Severe Cladding fade

[Francesco Rizzo]

I am very tempted to give this a try...

http://www.properautocare.com/cohifato.html

I was also debating about powder coating. Not sure how it would adhere to the plastic. Haven't even researched it.

So my VX always had a dull look to the cladding, but since I've seen some nice displays of what it should look like I tried the mothers and other stuff, but got annoyed with how quickly it went to bad. My front bumper was a completely different grey and it didn’t matter how much back to black I used, it didn’t match. Also, my rear bumper had rings from backing up into things and stretching the plastic. I went ahead and tested this stuff and it looked like it would be leaving streaks, but I did the whole truck anyway. I thought it was a pain to put on and the applicator is already falling apart after 1/2 to 3/4's of the bottle used, but I'm excited with the results so far. The cladding looks absolutely new from a distance, and it rained all day yesterday so it seems to have held.


I did apply a second coat to some area it seems as though I was re-applying the gel while the previous coat was not completely dry, lifting it in some places and causing it to clump. One section came out not-so-good


however, I think I'm getting the hang of this stuff and will try it again when the sun starts to go down tonight, says not to apply in the sun. I kinda did it in the middle of the night under some nice lights but got a bunch of shadows underneath the cladding. here's before and after shots where you can see the original cladding with no gel and the portion I applied.



so my take on it is the stuff definitely doesn't adhere well to the cladding with just one coat. However, I'm gonna be giving it another few coats tonite so we'll see how it is tomorrow. I think if you have really bad fade or even un-matching cladding like mine, this is a cheap alternative to painting. I’m happy so far.

[Raque Thomas]

Looks like shoe polish, and looks like you can definitely see "brush strokes", which I gues are actually applicator strokes. Did the photo amplify this effect, or is that how it looks?

[Offroad vx]

Are you using the Forever Black or the tire gel from them, you mentioned gel thats why I ask.

[Francesco Rizzo]

I'm using Forever Black Liner Gel.. appearantly forever in this case is only six months as indicated on bottum left corner of the box:



I think it ended up giving pretty good results, getting as much as 80-90% or the swirl and streaks out with a thin second application. I know I definately put too much the first time, but this thin second/third coat helped a lot. plus the camera did make it look worse in the previous pix..





However, I still feel the same way, that this stuff is more for severe fading/discolor. I am starting to really question if will stay adheared to the cladding. I'll post in more pictures if it starts to flake or look nasty. I looks so much nicer now then before, but I don't trust this stuff after seeing this earlier today:

[WyrreJ]

Going on more than 3 months with tons of rain, snow, road salt and car washes and mine hasn't appreciably faded and definitely no flaking. But I used the tire gel, I don't think there was bed liner gel available when I did mine. The applicator that comes with the tire gel is great - it's 5 x 2 x 2.5 inches with a thick foam blue "handle" and a softer gray spongy part.

Your second picture looks really weird, almost like the gel had seperated in the bottle and that part got the thin part of the mix.

[Offroad vx]

I bought the Forever Black Bumper & Trim reconditioner, says it permanently recolors plastic, how is that compared to the bedliner and tire gel? This stuff comes in the shoe polish applicator but it appears to be more watery than gel. I have yet to try it and I'm a little scared because my trim isn't all that bad I'm just trying to fix my front bumper I scuffed in a losing incident with a pole and I don't want to mess up all my trim just for a little scuff!