Do I want to cover my rockers with vinyl?

I live on a dirt road, and have for several years now. The black painted part of the rockers on my Miata shows this pretty heavily. In addition to the general sand blasting that has taken place, some of the bigger chips have developed rust bubbles which have further damaged the paint. I would like to clean this up.

For reference:

IMG_4693 by Brian, on Flickr

Naturally, I want to do this myself on the cheap  

As a finish I've been considering vinyl over paint. My thought process is that OEMs use clean vinyl as stone chip protection, so maybe quality gloss black vinyl will be more durable than a DIY paint effort? Any thoughts on this? (feel free to call me an idiot) I've never worked with vinyl, any particular recommendations on what to buy - or not to buy?

I had the same issue. I actually found that Napa sells a textured black paint that's designed for exactly this purpose. Nasty stuff to spray, but it's held up so far.

Bed liner? That's what I was thinking of using once I get my 2002's rockers cleaned up and patched.

Bed liner, or rubberized undercoating if you might need to patch it as time goes by.

If the paint is good, or you could make it good, 3M paint protection clear film is available in bulk rolls in various widths. Easy to apply and I've used it w/ good results. XPEL is another film protector recommended by others but might be pricier as I understand. 

Standard vinyl is not durable enough. You need something a few mils thick. You can get black or clear in 6 inch wide rolls about 12 feet long. Or as has been suggested,  bed liner. 

Yeah. Plastidip. Easy. Removable. Cheap. 

Is Duraguard no longer available? It was/is available in black, white and tan and would be way better than either undercoating ot bedliner.

Every car I've ever seen with the clear vinyl dent protection gets dirt under the edges at some point. I vote bedliner.

It's worked well for KISS.

In reply to Wally :

I came in here to make more or less that joke, though I hadn't decided on KISS. (Trivial aside: First album I ever bought.)

Kill rust then prime and paint with three finish coats.  Then apply stone guard/rubberized undercoating. I typically apply at least three thin coats. Follow the re coat instructions carefully and you should be good to go. Finally I finish coat of color to match the car as needed. This seals the stone guard and helps keep it flexible for longer. I have done this on many vehicles and I consider it a virtually permanent fix. 

I've used 3M Rubberized Undercoating on several cars for this exact purpose--works well and can be touched up with satin black Krylon etc. as necessary.

Ransom said:

In reply to Wally :

I came in here to make more or less that joke, though I hadn't decided on KISS. (Trivial aside: First album I ever bought.)

As a kid I had been convinced that listening to KISS would negatively affect my mental state. 

ebonyandivory said:

As a kid I had been convinced that listening to KISS would negatively affect my mental state. 

You can listen to them, you just shouldn't take any of their advice.

On the topic of KISS, this scene is what always comes to mind

NSFW:

As an update... I ended up doing POR-15. We'll see how it holds up.