[idk6]

Hey guys. A few weeks ago I purchased an 07 e93 335i and one of the "mods" I wanted to do was black out the window trim with paint or plastidip. the door trim seems pretty straightforward, but my concern is the trim that runs around the back of the car when the roof is down. Is it fine to mask it off too? With the roof down, my concern is the paint/dip will make its way onto my seats, and I'd like to preserve the beautiful coral red

Any advice would be great!

Ps: I don't intend on vinyl wrapping

Thanks in advance

[King Rudi]

Here's a story: I had an Infiniti G35 that I plastidipped the chrome window trim. Lasted for almost 3 years. Never peeled was still on the car when I sold it. Next car was an E93. I thought I would do the same thing. It did not work out. I tried plastidipping the chrome window trim 3 times and it would not stay on for more than a few days. I ultimately had to learn how to use vinyl wrap in order to do it the right way.

It's not hard at all. The best thing about wrapping the trim on an E93 is that the sections are so short and there is plenty of room to tuck the edges of the vinyl. The only difficult part is removing the chrome piece on the trunk. It requires for the plastic piece on top of it to be removed then the chrome piece must be removed from the trunk lid. Raise the trunk from the front like you are lowering the top so you can access the bolts underneath. Once you remove the bolts, the plastic piece will come off. It will have some seriously sticky weatherstrip material attached. Make sure you have some double sided mounting tape to replace what you remove. Pop that thing out, wrap it and slap it back in. The rest is cake.....aside from getting around the side view mirror. If you want to get all fancy, remove the mirrors and do it right. If you just want it done and realize no one is going to see that area, finesse it and work around the mirrors. Seriously, just wrap it and save yourself a lot of time and headache. It was by far the easiest thing I've applied vinyl to.

If you paint it, this is going to require either taping everything off (which you'll have to do with Plastidip also) or removing the trim. I do not suggest removing the trim, especially if you aren't comfortable using vinyl wrap. You'll put a bend in the trim. A good rule of thumb in my opinion is that if you are removing trim, you better have brand new trim to replace it with because you are going to destroy it.

Seriously, just wrap it.

[S65Hunter]

Yeah just wrap it and dont remove any trim pieces. It's not neccessary.

[idk6]

Thanks for the input. This has definitely swayed me away from using plasti dip. I think I'm going to go the paint route, and if it really comes out god awful, I'll suck it up and learn how to vinyl wrap. It can't be that hard, can it?

[S65Hunter]

Honestly man just wrap it. When I wrapped the trim on my e93 it was the first time I had ever used wrap. Since the trim is flat it makes it super easy. Just have a heat gun or hair dryer, a razor blade and plastic flat edge.

[colorado.e9x]

Wrapping things as small and simple as trim is so much easier (and faster) than wrap imo. The only real prep work you need to do is wax and grease removal. I wrapped all my interior trim in the most undesirable, thick, low adhesive wrap I've ever experienced and it still came out nearly perfect, and it only took an afternoon

[King Rudi]

Again, just wrap it. Way less work than painting it. Not sure if you've ever painted chrome before, but if you do it right you are going to wish you had just wrapped it. It isn't hard.

As a heads up: To paint - you are looking at masking everything off around your trim (you don't have to do this with vinyl although it isn't a bad idea if it's your first time - especially if you are trimming with a knife rather than knifeless tape), you will then need to sand your trim (you don't have to do this with vinyl), you will then need to primer using multiple (6-7) coats (you don't have to do this with vinyl), you will then need to paint (6-7 coats), then you will need some form of clear coat on top of the paint (again, you don't have to do this with vinyl), then pray that you are good enough with paint not to lay it on too thick and end up with runs. You could potentially even find a shop that will wrap your trim for less than you will have in supplies and time in painting them. Also, with paint if you don't do it correctly and haven't done it before, you may end up needing to do it again - especially if you skip the sanding or primer steps. Just seems like excessive work for the same end result with potential of needing to do it again after.

Just trying to help save you some time, money and frustration.

[xjackhunter]

I tried to plasti dip the trim on my e93 and it did not go well. Total pain in the ass and a waste of time as It only lasted a couple days before peeling. Try your luck with vinyl wrapping.

[BadContrakt]

I used Rustoleum peel coat (matte black) on my front kidney grilles and my chrome window edging and the silver portion between the fog lights going across the lower grille

Looks super good. Has not peeled off. It's a really nice matte black that matches the rubber around the car. If I had pictures on this computer (at work) I'd show you. It's minnnnnt. All I did was remove the trim from the car, use alcohol to clean it, and spray like crazy.