Ever since I got my cobalt it has bothered me how the rubber strip around the rear quarter panel windows has looked faded and dingy and on other cars I have tried various products like mothers back to black and even tire shine with mixed results or just temporary effects.

So I decided to go ahead and try dipping the trim.

Here is a shot of the driver side quarter before any treatment. You can clearly see the ugly splotches and faded appearance.



This is a close up to better show the nasty looking cancerous looking splotches I was talking about.



So I taped off the window and quite a bit of area around the window as well. I wasn't too concerned with over spray since the car was rather dirty and had a coat of fine dust and road grime on it plus its black and not perfect anyway. A little plasti dip overspray isn't going to be a huge problem.



After applying several light coats of plasti dip and drying with a heat gun in between coats to speed the process here is the final result....




So here is the better before and after comparison....





I did this to both sides of the car and all I did for prepping was of course masking off the window and surrounding areas and made sure both rubber trims were as clean as possible by going over them very thoroughly with a rag and low odor mineral spirits to remove oil, wax, road grime, you name it. I think it turned out pretty well.

I wasn't for sure if this would be the right section but since it is an appearance related post I thought it fit. If anyone is having this same issue this might be a good solution. Time will tell if the finish lasts but I don't really see why it wouldn't.

 

Nice writeup, ive been considering doing this for a while. Lokks nice! Are you gonna do the rest of the window trim too? Like the part on the door?

 

when mine starts doing that, im just going to go buy new ones.

 

How does it look with out flash?

 

I will possibly when the those pieces start to fade as well but they weren't in too bad shape just yet.

I was wondering if someone was going to ask that. I'll take another pic outside today to give a better sense of the overall look.

 

where do you buy new trim?

and I like, I'm in need of this soon as well.

 

i have always touched up faded the trim around my cars with spray paint or a marker lol

 

the dealership should sell them, also they should be sold aftermarket, from like parts channel, or lkq .

 

Well I didn't get a good chance to get a decent pic today. Been running errands all afternoon and this evening and its been raining on and off. Will get a daylight pic tomorrow after work.

 

Here is the last photo, daytime no flash out in the open. It's overcast here so no direct sun.