Anyone know what to use - I have tried a variety of similar products - both aerosol and paste/cream based - but they all seem to make the trim look grey.
Does anyone know of anything, that can be applied to rubber strips / spoiler and bring a darker - more black finish to it.
The other thing is that the aerosol based stuff seems to attract dust - leaves a sticky residue on trim.
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I have spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to make my black rubbers and plastics looking as new, but to no avail.
However, the best product that I have come across so far is Autoglym Bumper care, which I have just purchased another bottle of today. Its quite expensive when compared to many other 'similar' products, at about £5 a go, but it does go quite far (depending how much you have to do).
From memory, this also treats rubber, so you could probably do weather strips and window seals if you so wish. I use Armorall on my rubber parts, including tyres. On window seals, it tends not to make them black, but its more of a rubber treatment (stopping them perishing and keeping them flexible) that a 'back to black' treatment. Armorall seems to work best on tyres, where it makes them look 'as new' but without the tacky shine. The bottle also states it can be used on plastics, and providing they are not too far gone, this is true. It failed to make any impact on mine though. So, i would guess, Armorall is best suited to keeping new plastics looking new, and less of a restorer where it turns faded grey bumpers back to their original black.
I have tried allsorts, and the cheapest thing that works is things like 'back to black' by Carplan. But this messy stuff, being a dark black sludge (looks like diesel engine oil which is overdue a change). This used to work lovely on mine, but the last time I tries, it just looked terrible, being all streaky. Not bad if your grey bumpers haven?t been treated with anything before, but if they have, leave alone.
Even the Autogym is failing to make any long-lasting difference to mine, so I?m looking at replacing the front bumper with either a good second-hand one, or a new (at about £41)
Some even suggest boot polish.
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I found that before applying anything, I cleaned the bumper with a nailbrush and sugar soap, using loads of water to hose it off. This cleared any existing crud, especially white wax marks and subsequent treatment with Back to Black ( or similar) produced a pretty good result.
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WD40 works quite well on some plastics - leaving no residue. Oddly enough I've sometimes given the black plastic 'skirts' a dab of Wonderwheels while doing the alloys and that seems quite good for removing ingrained dirt (the sort that you think you've removed when the car is wet, only to find that it has come rumbling back after it dries!
White Spirit is also a favourite cleaner of mine. Does no harm to clean up lower regions of the bodywork with it just prior to a good waxing.
Graeme
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Strangely, relating to the thread title, I have found that Simoniz Back-to-Black is better than Autoglym's bumper care product, which tends to wash off after a short while. Back to Black seems more hard-wearing.
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As mentioned above, I used Autoglym 'vinyl and rubber care' last weekend and was very impressed with the result. The plastics actually looked black, unlike when ive used other products. Just remember to let it soak in for a couple of minutes prior to buffing it off.
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