black gloss window trim polish

[olds350]

When I picked up my e88 last year, some of the gloss black window trim had hazed, so I hit it with some 2000 sand paper and polish and that brought it back to life. The PO had done some knucklehead style of repair on the drivers side door trim and it's always looked like crap with orange peel and grey spots under whatever was sprayed on the trim.

With the 50th BMWCCA coming up in SC in a few weeks, it was time to see if I could salvage the trim. Happy to say it turned out decent. Still have some fine tuning to do, but it looks a lot better.

So this pic I have the trim taped of and hitting it with 2000 sand paper.



If you see those slight blurred dark spots, that's the actual trim starting to show through the clear paint the PO added...



Now after a few hours, of sand/compound/polish... sand/compound/polish... it's starting to look much better



and the final look. I'll try and take a better shot in the daylight tomorrow, but this looks so much better...



So the bottom line to this is I think you can get into this black trim pretty aggressively to bring it back to life, it must be black through the entire thickness of the trim...

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by olds350

When I picked up my e88 last year, some of the gloss black window trim had hazed, so I hit it with some 2000 sand paper and polish and that brought it back to life. The PO had done some knucklehead style of repair on the drivers side door trim and it's always looked like crap with orange peel and grey spots under whatever was sprayed on the trim.

With the 50th BMWCCA coming up in SC in a few weeks, it was time to see if I could salvage the trim. Happy to say it turned out decent. Still have some fine tuning to do, but it looks a lot better.

So this pic I have the trim taped of and hitting it with 2000 sand paper.



If you see those slight blurred dark spots, that's the actual trim starting to show through the clear paint the PO added...



Now after a few hours, of sand/compound/polish... sand/compound/polish... it's starting to look much better



and the final look. I'll try and take a better shot in the daylight tomorrow, but this looks so much better...



So the bottom line to this is I think you can get into this black trim pretty aggressively to bring it back to life, it must be black through the entire thickness of the trim...

The trim is anodized aluminium.

[Edrift]

Much easier to remove the trim than tape it up. It just pulls up and out

[ShocknAwe]

Compound and a DA polisher works well.

[olds350]

Originally Posted by Edrift

Much easier to remove the trim than tape it up. It just pulls up and out

I've looked on line and haven't found any instructions on how to do that. If you have info, please share as I have an edge near the mirror that I'd like to finish up....

[Edrift]

Originally Posted by olds350

I've looked on line and haven't found any instructions on how to do that. If you have info, please share as I have an edge near the mirror that I'd like to finish up....

I found it by trial and error. My car door got hit and the trim popped up.

When I was replacing the door I found you could pull up three whole piece. There are no clips at all.
Just open the door and pull up the trim starting from the open door edge (towards the middle of car not front) as it's just friction fit.

Apply even pressure so you don't bend and kink the trim.

To install it's just about pressing it back in.

[MightyMouseTech]

Just FYI.

BMW says to use "Meguiars #9" for the anodized trim.

https://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215977