Guys,

The coating around the back edge of my drivers side door is scratched and faded. *See Pic for location reference* Looks like maybe a previous owner had to use a coat hanger to get in the car after locking their keys in. In any case, anyone know any good way to restore it? Or would it be easier just to strip both sides, and then repaint gloss black than trying to reproduced the smoked metallic look from the factory?

 

the oem of these b pillars are about 700$ each, they only sell the entire trim piece. metal pieces with a plastic smoked grey exterior. yeah, it's ridiculous.

it's much easier just to repaint those pieces. they're held on by two screws and strong double sided tape. I opted to have a shop do them since they are/were also doing some other paint work on my car. I had mine painted the same color as my car, which coincidentally is black.

 

geez 700.00 bucks...wow

CEO

 

When I redid my car I had those repainted. I was going to have them replaced until I saw the price tag. My paint shop used a charcol metalic color that matched OEM perfectly.

 

$700 per side was a bit much for b pillar covers, so I had mine painted to match the car. Looks better anyway.

 

This has been a topic on a few threads before. Bottom line is that the repair is expensive. I’ve got this problem on both pillars of my 95 SC and finally got around to visiting a friend that owns a quality body shop to have him estimate a repaint of the panels. The expensive part of the repaint is taking the doors apart to be able to sand the panels for painting. He said that with the rubber trim at the bottom of the panels being so tight, he was afraid to attempt the repair without taking the door apart. His estimate to do the job right for both panels was $364. Taking the doors apart was well over half of the cost.
I’ve gone to hobby shops looking for a model paint to match the color and haven’t had luck with that either. If you know where to find a paint match for touch-up, I’d sure like to know. Touch-up paint will still look so much better than the bare metal peeking through. One idea in the previous threads was carbon fiber covers for the pillars. I followed that thread for a while but the member who was going to get the fiber panels cut never followed through to my knowledge. My apologies to them if they did and I never heard about it.

If anyone has found a potentially cheaper solution to this common problem, please speak up, and thanks.

 

I installed the carbon fiber kit from bodydash.com. The pieces that I got from them are high quality and look nice, but it is not a stock look. I would have liked it better if the panels would wrap around the back lip of the door pillar, but considering how these panels are built, complex curves aren't possible. They appear to be carbon fiber covered with about a millimeter of clear urethane. If the panels were slightly larger and thinner, I would have liked that better. As they are, there is a slight space all the way around the perimeter that they don't cover. That also makes it crucial that you position them just right, and the adhesive they give you to use doesn't cooperate in that task. Also, I still had to go around the edges with touch up paint to cover the scratches.

If I had to do this over again, I would have painted the pieces like I originally planned. I had ordered the base coat/clear coat from paintscratch.com in spray cans. I agree that you would have to remove the panels to do a real professional job, but I think I could have done an adequate job without that extra work.

 

Any pics of the CF? I was going to have my friend lay these CF for me.

 

sorry, no pics yet. the pillars were painted but the rest of the work was very unsatisfactory so they're working on it again.

someone on this board had someone make carbon fiber b pillar replacements but unfortunately someone stole his car

TurboSC, is you're friend going to lay replacement pieces or lay CF on top? If he will make replacement pieces, i'll buy a set off you!

 

jsut get repainted, thats what I did also.

 

I don't have a camera to post a picture of my carbon fiber installation, but my recommendation is to have the panels repainted. I'm not displeased with mine enough to take them off and send it to the body shop because I'm not that concerned with cosmetics. I'm more worried about my clutch.

 

I will talk to him and see if I can get something going! He would probably do a full replacement.

 

If you look in the Gallery, RTHAMMER as some CF ones on his SC400 if you want to see the look...

I also had a question about the button type piece on the Window(s).... If you are looking at the drive side window on the drive door in the upper right corner (and pass upper left side of the window) there is a small black button that is coated/painted... Mine along with my side pillars are not looking the best, can these buttons also be painted, or are they easy to replace ??

Shawn

 

i painted those little circle myself. really easy and it didn't take much time at all.

lots of masking tape (they can fit barely underneath that button), adhesive promoter, 'import color' brand black, and clear coat. i'm going to redo it though, i can still see the impression of the messed up part underneath it , with some primer.

 

i'd be interested in a set of carbon ones.