Many of these black plastic trim parts adjacent to the Rear Windshield show delamination as do mine.
Has anyone removed them? How?
Can I refurbish these? Or buy new?
I guess I could just paint them or leave it as is......not preferred.
These are very thin pieces of plastic (about $75 USD ea.from MB) attached to a metal (AL?) frame. There are a series of thin metal tabs around the perimeter of the plate that fit into corresponding plastic fingers molded into the underside of the plastic trim piece. The metal support is held on by five nuts (4 = M10 & 1 M8) and some sort of textile underneath it. In order to remove the plastic trim piece simply slide it downward towards the trunk lid. Unfortunately, the plastic trim needs to slide down about an inch or more and will end up contacting the trunk weather stripping. It really helps to have a second set of hands when doing this to apply downward pressure evenly across the entire panel, You may want to open the trunk deck lid as well. It took me about 3 tries to slide my new trim panel back onto the car until I realized the inner bottom metal tab was pushed down and was the reason it was not sliding into the plastic tab. This tab was broken on my old panel was the reason the panel was loose at the inner bottom edge. All parts were available from MB online as of May, 2021. Best of luck MK19!!!
R230, MY 02 -12, Left side (driver) Trim Cover p/n: 230-792-03-30
Quote:
Originally Posted by MK19
Many of these black plastic trim parts adjacent to the Rear Windshield show delamination as do mine.
Has anyone removed them? How?
Can I refurbish these? Or buy new?
I guess I could just paint them or leave it as is......not preferred.
Follow up here to my original post here. I finally got around to this detail after addressing the other exterior cosmetics:
SLdreaming: your description was spot on, Thank you. I will add for others that I think, at least on an older model like mine, that between some foam strips underneath that are likely sticky due to age, and what must be at least 20 plastic tabs on the trim piece, it is likely impossible to get these off the car without breaking a hand full of those plastic tabs. I couldn't budge them and ended up using a small wooden block and a mallet to 'help' them down tword the trunk (lid open). This buckled them, breaking some tabs, but it also broke them loose.
Also, what I viewed as 'delamination' is actually the UV coating that's breaking down on the outer surface like a clear coat might. After removal, I felt like I could restore these like you would headlights. But that coating is super hard and even with fresh 320 grit wet/dry, a big job to get it off. In the end I gave up and wrapped them as Swohio suggested. On that front, the one side that I did the most sanding on came out nicer than the one I just cleaned as the surface breakdown partially telegraphed through the film. I'd have redone it but I was out of vinyl wrap ($13 on Amazon).
I'll reinstall them with a bit of structural adhesive where each of the tabs is missing........but the next time they come off, it will spell replacement time. BTW, at this time one side was out of stock at the on line sellers.......may just be temporary??
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