Interior trim coating
 

Is underneath the silver paint on our trim pieces a decently finished black plastic? Like did they just take the black trim and spray it silver for the U.S. versions?
It looks to be since I am seeing a darker color as it wears on EVERY silver piece in the car.
I'm wondering if I can just take some paint stripper and remove the silver and have a black plastic piece instead of ordering like $150 of new OEM black pieces.
I know everybody just pulls them off and paints them but I want it to be all the way through so as it gets scratched more, it's just more black.
Anything would be better than the look of silver paint wearing away. The car hasn't even hit 20k and it looks like it was sprayed with a rattle can the way it's wearing so quick.

It’s definitely a black plastic underneath, but as for stripping the paint, I’m not sure. You might be able to sand it off carefully, increasing the grit to a high degree, and then polish it out? Alternatively if it’s ABS (probably), you could use an acetone or MEK dip to smooth it out post sanding.

Or alcantara wrap it all ;)

If you sand it, it turns black. When I painted my stuff I gave it a light sanding with 200 grit and then sprayed it.

Acetone will most likely smudge the plastic underneath. I would recommend going with 200 grit then work your way up to 400 then give it a nice matte spray.

you can buy the black plastic trim pieces from various outlets for not very expensive. I think you would be better off buying something with a finish in black rather than trying to sand plastic.

I don't think I'm in down for any sanding, but just stripping if it's possible without ruining the plastic. I know the easiest thing is to
just buy the OEM black stuff but I figured if it's just removing silver paint and then maybe clearing, I'd do that to make a little project out of it.
I might do a search for local wrecked cars and see if I can test it out on something first and when I do, Ill report back on results.

What do you reckon is causing the silver to wear off?


humfrz

The "paint" is just a thin layer of different coloured plastic. Any solvent that will remove it will damage the plastic underneath as well. You will probably just end up with a sticky, ugly mess if you try strippers.

Ya, really. I have well over a hundred thousand miles and untold hours spent in the car and all my trim is still like new.

When I wash the car(every 1 to 2 weeks), I always wipe all the plastics/rubber down when doing the insides with protectant. If it was an oil based product it might be doing
damage by softening the silver but I use 303 Aerospace and it's not every silver part but only the drivers side being affected.
I just looked to see exactly where damage is prevalent and it's all really bad on the driverside door pull thing, a little on the shifter trim is mainly on the driver side but still slightly on passenger side.
The rest of the silver, A/C rings and knee pad trim are ok so parts that aren't touched are good. The difference in door handles is huge, passenger side is still new.
Could be just from touching it though or maybe a combination with the heavy cleaning I do inside. Maybe my sweat is higher pH and does more damage to stuff I touch?
Either way, it doesn't look like less than 4 years/19k miles of inside wear and more like 20 years worth and it bothers me every time I sit in the car now.

Maybe that is it. I wipe mine down with plain old soapy water about once every two years or so. Could be a combination of the cleaner and sweat.




Like new. Dirty but 100% intact.

Either my acid sweat or I'm overdoing it on wiping the thing every week with the "protectant".
https://i.imgur.com/pgVsuc9.jpg

That's EXACTLY the reason I don't "detail" the inside of my car. I don't want to wear it out - ;)

However, I do vac the floor mats and I dust off parts of the dash, if I'm waiting in line at a drive through carry out.


humfrz

Bunch of dirty old men in here. :D

I see why it's wearing so fast now. Being in FL, I am in shorts 99.99% of the time and my knee is rubbing that door handle with bare skin.
Just going to order the OEM black stuff. Anybody know a better price to get it all than ft86speedfactory.com ?