Cladding Restoration

[CatFish]

It was not easy to get all the forever black product off the cladding, some came right of and some required acetone, a light scotch bright pad and some scrubbing. Scrubbing to hard with a scotch bright pad will scratch the cladding even a fine one so I had to e careful not to scrub it hard. The acetone is very harsh and will strip paint and etch plastic so I had to be careful not to get it on other finishes. The acetone does make the cladding very chalky and dry looking, so I washed it really good after I got all the forever black removed.

This is what the cladding looked like after a couple of months.


Here is what the rear looked like after stripping the forever black off the rear cladding and applying some trim conditioner, shown next to the un-stripped area.

[TonyVX]

I Did NOT Use A Spray Can. I Bought A Qt Of Gatorback Paint & My Friend That Owns A Body Shop Painted The Entire Cladding In A Spray Booth Then Baked It & Left it Over Night In The Booth to Dry. It Did NOT Change The Texture At All. The Spray Can Is Only Good To Touch Up If Needed !

Did you remove and clean the cladding to apply the Gatorback or did you leave it on the vehicle? Is this a standard way to apply the product? When I look on their page it just says roll/spray it on. If I don't have a friend with a spray booth (which I don't) I suspect the local body shop will look at me sideways if I ask them to do this.

[ALC1717]

If You Pay I Am Sure A Local Body Shop Will Spray It On For You. It Must Be Cleaned First To Remove All The Old Stuff On The Cladding. If You Cannot Bake it on In A Spray Booth Buy Enough Spray Cans And Do it - Still Much Better Than Any Black Treatment Which You NEVER Have To Apply Again !

[VX KAT]

I am only testing the products that claim to dye the plastics and rubbers because I have tried at least 10 different reconditioning type products and none of them lasted longer than a few months on my VX.

Hi CatFish,
I got one of the last shipments of "Showroom New" in July 2014. When I tried to re-order it was no longer available, BUT, I found the owner of the company, Michele Calhoun and she told me that she had stopped selling the product to the public in favor of selling only to Detail centers across the US. Because she was selling by license/franchise, she could no longer sell to the public anymore.

Showroom New is still available but only through detailing centres such as Ben's Auto Detail Centre in Georgia, http://bensautodetailcenter.com/?page_id=46 and Detail King: http://cardetailingblog.com/automoti...uto-detailers/ and others.

I applied a coat to my hood insert back in July 2014 and it still looks like new today twenty months later! Pure and simple, it works! It's worth paying a detail center that uses Showroom New, to restore your cladding.

Jayd-S aka Geoff

I went to the 2 websites Jayd-S listed above that sell Showroom New. Doesn't seem they do now, but Detail King sells "Trim Kote Car Trim Restorer" and says it's the best on the market. It's a permanent dye. Might want to try this stuff. They sell it in a 16oz bottle, so maybe it's available in smaller sizes.
http://store.detailking.com/car-trim-restorer-black

[89Vette]

Somewhere recently, I saw a paint (available in rattlecan) that FUSES with plastic for a permanent color restore/change. It was kind of expensive but I'm still trying to remember where I saw it. I THINK it might have been in YouTube repair videos?

[Mile High VX]

This is what I used last and really like the results:

http://3mcollision.com/mar-hyde-bump...tic-04911.html

[89Vette]

Mar-Hyde....Same thing I used on mine.

[CatFish]

Trim and Bumper paint success on the VX cladding.

I tried a lot of different methods to improve the cladding and I finally found a way to even out the cladding, get rid of the chalkiness, discolorations and restore the dark grey color with a cheap and fairly easy to use product that I was very apprehensive to try so I used a test piece of old damaged cladding I had laying around.

I used the Dupli-Color Trim & Bumper paint available at AutoZone (charcoal grey), with good results. I found you must first clean the cladding very good to remove all the old oily products that may have been applied over the years and then wipe it down with acetone, then rinse and dry the cladding. I Found that using the acetone removes all the oxidized plastic from the cladding to get the trim and bumper paint to bond with the cladding properly. (You only need to do this once before the initial application)

Then tape off the lights and areas you do not want paint on. Then spray a very light, and I emphasize very light coating of trim and bumper paint. Just enough to even out the color, this way it will run or not peal. (You can do a second light coat if the color is not even)

The charcoal grey is almost the exact same color as our VX cladding so this just gets rid of the chalky and discolored areas and evens it all out. It is not a color change so scratches and dings do not show like they do with the black die I tried. (The die was not die and ended up pealing in a couple of days)

It is so close in color and bonds nicely to the cladding that even scratches are barely visible and you can touch it up and after a day or 2 in the sun you cannot see the difference in color on the spot touch ups.
I have taken it through many car washes and it still looks great with only one application about a year ago now. If the paint has worn off I cannot tell as the cladding remains a uniform charcoal gray and does not have streaks like the oily restoration products made after it got wet.

I have been to Moab twice and washed it many times since applying it and it still looks good.


This is what the die looked like after about 2 weeks, as you can see the black die is not a good match for the cladding.

This is how the trim & Bumper paint looks next to the botched dies job.