03-10-2020, 10:39 PM | #1 |
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Exterior Window Trim Removal
Wondering if anyone has removed the exterior chrome window trim. Looking to wrap it black and figured it would be easier with the trim off the car. Looks like it is tucked under the side mirror, would it be removable without taking off the side mirror?
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03-10-2020, 10:50 PM | #2 |
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Any shop that wraps can do it without removing the trim.
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05-11-2020, 04:14 PM | #3 | |
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05-12-2020, 01:31 PM | #4 |
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I've heard that the window trims are very easy to bend and removal is difficult. I wrapped my own with 3M 2080 Gloss black vinyl and it came out nice. It takes a little bit of patience but if you wanted to save you could do it yourself. You can order it in 2' x 75' for the window trim (plenty of extra for practice/redo). Then order a 5' by 2' for the Hofmeister kink. I ordered from here:
https://www.metrorestyling.com/3M-Bl...mchromedel.htm https://www.metrorestyling.com/3M-20...m-2080-g12.htm Additional recommendation would be a kit like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Also, a heat gun comes in handy, but a good blowdryer on high will do the trick. Make sure to prep the trim first with isopropyl alcohol (hard to get) or a paint prep like CarPro Eraser. PM me if you have any questions. |
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05-12-2020, 01:34 PM | #5 | |
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You can do it yourself for about $80 and 4 hours of time. I was going to pay a shop $300 until corona and then I had all the time in the world. Worst case scenario if it gets scratched you can replace or remove it |
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05-12-2020, 04:31 PM | #6 | ||
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05-13-2020, 02:04 PM | #7 |
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That's a good price! I'd definitely go for that and save yourself the headache
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05-14-2020, 06:46 AM | #8 | ||
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11-19-2020, 02:38 PM | #9 |
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How did you handle the rubber trim near the mirrors? I found it pretty much impossible to get perfect... Working under the mirrors was difficult in general, too. I ended up getting annoyed and removing the vinyl after doing 1 door since it wasn't quite perfect. Have enough material left to give it another shot, but could use a bit of strategy to make things easier.
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01-21-2021, 09:18 AM | #10 |
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Vinyl wrap - chrome delete of window trim
I was looking at doing this myself, so (of course) I watched every YouTube video I could find. It looks fairly straightforward, probably easier to do (without obvious, visible amateur errors) than an actual vinyl wrap of a bumper or body panel. A little material, and a lot of painstaking labor, but very small risk of damaging the car.
In my case this is for a 330i, so there's really just 4 long pieces of chrome trim to wrap (upper and lower chrome window trim pieces on each of the front and rear doors) and one chrome trapezoid trim piece (on the body, where the rear door trim pieces meet) on each side. The long pieces can easily be covered by 2" vinyl wide strips from a roll - just the trapezoid will need a modestly wider piece. I've already got the OEM black gloss grille inbound - no way I'd want to try to wrap that. So, cost of materials for the wrap (3M 2080 vinyl with the removable protective clear top layer) is relatively small, maybe $50-$60, plus another $20-25 if you want to use so-called "knifeless tape" to help with the cutting. For reference, I got a bunch of quotes to have this done by the vinyl wrap shops around here (here = "greater Boston"). The quotes ranged everywhere from $300 - $700. At $300, I was tempted to just hand it over to "the professionals", but at anything much more than that, I felt like I should try it myself first. I made an appointment with the low priced guy, but that's fallen through, so now I think I'll be trying it myself. (Plus it gives me an excuse to get a new heat gun, which I've wanted to do for some time now.) I'm not considering removing the trim from the car for the vinyl application process. One video talked about/showed this, but it doesn't seem to be necessary or particularly helpful. In fact, that video made the point that it would make it harder, as the unattached trim pieces are unwieldy. On the mirror question, it looks like you can wrap the bottom front door chrome trim pieces on the 330i without removing the mirrors, although it will certainly be a tight fit, and I can imagine a bit of a knuckle buster. I plan on starting from the trapezoid and working my way forward, so this piece will be last. If I have to, I'll remove the rear view mirrors. Materials are inbound, so I may be able to get to this over the weekend. I'll try to take pictures and post to this thread, or in the DIY section. |
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01-21-2021, 04:59 PM | #11 | |
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https://getsuperwrap.com Like any painting you need to take time to properly mask off areas and setup for spraying, personally I used 3m painters and newspaper for the immediate surrounding areas, and followed up with large plastic sheets for the rest of the paneling to protect overspray. Downside to this method is time consumption for prep work, but on the plus side you hold corners and weird grooves tighter with a similar finish, and you can even touch up if rocks chip or if you get peeling. My grilled needed resprayed after winter each time, but never needed it between winter seasons. Important to point out this is not the same as PlastiDip, the finish IMO is very close match to standard vinyl wraps, and is very glossy. |
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01-21-2021, 06:47 PM | #12 |
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There is this option now as well. I have no experience personally, as i ended up paying someone to wrap it black on my car.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2019-2021-F...0AAOSwRbhfVJxN |
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01-21-2021, 08:09 PM | #13 | |
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01-21-2021, 10:57 PM | #14 |
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I bought gloss black vinyl tape and vinyl to rewrap the trims. But the place you mentioned is really hard for a noob like me. Which is why I haven't started wrapping it yet. Wondering if anyone has any ideas to wrap that part.
