gallon of paint!

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Like Matt, I used used the Fusion plastic paint - except I used it for vinyl lattice. Since it was new, I used a can of plastic primer I had laying around and I made sure that I cleaned the surface well with DNA before painting. It's been 2 years and it still looks good.