Proof of how severely my cladding has faded!

[VX KAT]

Sue, this is just weird.

Why would the part of the cladding which is also out of sunlight (the circled area that lives under the lip of the grille) look faded, too?

And why does the metal cladding screw seem to perfectly match the color of the plastic cladding?

Thought the exact same thing, especially why my cladding screws are all uniformly & perfectly gray like the cladding, even in all the nooks & crannies. I would have thought the different sun angles plus the sides of the screws being recessed, and the interior part of the cladding screw recess would all be various shades of faded.

Another weird thing, the TOP edge of the cladding, left of headlight, is the same uniform gray, and that's recessed kind of under the metal panels.

I compared the cladding chunk from the hitch cut-out up against the area by headlight...it's NOT as dark as the top horizontal bar....so Zeus must be right, they paint it a little to match the support....but, it's a good bit darker than my cladding, confirming my cladding's faded.

Bottom line, don't need to know how or why my cladding is lighter, moving on to pick which product to apply and make it darker.
(yeah, OK, keep it down, I hear all those "thank GAWD she's moving on!" )






Note the chunk has 2 different shades...the part that saw the sun, is lighter.
The satiny area is R/R.




Note top edge of cladding, left of headlight, is light gray. (The darker splotchy area right under headlight is some remaining R/R).