fake "chrome" on plastic / unpainted plastic body parts

I

imported_speedingpenguin

New member
How do you go about cleaning front grills for example that arent metal but plastic, but have like that 'chrome' paint on them? Both my 97 Cadillac Catera and my dads G35 have this, and its hard to know what to do with it.....

Also, on the G35 the lower area below the doors is like unpainted plastic.....black....how should I clean/take care of this?
 
The plastic chrome is called "vacuum-metallized plastic". I treat it much the same as I would chrome.



Clean with 20/20 glass cleaner. That's it.



Any black plastic, I clean with soap and water and dress with Mothers Back to Black or 303 Protectant.
 
If the black plastic is not smooth and on the lower portion of the car, I use Stoner's Trim Shine or Mother's Back-To-Black. I think the Trim Shine looks better. On the upper trim, I have been using Nxt protectant and I've been pretty happy with it. I think it's easier to use than Back-to-black. For the "fake chrome," I use Bluemagic plastic cleaner/polish. It's cheap at Pep-Boys, and it works fine. I have also just used 20/20, adn before I really got into detailing, Windex worked fine.
 
Timely topic; I *just* finished doing this to the trim of that type on Accumulatorette's A8.



AIO then SG or BFII, depending on the surface. The harder/smoother the surface, the more inclined I am to use SG. The more textured, BF.
 
Be very careful with vacuum metalized trim..it's quite delicate.



I'd suggest a washing with the rest of the car, and no wax...many waxes even say that they are not for use metalized (sp?) surfaces. At least with older cars, super delicate cleaning and no more...or the "chrome" washes off.



For the plastic trim on the door bottoms...you could also try 303.
 
Sullybob- I've been using Klasse on this kind of trim for maybe five years, ever since I've been using Klasse. Before BF came out, I often just topped the AIO with Souveran when dealing with textured pieces. I get mixed results with SG as a topper on this stuff, depending on the texture (not a problem, really splitting hairs here). Back before I discovered Klasse, I just used Souveran or another "straight" carnauba on it (did that for years).



As far as treating chromed plastic, you can wax it; the front grill and headlight surrounds of my '85 XJS are that stuff. Now days I use AIO/SG on it, but for maybe ten years I used Pinnacle's PCL or, usually, Meg's cleaner wax to clean it when needed, then put carnauba on it. No problems, and I've had the car for 19 years now. I even "sealed" a nasty rock chip (bad enough that the chrome was gonna *really* peel off of the plastic) with *lots* of SG and it's held up just fine. FWIW, I have *real* chrome that's worn off the top of the door handles, but the chromed plastic stuff is virtually like new.
 
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