petercory

Having previously owned numerous X3 and X5 M Sports, I am obviously not a fan of black plastic trim. Once I had ordered our car. I started to search for the best possible shop to paint out the black plastic fender, rocker & bumper trim; my choice was master craftsman & painter Joe Carillo owner of Carillo’s Collision in Mamaroneck, NY.
The most frequent reaction even from non enthusiasts familiar with the GLC is that the pained trim has had a major positive impact on the appearance of the car; I am rather surprised that it is not a component of the GLC Night Package and /or standard on the GL43 AMG. Hopefully the GLC/GL43 Line Execs “Troll” this sight and will give some serious thought to this positive enhancement

JohnnyC

really makes the car pop out.

ajmtbm

agreed, looks awesome. agree its not my favorite either

any idea why they do that rather than the body color painted? cost savings im guessing?

cldriver

Nice!! Might consider doing the same, though wonder how it will look on a white one...

I have a feeling MB will make this standard at some point as part of a mid-life facelift. I notice car manufacturers use this as a 'feature' later during model's later years...

JohnnyC

I honestly think it is a styling and road debris thing. Because adding in more trim is adding costs.

zhenyaf

Looks nice!

Do you mind sharing how much you paid for this?

xJaydeex

Looks good �� Im awaiting a Polar White GLC Coupe, should arrive in 4 weeks & i plan on doing the same.

petercory

For a price quote, I'd suggest giving Carillo Collision a call @ (914) 698-6741

Oliver12

Certainly looks good on a black car as in my view grey plastic and black isn't the best colour combination. Personally I like the contrast of the grey plastic on lighter coloured cars- I have silver. The contrasting colour of wheel arches etc is a styling solution to reduce the visual bulk of the car plus I suppose to a limited degree protection to metalwork body panels.

Not sure whether colour coding these panels on lighter cars will look- interesting to see if as successful as the black.

I also notice that Audi have a option where you can get the wheel arches coloured in gloss black and this looks very slick on a dark grey car- retaining some contrast between body colour and wheel arches but smartening up the plastic bits.

petercory

Personally, I feel that black grained trim looks great on a Jeep Renegade, Ford Raptor F150, Land Rover Defender...etc, but I think that it detracts from the appearance of most "upscale" SUV's.

vratenza

Did you add spacers to the rear wheels of your car or was it a set of staggered 19"?

petercory

Wheels are OEM 19" non staggered.I installed 25mm H&R DR Spacers in the rear. I plan to add 10mm Spacers in the front will replace the 25mm rears with 35mm units as there currently is about about a 1 5/16" gap between the outside of the front & rear GL43 flares and the outer edge of the rims measured at the center of the wheels.

vratenza

I am also having the same wheels as yours. Incidentally, the spacer I used are the same, H&R DRA 25mm. From the pictures seem like yours is pushed out more than mine? See my pictures I uploaded.

Am also thinking of pushing out the front further with 5 or 10mm but concerned with scrub radius effect on the steering axle. What is your opinion on this?

petercory

Obviously, Scrub Radius will not be a problem in the rear. When you do the math, 25m spacers position the OEM rear wheels about 3mm further out than the stock GL43 staggered rear wheels; adding 10mm Spacers to the front won't have any more effect on a "Street Car" than a set of aftermarket wheels that will already have an additional 10 - 12mm mm of back space built into the design of the wheels so that they properly fill out the wheel wells.

vratenza

But for wheels with a more negative offset, usually the rim width is larger as well eg. 8inch vs 9inch. Thus they be able to fill the wheel wells better with less amount of offset alteration, which will reduce the scrub radius increase compared to simply using spacers to push them out. When I have more time, I try to give you some examples based on some calculations I input into a wheels position visualizer on a website.

petercory

The aftermarket wheels on my E93 M3 are OEM width (Avant Garde 359 series) but were designed to properly fill out the wheel wells by decreasing the back space; this is common practice with many vehicle specific better quality aftermarket wheels regardless if they are OEM or + width.

scotchy

Looks great, I wish they'd come like that.
Did they do something to fill the texture of them? When I zoom in it looks smooth like the body of the vehicle.

vratenza

Will you happen to have the specs of the wheel bolts required for the 10mm Spacers?

Since 10mm spacers will not come with DRA system, so will require longer bolts to work.

Thanks!

petercory

55mm

petercory

Sorry Scotchy, the trim is all as smooth as the surrounding body panels. Joe first removed all of the trim and then carefully hand sanded, primed and re-sanded each piece until every part was perfectly smooth, he then finish painted the parts using Glasurit 2 stage Obsidian Black before re-installing everything on the car. The finished parts all perfectly match the surrounding panels.

scotchy

Nice...I figured there was more to it than some masking and spraying in place. There's a good paint shop locally that I'll enquire about it...I'm kind of cringing already at what I imagine it'll cost to do it right.

Bob Meade

Old thread, but I am doing the same. Stock I have the 21", but have 19" like yours four winter with no stagger. Adding spacer and keeping the 19 on year round for better tires options. Had mine powder coated black and they look great.

petercory

Should Look good, did you install the AMG Flares or just paint the stock GLC Flares?

Bob Meade

This is it with the 19" wheels without spacers in the rear. Stock flares.

digital_b

hilarious. owns a black car but cant stand the black trim. and wtf is it with new yorkers and black on black anyway?