Greying trim on 4 month old car.

[gardeners26]

I bought a new MG car in October last year. The black plastic trim around one of the rear wheel arches is beginning to fade and go grey- all the other trims remain black. Whilst this is common on very old cars exposed to UV light I wouldn’t expect it on such a new car. I’ll guarantee the dealer will suggest just spraying it with back to black spray which I’ll decline as it only lasts a few weeks and doesn't resolve the underlying issue if there's a fault with the plastic.
Any ideas on what the fault can be? Thanks.

[Belle427]

Possibly parked more in the sun that side.
To be fair it fades on a lot of cars these days.
A permanent type trim restorer may help, Gtechniq C4 is one of the best ones.

[Demelitia]

Has it been to the local hand car wash at all?

[edthefed]

Any idea what the fault is ? -----Cheap Japanese plastic

[gardeners26]

That side of the car faces north when parked on the driveway.
Yes the car does go through a local hand/pressure wash.

[TwinKam]

edthefed said:

Any idea what the fault is ? -----Cheap Japanese plastic

Correction; Cheap Chinese plastic.
Cheap Chinese everything. (I speak from experience, having worked on them.) These new 'MG's are woeful, all fur coat and no knickers, look quite nice inside, but you don't want to see their underneaths after only one winter; complete lack of sealant, rust stains bleeding from every seam. And that's in God's own Southern counties, must be worse oop norf.

[Fat Wolfie]

gardeners26 said:

That side of the car faces north when parked on the driveway.
Yes the car does go through a local hand/pressure wash.

Sorry to say but I think this is the problem.

The local hand wash guys use an over-strong TFR mix which has a really bad affect on all sorts of trim. I learned my lesson the hard way when black chrome trims on a Land Rover became badly anodised after a few visits to the hand wash near us.

You can probably get the finish back by using something like Auto Finesse Revive Trim Dressing. (Other products available, it’s just that I’ve used Auto Finesse on greyed black wheel arch and panels on my Motorhome, and it works well and doesn’t need re-doing all the time)

[roscopervis]

There are trim dyes, trim dressings and trim protectants and it pays to know the difference.

Ideally, you are looking for a product that contains a dye and a long term ceramic type protection. The aforementioned GTechniq C4 is just a protectant and whilst it will improve the look of the trim by wetting it, it is not intended to significantly darken faded trim.

Solution Finish do a long lasting dye product and, once cured, you could protect it with a ceramic type coating.

https://youtu.be/5wHfrDpASSM

[Iceblue]

Bought a new Ford Ka when they first came out the supplying Ford dealership had the pre-delivery PDI valet done by a local company and they completely ruined all the black plastic incl. front/rear bumpers and all the wheel arches by using a high pressure washer to close to the plastic, wasn't obvious on collection as they had treated it with some sort of back to black to cover it, but a few weeks later as that started to wear off you could see a multitude of light grey spray lines in the black plastic, to cut a long story short Ford agreed to replace all the plastic.

Edited by Iceblue on Friday 3rd February 21:29

[Chris32345]

Fat Wolfie said:

Sorry to say but I think this is the problem.

The local hand wash guys use an over-strong TFR mix which has a really bad affect on all sorts of trim. I learned my lesson the hard way when black chrome trims on a Land Rover became badly anodised after a few visits to the hand wash near us.

You can probably get the finish back by using something like Auto Finesse Revive Trim Dressing. (Other products available, it’s just that I’ve used Auto Finesse on greyed black wheel arch and panels on my Motorhome, and it works well and doesn’t need re-doing all the time)

Just because your local ones do dosnt mean they all do some can do a semi passable job

[Wacky Racer]

Just put some Cherry Blossom shoe shine on with a shoe brush, should come up like new.