Fading Handles

[JayD]

Can anyone suggest a way to brighten up the Fez door handles. I have a WQ zetec 5 door in Panther black, and have just spent a few hours polishing her up...the problem is the door handles look really crap. They have faded or oxidized or something and look sort of whitish!!?? I tried to polish them, but when it dries off, they look much the same. Maybe I could try removing them and having them painted, has anyone done this and did you have any dramas. Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks,

Jay

[Jack91]

Maybe try some really deep cut polish? Does tyre shine do anything on them?

[zetec jim]

My best advice is to use Meguires 'Natural shine Vinyl and Rubber protector'

Rub that in a few times to bring out the black shine (keep doing that once a week). Polish if i'm getting what you're saying correctly, will only make them WORSE...MUCH WORSE...

You can paint them (i've painted mine along with the door strip and boot strip).

Just go to autobarn or something like that and ask them to mix you the right colour to match, into a spray can.

Take door handles off clean them, sand starting at 400 sand paper, then work up to around 1000 (keeping wet too)

Then use a can of plastic primer (two or three coats) sand with 1200-1400 paper (wet) then once thats dried, apply your colour spray, however many coats it takes.

Then (after around half a day) you can spray a couple of coats of lacquer.
Once thats dried use some polish to shine them up. Takes a whole day to do it properly by yourself.


: oh what fun...
PM me if you need instructions .doc for taking door handles off.

[JayD]

Thanks for the quick replys...
Zetec Jim, you are right, I have just been out to check how its looking, and the handles look MUCH WORSE!!, as well as the plastic side strips that I got a bit of polish on look really bad. I think I will take your advice and paint them myself. I will pm you for more info on handle removal once I have the paint. Thanks, Jay

[Fled74]

What Jim said.

This is the exact same technique I used for painting my door handles & side rubbing strips.

If you take your time and do it properly, it'll look like a million bucks.

[JayD]

In the bright sunlight of this morning, the handles and side strips look 100 times worse!! The duco polish has got on to the side strips in places and looks shocking, and the handles look worse than yesterday!! I think I will be hitting the paintshops this week and have a project for the weekend.

[FPV GT40]

Maquires Gold Class trim detailer, or Mothers back to black, will bring them up like new....

[DOC]

Originally Posted by JayD

In the bright sunlight of this morning, the handles and side strips look 100 times worse!! The duco polish has got on to the side strips in places and looks shocking, and the handles look worse than yesterday!! I think I will be hitting the paintshops this week and have a project for the weekend.

If these parts your talking about are plastice the of course they are going to look worse and faded with the dried up polish / wax on them.

Painting them is also probably not your best first choice.

Try cleaning them first use some peanut oil on a rag to carfuly wipe just the trim and clean as much polish of those parts, then as above get some megs natural shine and carfully apply, let it soak in and then reapply if needed ( each coat gives a deeper shine.

dry it all down and it should look tops.

moving forward always do your trims before you polish, this way if some wax does get onto it you can quickly wipe it o as the trim detailer acts as a thin membrane protecting it.

[JayD]

Thanks FPV GT40 and Doc, I'll give the Maguires a go this weekend. Will be a lot easier than painting them, especially since my better half uses the car all weekend.
Cheers, Jay

[Jack91]

Ohhhhh, sorry about that one there, mine are painted and I just said what I did with mine, yeah polish would've made black plastic white.

[JayD]

Well, I gave the Meguires Trim detailer a go. It came up pretty good I reckon.

[Adsy01]

JayD, looks great, but i hate to tell you, they'll "fade" again in a week or so.... mine have been doing the same for months.

But i have good news for you!!!!

I managed to get rid of it on mine... See your handles arn't faded at all. The "fading" is only un-buffed polish thats on the handle in the low spots. When you use a trim detailer like you have today, it "wets" the polish, so it looks as if you've sorted it, but after a week or so it dries out and you're back to square one(or spening a crap load of cash on trim detailer). But if you clean out the polish, they will look like new o there own.



How do I clean them I hear you all ask, well the answer is simple.









A humble pencil eraser! :

I just used a common white eraser, and rubbed the polish our of the low parts of the pattern in the plastic! Just the same as if you were rubbing out pencil from paper. Once you've done it give them a wash, then apply your trim detailer and they will stay looking clean, even without the trim detailer!! :


I stumbled across this trick on the fiesta UK forum a while back but only recently tried it... It works on any of the wrough textured plastic on the car.
The other tip i have is mask up the plastic trims and handles on the car next time you polish it.

[zetec jim]

genius! good work mate. that sure beats using blackener every week.