Painting the sedan side trim

[mbf]

Has anyone painted the black trim around the sedans? any photos? I have a silver '01 325i and am considering having all the side/bumper/trunk trim painted to match the rest of the car. Thanks.

[webber]

mbf, I haven't seen it done but I do agree that I think it will look better body colored. I like the way the 325Ci & 330Ci's have body color molding. I do like the sedans as they are, but I think they would be better if painted. I see no drawbacks to it.

[Protek]

I painted mine in my accord. Looks great.
Got to any automotive store with a True paint department. They can mix you up a couple cans of paint for your car. Just give them the code off the inside of your door or were ever it is. It will be about 12 bucks a can. I only used one for all my trim, but get 2 just in case. The I sanded all the moulding with around an 800 grit sand paper. Then I washed the living hell out of my mouldings and my whole car, You must make sure you get the moldings very clean. Then I pulled back into the garage and masked up my entire car with MAsking tape and newspaper (well not the whole car but pretty close. (Make sure you get real close to the trim but make sure you dont cover any of it with masking tape otherwise you will have little areas that didnt get painted) All I could see was a bounch of newspaper with a black stripe all the way around which was the trim.

I thin sprayed a coat of Auto primer on all the trim and let it dry for about 45 minutes just to be safe. Then I whent over all the trim with one really thin coat, waited 45 minutes, put on another really thin coat waited 45 minutes. By this time the moldings were well covered with a good layer of paint. I then went over it again with a semi thicker coat waited 45 minutes then put on one last decent coat, but not too thick, farly thin yet. Then I waited till the next day, I would say it was about 14 hours and put on a fairly thin clear coat, let it dry for about 2 hours, then put on one last coat of clear.

I let it dry again overnight. Then I was able to drive my car again but after waiting 2 days to make sur ethe clear has completely cured I washed my car and pollished it using Wizard automotive polish. This made my car shine like you wouldnt believe. It also got rid of the semi texured surface of the clearcoat. It dried and was shinny on its own but no matter what your most likely gonna have a little bit of a texture to it, not trully as smooth as the rest of your car. After I polished it I waxed my car to seal in the nice new shine. It was a 2 day proccess total, then of course another 2 or 3 hours to polish and wax but man it looks way better than black rubbery trim, it should look really professional once you are done, and it saved my allot of money thats for sure.

[mbf]

Thanks for the advice, webber. Looking at the Ci is what made me get the idea. Any thoughts on the black trim between the side windows? I think I'll leave it alone.

Thanks for the instructions, Protek. I'm a little hesitant to paint them myself, since I've never painted a car before and it's only 6 months old. It's going into the body shop for some paint work for a rear-end that happened a little while ago. I'm trying to work a deal with them since they are already removing/painting alot of stuff. They say it will be around $300-400. They're going to take off all the moldings and replace all the side trim with new ones. I think that's not too bad a price. If it's more, I may try to do it myself. I'll post pictures if/when it's completed.

[webber]

mbf, sounds pretty reasonable to me on their price. I'd have to agree with you on the window trim, I'd hate to see it "peel" down the road in a few years. Ask the body shop how they feel about this. I don't think the window trim is that important, kind of a nice contrast with you body color anyway. Just my opinion. Good luck, would like to see pic's if you decide to get it done.