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01-21-2021, 11:31 PM | #15 | ||
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01-22-2021, 03:30 AM | #16 |
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I paid 280$ for the window trim... def worth it... I did a complete chrome delete. Will post a topic soon . With camera photos and not iPhone photos ... I hope this helps. Tints and chrome delete on the window was first 2 things. I did for a total of 400$
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Merami fan376.00 VipinLJ1949.00 |
01-23-2021, 09:48 AM | #17 | |
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I'd love to hear a review from someone who ordered and installed these, but at $133 it's almost worth just ordering a set to see what they're like. If they work then they would immediately be the new lowest cost / quickest option. The $64,000 question: the ebay listing says "stainless steel", but the OEM pieces are aluminum, so I wonder what these actually are. If they really are stainless steel, then they must be pretty thin to be able to conform to the curves at the tops of the windows. For reference, here's a video talking about / showing window trim removal on an F82 M4. It's not a "best of youtube video", but you get to see the profiles of the pieces and removal/install mechanism. I'm going to go research the OEM trim pieces now. |
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01-23-2021, 09:58 AM | #18 |
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Looks awesome franky - that's where I'm heading, although minus the black wheels. Tint shop here quoted $375 ("for any 4 door sedan") for Llumar CTX ceramic tint. My appointment is for next week for that, but that same shop wanted $595 to do the chrome delete (vinyl wrap).
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01-23-2021, 12:41 PM | #19 | |
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Part numbers if anyone wants/needs them (left side and then right side): Belt Molding (front doors) 51-33-7-465-149 51-33-7-465-150 Upper Molding (front doors) 51-33-7-465-169 51-33-7-465-170 Belt Molding (rear doors) 51-33-7-465-151 51-33-7-465-152 Upper Molding (rear doors) 51-33-7-465-171 51-33-7-465-172 Rear Cover 51-43-7-465-157 51-43-7-465-158 |
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01-23-2021, 04:27 PM | #20 | |
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01-25-2021, 09:21 AM | #21 |
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I bought the trims from China, should take a couple of weeks to arrive. They are stick on, will give a review after they are installed.
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01-26-2021, 07:44 PM | #22 |
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Chrome trim delete using vinyl wrap
Update: I'm giving up and handing this over to the professionals.
I've made two solid, earnest attempts with 3M 2080 vinyl over two separate days. To recap, I was attempting to wrap the trim while it's on the car, after watching a million and one youtube videos. I bought a 3M 2080 gloss black Vvivid kit (1' x 5') with two plastic tools from Amazon (not proud of that, but the order-to-delivery time couldn't be topped), and a great Wagner heat gun for $39 (not from Amazon). (I had a second vinyl kit for the other side of the car, but just returned it.) I also borrowed some portable work lights for the garage, which made it much easier to see what I was doing vs. just the overhead fluorescents. The silver trapezoid at the rear was really tough, particularly the corners, so after 1 attempt there I switched to the upper (slightly curved) rear window trim. I was able to get it wrapped without removing the rubber weather stripping or otherwise cutting any of that (or any other) rubber or seals. But the cutting process was nerve wracking, and it was very tough to tuck the long edges securely/correctly. If I was going to do it again, I'd buy the 3M (or knockoff) knifeless tape - MUCH safer than using a freehand blade for an amateur like me. Probably much cleaner and quicker to get to the right amount of overhang, too. I'd also get one of the finer rake-shaped plastic tools for tucking the wrap into tight spaces, and switch from an X-acto knife to the snap-off super-sharp knives used by the vinyl wrap experts. (As a sort-of aside, if you're curious, there are some amazing 3M training videos online that will show you how to use their wrap products...one in particular with a freehand, overlapping design on an Audi R8 using only knifeless tape was an amazing demonstration of skill and precision.) Having tried and failed, I can now see that (1) removing the weather stripping from the trim and (2) removing the trim from the car are both probably the best way to proceed. I'm sure body shop (and high end wrap shop) technicians know how to do this safely and efficiently, but I wasn't interested in trying this on my new car...a big part of the reason why I'm setting my tools down and handing this off to the professionals. I believe that if the trim pieces were off the car, proper wrapping would be relatively straightforward and safe. While wrapping panels is all about smooth, bubble/adhesive/stretch mark-free layup across each broad surface, for wrapping trim the corners and edges are, IMHO, the art to this process. For example, in some of the CKWraps youtube videos he shows some good technique for certain kinds of corners, such as thin metal points (like at hood fronts & front quarter panels around headlight units). [Like everything on youtube, the signal-to-noise ratio is forever annoyingly low, but some other youtubers also have some great gems buried in their videos.] But getting complex, blocky corners like BMW upper window trim -ends- wrapped correctly is more challenging. Clearly someone who has lots of wrap experience is going to get a far superior result. My thought was that, if you get it wrong at the forward endpoints, it won't just look amateurish -- wind/water/dirt might get under a poor corner and commence dislocation of the wrap from the trim, necessitating a re-wrap. Anyway, I hope my experience can help others thinking about doing this themselves. My conclusion: if you want it to look right, this is going to be one where it pays to let the professional handle it. I'll of course report on my experience once it's done (hopefully at the end of the week). BTW, I had to stop by the dealership in Boston today for a few minutes to pick up something, and had a chance to ogle two X5Ms (one on the floor, one right outside) and an X7 M50. I don't think I'll ever settle for a BMW that isn't full M, MSport, or otherwise shadowline trim. It just looks great to my eye. |
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