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I've got to say that in retrospect I wish I had tried using a paint remover instead of a knife to flake away the old paint from the trunk lift. As careful as I tried to be, I still marred the underlying chrome plastic with an occasional scratch. The more I polished the surface after removing the paint, the more a few of the scratches stood out. There were places where the paint came off easily but where it adhered better I had a bit of trouble (resulting in scratches, I think).
It's only on close examination that the scratches are apparent (or at the correct angle depending on the light), and none are as visible as the large flake of paint that had come off the original -- nor are the scratches as visible as the sections where the paint was "buckling" from the piece. Still...I would rather have ended up with an unscratched piece.
My bet is that I could have avoided any scarring by using a paint remover of some sort.
I think it would take a VERY careful hand using a knife to not end up with some scratches on the chrome surface.
My advice is to be exceptionally careful if you decide to do something like this with a blade instead of a paint remover.
I have similar cracks on my car as well. I also have perfect match primer, paint and coating sprays so I might re do it in the original color. How do you actually remove it, is there some clip or screw that needs to be removed or you simply pulled it out?
While repainting this, I would also like to repaint my roof trims. Does anyone know how to take them out without breaking, should I also simply pull them out from some side?