Prepping my 2012 wagon for Yetti96 and wanted to deal with the glossy black plastic trim. When the car was being repaired, I complained about how much abuse this trim had taken in the repair shop...it was like every tech that touched the car had sandpaper gloves on...sheesh! Anyway - the body shop manager polished it up by hand using some car polish that he said, "had a little cut to it" - which I took to mean that it contained a very mild abrasive.
I've used Turtle Wax clear-coat safe polishing compound for removing fine scratches in my clear coats, along with a good waffle-cut foam pad like the 3M Perfect-It polishing pads in the standard yellow, blue/green, and black materials . I like this product because the cutting compound they use breaks down quickly, forming progressively finer cut as you use it. This makes it really safe to use because it is hard to overdo it. As the product cuts into the finish, the cutting agent physically breaks down so the amount of action you get is determined by how much of the product used - to a limit. You have to re-apply more polish to get additional cutting action.
So I thought - this might work well on the fake piano-black trim, and it did. I buffed up the center console area by hand using the polishing liquid wax and a good microfiber towel and it came out great. Yes, I'm sure it's gonna get scratched up again pretty fast under normal use, but it's good to know at least it can be restored somewhat.
What have you guys done? What products and methods work well on this? For the center console, I would think to do it right you'd have to pull the damn thing out - getting to those little strips between the buttons has gotta be a pain. I had to just use back-and-forth motions to polish it the best I could. Fortunately this didn't produce any lines or marks and gave a nice shine.
Anyway, curious to know if you polish yours up or have just accepted the scratches?
I've used Turtle Wax clear-coat safe polishing compound for removing fine scratches in my clear coats, along with a good waffle-cut foam pad like the 3M Perfect-It polishing pads in the standard yellow, blue/green, and black materials . I like this product because the cutting compound they use breaks down quickly, forming progressively finer cut as you use it. This makes it really safe to use because it is hard to overdo it. As the product cuts into the finish, the cutting agent physically breaks down so the amount of action you get is determined by how much of the product used - to a limit. You have to re-apply more polish to get additional cutting action.
So I thought - this might work well on the fake piano-black trim, and it did. I buffed up the center console area by hand using the polishing liquid wax and a good microfiber towel and it came out great. Yes, I'm sure it's gonna get scratched up again pretty fast under normal use, but it's good to know at least it can be restored somewhat.
What have you guys done? What products and methods work well on this? For the center console, I would think to do it right you'd have to pull the damn thing out - getting to those little strips between the buttons has gotta be a pain. I had to just use back-and-forth motions to polish it the best I could. Fortunately this didn't produce any lines or marks and gave a nice shine.
Anyway, curious to know if you polish yours up or have just accepted the scratches?
