Restoring Sprinter Plastic Trim

The exterior plastic Bumpers and wheel flares have reached an unacceptable appearance level on my 7 year old Sprinter. I have purchased and tested several of the so called Back to Black type of products and found that they helped the appearance, but only for a few weeks.

I finally used a heat gun to fix the problem.

As the attached photos show, using a heat gun, designed to strip paint off of wood, seems to have returned the plastic trim back to like new condition.

Used this method at your own risk.
 

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Altered Sprinter

Happy Little Vegemite
Five years on a little methylated Spirits to remove ingrained dirt, and buffed with any non silicone based Plastic polishes keep the bumpers looking new.
Heat gun is a neat trick as the heat melts away the old oxidization on the surface of the bumpers trim etc, But I'm not game to do it until the day arrives.
Richard
DSC01275 (Custom) (2).JPG
 

Chandlerazman

Active member
Living in Phoenix and being that much closer to the sun, my 1 year old Sprinter is showing signs of fading on the plastic trims. I used some Back to Black today to hopefully stave off the effects for now. I think the plastic that Germany uses is not of the finest ingredients...
 
Heat gun on plastic does not work

Here is the one year update on this method of using a heat gun to restoring plastic trim.

It does not work.

As you can see in the above photos, the heat gun did a good job of turning the plastic darker. The problem is, it will not stay dark. I used 12 different products designed to maintain plastic trim, but none of them could keep the uniform darkness created by the heat gun and the more time that passed, the more uneven the color became.

Also, the heat from the gun caused minor warping.
 

Attachments

surlyoldbill

Well-known member
OK...... Why not just paint them periodically???
You stole my idea.
The plastic paint available these days actually works on plastic. I'm not sure if there is an off-the-shelf color that matches the Sprinter trim, though. Make sure to clean off the surface with acetone or something so the paint will stick. When I was in the snowboard industry, my factory discovered that the only way to make glue/resin stick to the P-tex (PVC) was to flame treat it immediately before applying the glue/resin.
 

larry8061

New member
This is indeed a most difficult problem. It is a problem with black trim and it is even worse with this gray stuff. There isn't a lot of answers on the website for this problem but, there are some, and a list of products that might help. Go to the Meguiar's website and look over their forums and product listings. The Insane Tire black helped mine some after some major cleanings. I'm not sure there is anything that is going to last a long time. They have some plastic cleaners that I haven't had time to try yet.

Larry
 

larry8061

New member
I took my own advice and went and rechecked the website....found some threads i hadn't found before on this topic (there are 5).

Suggestions in the few minutes I was there were: Meguiar's #39 from the Factory rep., Meguiar's #40 from the end suers (pro's) and peanut/vegetable oil from some of the folk.

Larry
 

HappyFamilyVan

Captain Ahab
Moby only gets a washing every 4-5 months...at those times I clean my exterior plastic trim with WD-40... seems to work OK...
 

Trekker

Trekker
I've used Mother's Back-to-Black on mine since day one. :thumbup:

Wipe it on about every 2-3 months, and it stays nice looking. Protecting plastic exposed to our sub-tropical Florida sun is a real problem, and after three years experience, I can say I'm pleased with this product. Having had boats docked outdoors, if you let any plastic get oxidized to the point where it loses it's shine or color, it's impossible to get it back. Prevention, prevention, prevention.

Peanut oil?? No way! No UV stabilizers in peanut or vegetable oils, so they will oxidize, gum up and likely make a sticky mess.:2cents:
 

larry8061

New member
Ah curumba!:crazy:

OK, I was in a hurry and didn't post each and every step of the process.......... yikes!

Use the peanut or vegetable oil to CLEAN the vinyl (you know take the stuff off that may be discoloring the vinyl in particular old wax possibly) THEN use a vinyl conditioner and THEN a color restorer.........

Or just go get Meguiar's #40 and be done with it...........

Larry:idunno:
 
Larry,
I have tested all of the products from mequiar's, poorboys, chemical guys, autogeek and several others. They are all temporary, with the best of the bunch lasting only a few weeks. Even the ones that contain dyes, are short lived. 95% of them streak after the first rain.

There is one new product available from autogeek called Ultimate Tire & Trim. It is the best choice at this time only because it has lasted two months and is still going strong. Of course it is the most expensive, but it only takes one drop to do the plastic mirror backs and 6 drops to do a bumper. One bottle should last for years.

It only works if you put in on extremely, extremely , extremely thin.

I also used it to black the tires and it is still there after two months.

Don't get it on your hands.
 

Trekker

Trekker
There is one new product available from autogeek called Ultimate Tire & Trim. It is the best choice at this time only because it has lasted two months and is still going strong. Of course it is the most expensive
Did you mean "Ultima tire and trim guard plus"?? If so, yeah that's pricey-- 32 bucks a bottle. At the current commodity price of $2200 per metric ton, you could buy over four gallons of peanut oil for that price! :smilewink: But if you say it works great, I'll give it a try. Is it only available online, or in local stores? Do I have to do anything special to remove any previous 'treatments' before I apply this magic elixir?
 

larry8061

New member
I really don't need to go down this rabbit hole.......... if you want to know what people have done/do the Meguiar's site has, as I said about 5 threads with posts.

I am not aware of a vinyl magic wand and if someone needs perfection, rip the old ones off and buy new ones.

Good luck all!

Larry
 

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