I'm wondering what it takes to go from a painted wheel arches to satin black wheel arches...Is that trim just laid over the plastic, or are these panels completely different? I'm looking at a 2005 car with a JCW kit that was installed by the dealership at the time of purchase, and I'm trying to figure out the cheapest/easiest way to get the black trim look.




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The aero kit (nothing to do with JCW, by the way) specific pieces have a matte black paint on them. Normally the other parts would be textured plastic instead of painted, so you’d have to either repaint them or replace them. As far as I know, the cars with painted trim like that are custom.

Honestly, the textured plastic is kind of a pain. It’s not particularly durable, and it makes the car annoying to wax.

 

^^^ Agreed with the textured aspects. OTOH, not being PTM makes those trim pieces "semi-disposable" if damaged and replaceable individually. I actually prefer the contrasting appearance but that's subjective...

 

Get them from a yard - allmag auto dismantles many Mini’s. They have been good to me.

 

The cheapest and easiest? Masking tape and plastidip

 

Kinda what had njaremka mentioned above.
I had repaired a badly gouged front wheel arch and subsequently "re-textured" with SEM (39853 ?) black ABS textured spraypaint.
Turned out great....but redoing all four wheel arches and trim would be a pain.
New or salvage replacements would be the way to go IMO.
Hopefully they (whom ever painted the trim) had removed the arches before painting them red. If not - the risk of damaging the rest of the car's paint would be disastrous upon R&R!

 

So like...Is the trim on a stock R53 paint, removable plastic, or plastic that's "baked into" the rest of the panel on purchase/assembly?

Same question for the aero kit, I guess...Are there different versions? Factory, dealer-installed, aftermarket??

The textured spraypaint might be the way forward for me, as factory aero kits seem to go for over $1k, if you can find one...

 

Okay, like I said before, the stock trim is textured plastic and replaceable. The aero kit uses a special paint because it doesn't have trim.

 

The aero kit was never available factory installed, and the black portions on it were painted with a textured paint to match the regular black, unpainted, plastic trim. The aero kit also had faintly molded guidelines on the pieces to correctly mask for the textured paint. The factory textured paint is no longer available from MINI. Not sure if it’s still available from the OEM, but the SEM or Plastidip mentioned above might be the easiest alternatives.

 

Aha! I think I've got it together now. Thanks y'all!

On stock examples, the trim is pieces of black plastic attached to the painted body.

The aero bumpers and side skirts came as bare white plastic (factory or aftermarket) and were painted to match the body color, and optionally matched to the trim by way of textured paint followed by black trim paint.

This means I can buy the stock plastic trim pieces for the bonnet and rear arches, and paint the bumpers and side skirts to match. Am I missing anything?

 

Body matched trim was less common, and at one time the aerokit was available pre-painted from the factory, but that’s pretty much it. For more details you can still find the Factory installation instruction pdf online: https://www.motoringfile.com/howto/A...%20Bodykit.PDF

Do you already have the aero kit or air you looking to install one?

 

I'm buying a car with a body-colored aero kit installed. I wanted to make sure I could bring back the black trim without buying a thousand bucks worth of new panels and what not.

 

All talked about here and if you want that textured match front and rear bumper.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...o-bumpers.html

 

ECS Tuning is right on with the Trim Black.

The plastic trim pieces are not that expensive new, and especially so if you get them used, and ALLMAG is a good source for parts. Not to speak out of turn but I would think they would even consider putting a complete set together for a special request.

Motor On!

 

Yep, most people juts get new trims and sell the old painted ones, then use SEM trim black to do the front and rear bumper. Mask it off and paint as the front and rear aero bumper is an all in one part.

 

SEM trim black is great for a smooth satin look, and it’s what I used on my GP style wing uprights. For a textured look you’ll need to lay down a base coat of SEM texture paint, or something similar, and it’ll probably take some experimenting to get a close texture match with the factory plastic pieces. https://semproducts.com/product/text...roduct-details.

Something to consider… the body color painted trim might be worth selling but painting the pieces with the aero kit trim will give the best match overall since the same process and paint would be used for everything.

 

Yep, listed back in that link above, SEM39143 and SEM39853