Holy Bleche White!!

[Zero Signal]

I had some kind of weird epiphany today when I was brainstorming a way to restore my plastic pieces. I was starting to think I would be ordering new ones because mine were really disgusting. The immaculate polished paint made the plastic stand out even more. I tried Back to Black in the past and didn't like it and constantly coating the plastic with greasy Armor-All or Formula 2001 is annoying and last about 2 days.

On a whim, I decided to rub down the mirror with Bleche White just to see what happened. I know it's caustic enough to eat anything of the tires without even having to rub, so why not plastic too? Holy crap, that stuff rocks. With the ratty terry cloth I had, it just rubs the oxidation right off the plastic.

I then went to town on the whole car. All the rubber trim and window seals look like new now, along with the plastic rear bumper piece and cowl cover. The badly oxidized plastic is now kind of matte in appearance (see mirror pic), but it doesn't look bad since it's uniform. I suppose I could put oily goop on it, but I hate that stuff. I might be taking the Bleche White to the plastic on our Xterra now

To get it perfect, I eventually had to keep going at it until the rag came up clean after rubbing. It takes some iterations with 'clean' rags or rinsing. Otherwise it leaves streaks on the plastic. You can kind of see the streaking in the picture, but it's gone since I took the pic.

 

[GTA_V6_Mustang]

Bad ass. You should get it painted though. I want to see how the cowl panel came out

 

[SableSal]

Bad ass. You should get it painted though. I want to see how the cowl panel came out

When I painted the Mustang. We used a Matte Black on the cowl. It is to DIE for!

 

[revhead347]

I've been using Back to Black on that stuff. I'll have to try the Bleche White. I have some somewhere.

Kurt

 

[Killercanary]

That' a cool tip. I have found the best way to get the mirrors restored is to hit them with either 3M hand glaze or Mequire's (sp) "polish" from their 3 step system. I have a DA sander that I attach soft black foam pads to and hit them with that. They look brand new and everyone I have ever told this to says the same happened for them. It leaves the mirror shining like new paint was layed on them. I have never tried it on any other parts though.

 

[Zero Signal]

That's a good idea on the sander/rubbing compound. I might try that to get the shine back. When I used the Back to Black before, it seemed I had to re-apply it a lot. The AZ sun is brutal on the plastic bits. I may just need to have removed the oxidation first, then use the B to B to fix the color. Our plastic really isn't black, it's a dark grey which the sun really exposes.

If anyone is going to try the Bleche White on the bumper, just be warned that if the bumper plastic is in bad enough shape, it will remove the plastic coating completely and expose the yellow urethane underneath.