mwolfe

I have a '08 Targa 4S. The rummer window trim is weatherad and looks bad. I would expect this from my car with 60K miles but it is happening to my friend's '08 C4S with 20K miles. It looks like the gloss is wearing off of the trim.

I have tried several different rubber restoration products, but they don't work well. It seems that the different textures, gloss vs matte, absorb the products differently.

Has anyone been able to fix this? I have thought about buffing out the glossy areas to at least make it look uniform. Has anyone ever changes out their trim?

powderzone

I've had good results from "Black Wow". You will need to tape off glass and painted surfaces and it takes a couple of applications. I do this once a year.

sidwin

my car has 29k on it and i noticed passenger side has a problem. i washed the car today and used some tire shine on the window trim. I did that to clean it then i applied 3 coats of turtle wax ice on it. it looks pretty good now. going to have to keep it up when i wash the car.

oalvarez

I like 303 Protectant but maybe the rubber is too far gone in your case.

LexVan

Try the 303. Great product. Make sure the rubber trim is properly cleaned first. Go to one of your local PCA Concours events soon, you will learn a lot of tricks from your fellow club members.

Ben Z

I asked a guy who does concours detailing and he recommended a product called Gummi Pflege. Sold at BMW dealerships, but I think he said it's available online if you search it.

Ezkill

You can either dress it to get the color back temporarily or do a more permanent fix and re-dye it with a product called black wow or something similar.

Heplful article with some picture of before and after trim:

http://www.detailingspot.com/?page_id=21

mwolfe

I heard good things about Gummipflege, but that is where I had the differences in absorption.

I am currently taking off the rest of the gloss with a rubbing compound. My friend did that and it looks much better--uniform color. Then the Gummipflege. I will repost pictures.

mwolfe

GREAT LINK. Thanks a ton. That'll help.

Ezkill

There is one product I would recommend for after and that's Poor Boys World Trim restore. It's cheap, effective, readily available and has both UVA and UVB protection. It will keep the trim from getting weathered again. Might want to look into it if you go with the color restore idea. I apply it to a couple cars that sit outside 365 days a year in California. All the trim on those vehicles looks factory fresh.

I think the 303 stuff mentioned also works really well but I haven't used it on trim personally. I have used the 303 on the hulls of my ocean kayaks that sit in the sun all year and it works VERY well. I can't speak for it personally for trim but I assume it's fantastic.

The sun damage on vehicles can be pretty aggressive. I make sure all the vehicles have the headlights covered with a film to prevent clouding. All of the trim is brushed once a month with the Poor Boys, including wiper covers and any trim I can get at and even after 7+ years in the sun still looks new. I re-wax all the vehicles every 4-6 months depending on how it's holding up. Of course the wax doesn't have any UV protection but it does protect the clear coat that has UV protection. Surprisingly I've managed to keep the non garaged cars as good as the garaged cars. Just takes a little more work.

Pors968

Mwolfe- How's the results after Gummipflege? Or did you try something else?

Lahainabry

I buy it on Amazon. Great product!