Faded Window Trim Repair

I just repainted my trim on passenger side before putting on AVS visors. For some reason it lost the shine and was super faded. Applied a few light coats of black paint, then clear coat, wet sanded it with 2500 and buffed out, came out better than the factory trim, it actually has more of a mirror finish/reflection than the driver side, but I'm not touching that for now lol. Plus my quarter panel window had that infamous stress crack, so filled it up and took care of both problems in one take.
 
GetLuckiFX said:
I just repainted my trim on passenger side before putting on AVS visors. For some reason it lost the shine and was super faded. Applied a few light coats of black paint, then clear coat, wet sanded it with 2500 and buffed out, came out better than the factory trim, it actually has more of a mirror finish/reflection than the driver side, but I'm not touching that for now lol. Plus my quarter panel window had that infamous stress crack, so filled it up and took care of both problems in one take.
Click to expand...

Damm ur good bro :) Nice work

Sent from my C6606
 
Is there a DIY to remove all of the upper window trim? I know Andy did this on his, but I'm not too sure of the process. I'm thinking that if I'm going to do it, I'm just going to pull them and repaint versus wrapping.
 
Ha, I'm going to try to get there, might not make the morning, but I'll be there one way or another.
 
The trim is held by two external clip things and glue, you take the rubber seal off to expose those then it's sort of pull up/pull away/peel move all at once.


Sent from my iPhone
 
For the two front doors, you also have to loosen the outside rear view mirror too; which mean you have to remove the interior door trim panel.
 
Looks great. But wrapping sounds complicated for me. I did see some snap on pillars from Amazon for $48 or so.

Did you wrap the window trim above and below too? Perhaps using chrome wrap would work there... That would be nice.
 
I looked all over the web for a solution (Days) and priced out the parts new. Too expensive for parts.
I masked off and sanded, from 300 grit, 450 grit, 500 grit, then 600-Wet sanded the trim around the windows. I got the trim as smooth as possible or what I will tolerate. Top and bottom. The top black plastic came off easily compared to the bottom but I sanded it smooth to eliminate glue bumps/scratches, and looked like a brushed nickle. 4 days of sanding/prepping. 4 hours a day, about 16 hours.

I contacted a vinyl wrap guy and was quoted 300$ to wrap the windows. 150 each side. cheap compared to the other alternatives. New parts easy $1,200.00 then had to take apart the doors. Wrap guy said if he had to do additional prepping it would cost more. Obviously he didn't need to do any additional prepping. :)

I am very happy with the outcome. I did not want to plasti-dip my car as I didn't want to deal with masking off my car or any over-spray mishaps.
Next new car I purchase will get clear vinyl wrapped hood and all chrome deleted.
let me know what you think? Here are some before and after pics.
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Nice ideas. Great looking job. Did you hand sand? I want to use an orbital to do the work.

Too bad about that bronze stripe set on your car. Maybe you can buff it out.
 
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