Cloudy Chrome

[jmairs]

I'm planning to steam clean my carpet and nuke all my seats with leather conditioner this weekend. Next step: exterior.

I'm going to clay my paint, and I was hoping I could also restore my chrome trim. The bumpers are both cloudy and have odd little dirt(?) spots all over them; the trim around the windows is cloudy. What products would you guys recommend using to fix this? Or should I just black out the trim and push in + paint the bumpers?

[AndrewBird]

I'm assuming you have an early model car. Unless you have euro bumpers, they are not chrome, they are aluminum. They are pretty cloudy looking even when new. Painting them is really your only option.

[Jand3rson]

You could bust out the aluminim polish and give your whacking arm a good workout, but it probably still won't get rid of all of the cloudiness. I would just paint them.

[maniacmatt]

If you have the aluminum bumpers I believe they are clear coated from the factory but I am not 100% sure. If this is the case aluminum polish will probably not be effective but I personally have never tried it. If you do not want to paint them you have two options.

First you can try and wet-sand and polish the clear just like you would any other paint. Or you can strip the clear completely and then polish the bare aluminum. If done right the last option will give you a mirror like finish but is very high maintenance.

I personally have not polished a set of diving boards I just scuffed mine up and painted them body color.

[jmairs]

What products would you recommend for painting them, then? As my forum rank implies, I really am a complete n00b at all of this.

[AundrezIS]

http://www.classictrimcoat.com/

[kamotors]

never dull does a really good job on shining up metal bumpers. I just never dulled some really faded rusty bumpers, and within no time they were looking like new.

[John in VA]

http://www.classictrimcoat.com/

Don't waste your time or money on that. It is nearly impossible to have it turn out well.
You'll need to have the cloudy finish stripped and then polished and cleared if you want them to look like new. Or re-anodized.

[nmlss2006]

Really? I thought 'general knowledge' was tha the classictrimcoat stuff though expensive was good.

[John in VA]

Really? I thought 'general knowledge' was tha the classictrimcoat stuff though expensive was good.

There is a learning curve, so I guess if you use it frequently/practice enough you'll get nearly as good as is demonstrated in their video. I've seen it with many small bubbles in the finish; it did not look good.