My wife's car was being repaired at a local body shop last week so when I was dropping her off I asked them about painting the insert with a non-gloss black paint. According to their "paint guy" he could do it but he wasn't too excited about trying to remove the insert and said that he could mask off the hood and paint it. He also said that he thought there would be a good chance it would be prone to flaking after time. The quoted price was pretty good but I wasn't feeling too confident by his comments so said I would think about it.

Thanks for the color info on the replacement insert. I use Back To Black on the cladding regularly and am very happy with it. The one time I tried using it on the insert though it streaked pretty badly and I haven't tried again.

Maybe I will try another body shop. If anyone knows of a knowledgeable place in the northern VA/WDC area, please let me know.