I have a '04 silver R53 and the black plastic outer trim around the wheel wells is not looking that great anymore. Anyone know of a product that one could purchase at a parts store to bring the trim back to life?

A couple quick pics of my car below just after I got it.....pay no attention to the ugly roof rack bars on top, those were the first items to come off the car

Thanks, Bryan

 

 

Detailing 101 threads are filled with products. Can be confusing to sort through which one to buy and try. Penetrol sounds intriguing to me because it seems cheap and simple and available at Homedepot or similar. Have yet to work up the energy to tackle the project.

 

Heat gun works the best and if u have one already it cost u nothing

 

please explain heat gun?

 

Plastic is an petroleum based product and by heating the plastic you can get some petro type chemicals to come back up to the surface but from things I have read this does not always work based upon the age of the plastic, or, to the extent desired.

And yes, the Detailing Section is the place to review questions as this.

 

I used some stuff called “Forever Black” with great results. Others on NAM recommend something called “Black Wow”. As Shine said: keep it off of other surfaces. It doesnt come off the paint easily once it dries.

 

Clean with lacquer thinner or acetone and apply Penetrol on the plastic trim, it will make the trim shiny for years. It will come off with lacquer thinner or acetone, if you don't like it, or need to reapply it.

 

I did look in the detailing threads...didn't find anything definitive that worked well.....and a lot of threads said to use peanut butter....not gonna happen

Thanks guys

 

Since Richard Lin doesn't post around here on Detailing 101 any more he's fallen by the wayside so his Black Wow is being forgotten. I've had it for 6 or 8 years, refresh it maybe twice a year and still have the original bottle with enough left for several more years. The black looks like new...always.

 

I second BlackWOW! Stuff is amazing. I got mine from autogeek website I think.

 

A third for Black Wow!

 

Did some digging on the Black Wow.....I guess it's not being made anymore from what I have found out

 

The best thing that I've tried, and the only thing that actually worked for me (tried back to black and all that crap to no avail), was to spray the trim pieces with plastidip....then peel the plastidip back off. Absolutely no clue why it works but it completely got rid of those weird light colored patterns that everyone seems to get on their trim and brought it back to a nice black.

 

zymol vinyl
one of the two products recommended to preserve the Miata top WAY BACK ... I used it and my top lasted 14 years

I use this on my MINI trim and interior ....

It is NOT cheap .... but a little goes a long way

 

Black Wow

 

Richard is still in business. It's available on his web site. http://www.blackwow.com/index.html
You can visit his main website at http://showcardetailing.com