Colour Restorer for black plastic trim, Help!

spigot

spigot

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After 5-6 months every year in the Spanish sun (pre Brexit) the black plastic & trim on my camper has been bleached light grey!
Like Amy Winehouse I need to get it ‘Back to Black’
I tried Simoniz Back to Black but found it useless. How can a clear liquid turn grey plastic black?.
I need something like a sort of polish containing a high intensity black dye.
Anyone out there got any ideas?
 
I had a Ford based van and found foreverblack to be excellent. Bit expensive, but a bottle lasts for years. The bumper or panel needs to be free of silicon, but it comes with a silicon removing agent. It is a UV resistant dye which I applied with a small paintbrush. One coat is fine but 2 coats are better. Then top up every 6 to 9 months.


I also can recommend their tyre gel to protect the sidewalls from UV and make them look good. I paint my tyres every 3 or 4 months.


People also swear by boot polish, or a hot air gun and, I think, linseed oil.

Davy
 
I've used Meguires Ultimate Black which works for me. I think anything you use will need reapplication after a while.
 
Many products out there !
I have a bottle of a fluid a bit like black toothpaste.
First used 6 years ago and it did the job.
Re applied last year and again a good result.
Maybe best to do every 3 or 2 years
 
I've never done the heat gun/hair dryer, just heard about it, I've only had one van where they were bad enough to do anything, I got a B&Q matchpot made up to match the side skirts and brush painted it on thinly, it was still there over a year later when I sold it, the bumper was textured and didn't show any brush marks, yes it sounds horrible, but it cost £2 and worked, the reason I went that way was the back bumper was broken, and had a bit missing so I plastic welded it, used some plastic filler but it looked awful, but the matchpot made it look good, might have pictures somewhere.
 
I've tried it in the past and on large areas it very easy to make it look worse as you can see every pass of the heat gun. If you try this method find something to practice on first
 
I remember the old days when car trim was fastened on with rivets, after a few years all cars had big rust blisters on panels around the rivet fixing holes.
Then the japs started to use the stick on door strips which now all makers use.
 
I don't know if I would do the heat gun treatment on trim other than bumpers, but it certainly works well on them.
I am not sure if you need to worry about it making the bumper brittle? It is not a process you would do often enough to have that kind of effect (I did this on my VW T4 and bumper stayed black and looking good at the point I sold it a year later).
If you have repairs on the bumper, then the heatgun will cause a different reaction. It is for unrepaired and unpainted bumpers only, and as long as you do it right (imagine the heat gun is a spraygun when using it, so constant moving and overlaps).

This shows the start of the process on my T4 Rear Bumper and the comparison for before and after. The van was 15 years old at this point and so had the typical scrapes on them. The Heat Gun process actually helps with the appearance of them as well.
 
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This is what I use, recommend by the late great Wintonian.
20230519_114018.jpg
 
exwindsurfer said:
All my plastic was different shade of grey so I had the lot sprayed satin black sorted .
Click to expand...
This is the approach I would go for as well (y)

Needs the right products to get right, but once done, pretty well maintenance-free same as the standard paintwork :)
 
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