XSeries-forum

My X5 has never looked its best because of the state of my black high gloss window surround trim that I've noticed affects a lot of X5s.

The tarnishing is supposedly caused by the "Truck Wash" cleaners used at roadside car washes. A previous owner of my car must have gone every weekend 'cos mine were particularly bad and really let the car down - its always bugged me since the day I bought the car.

My headlights were looking tired too so I splashed out on some G3, a machine polisher and various different grades of 75mm polishing pads and set about sorting both issues out.

I've got to say the results of the high gloss window trims in particular are spectacular.

It took a while and it was a messy job - I'm sure a pro could do it in half the time and with a lot less mess but its been worth the effort.

I gave them a good clean first up then masked up along the paintwork as the paint is likely to be thinner on the edges and I didn't want to polish through it with the G3.

Using plenty of water I started with a harder compounding polishing pad then finished off with a softer 3M finishing pad.

Finally I gave them all a coat of wax to give some protection.

See the results for yourself - they're back to their original deep glossy finish and the car looks great.

Before;



Its a messy job!


Results;

Looking great 

Brilliant results.. Mine are exactly the same I'll be trying this for sure

Great finish those little jobs/tweaks are well worth doing.

That's a brilliant job and great work  when I had mine people used to comment to me about how bad mine were and it used to bug me too and as you say it seems to affect most X5`s, yours looks the business now.

Job well done, makes all the differance

Awesome result  :xmasgrin:

Great result, mine suffered with the mottled affect window trim too, I thought it was the wax from the local car wash that was causing it. Good result ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

What a fantastic result...you have done a great job 

Looks awesome! Mine are terrible also.  This is probably a stupid question...  will that only last as long as a regular waxing or is it a more long lasting fix?

cheeers

[quote="Nick73"]
Looks awesome! Mine are terrible also.  This is probably a stupid question...  will that only last as long as a regular waxing or is it a more long lasting fix?

[/quote]

Theoretically the machine polishing should have cleaned off the tarnishing and stripped it back to a clean layer.

I only waxed it to make it shine a bit more and give it a little protection.

Over the course of time I expect it might tarnish again - but the original tarnishing should be all gone.... or at least I hope so.

Apparently its caused by the strong chemicals used by the guys at the hand car washes that are popping up all over the place. The strong stuff they use to clean the cars (called "truck wash") lifts off the dirt effectively but at the cost of leaving this surface imperfection on the black glossy trim and the running boards on X5s.

I'll be sorting out my running boards this weekend.

If anyone has any experience with it coming back please let me know. A week later and lots of miles and rain its no showing any signs of coming back.

Cheers, I think I was getting my wires crossed with the G3 stuff I see in Halfords (which I assumed was a wax) and the G3 polish you used, which is why i thought it might just be temporary.  Still it looks the business!

job well done mate, this trim from bmw has been looking as bad as this for years if its not looked after,
you would have thought by now they would have come up with something that does not look like this
after several months...

Can you tell me which G3 product you used please? Is it the colour restorer? Thank you!

Hi,

Its just the standard G3 compound as far as I'm aware, nothing special. See photos below.

However... 2.5 years on from me polishing the trims to perfection the horrible tarnishing is back I'm afraid - seems its not a permanent fix afterall 

It's time I polish it again - a job for the summer.

It looked great for at least a year though and if I'd kept on waxing it then I'm sure it would have lasted longer.

Here are some photos of how it looks today.








I still maintain it was worth doing - just get into the habit of waxing it every few months.

Hope this helps!