I'm not a huge fan of plastic parts on cars. They do have their place, but generally after a while they start to fade, go grey and usually look terrible.
There are products that you can use to bring them back to life a little bit, but they either get washed away or don't last 2 minutes.
On that note, I decided I would paint the front bumper inserts.
These bits
I knew they were just clipped in place, but damn did I have some issues getting them off.
A few posts in the FB V40 group and I was advised to start at the thin end, that goes round to the edge of the bumper.
That advice was spot on and I removed the drivers side one first
I managed to prise it off with ease all the way round until the area that is behind the number plate. For the life of me I couldn't get it off, no matter how hard I pulled at it. I didn't want to pull too hard in case I snapped it.
I got the top 2 clips out, but the 2 closest to the intercooler grille just wouldn't come out. I attacked it from different angles, sliding it back and forth to see if it had some kind of extra space, nothing, it wasn't coming off.
Then I noticed this
The 2 clips on the left of the insert, those were the 2 that were causing all the problems. Who would've thought they would be that way round. They were the same orientation as the 3 on the right. All the other clips going round the insert were the way you'd expect them to be, just not those 2.
When looking directly at the car, the 3 on the right make sense. The pointy bit on the clip is on the topside, so that would click into place on the bumper, so surely the bottom 2 would be the opposite way round..... No, they were the same as the top ones, no wonder I couldn't get it off easily. Eventually I managed to prise them just right and it popped off.
Quick picture of the part number as well
The other side is the same just ending 87
Took me a while to get the passenger side one off as it started to rain shortly after I removed the drivers side one. But eventually they were both off and left me with this
I then cleaned the inserts with some APC and a cloth, then gave them a wipe over with some white spirit to make sure they were nice and clean. Then the priming began
As I had to wait for a while to get the passenger side one off, I started on the drivers side one first. I eventually got them both the same with the same amount of coverage.
Then on went the matte black paint
Once that was all dried and hardened, I put a few layers of matte clear coat over them
Let that all dry for a good few hours, then I put them back on the car.
And would you believe it!! The area that I struggled to remove them from, was the area I struggled to get them back in.
Pushed a bit too hard and the paint wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and I did this
Big dirty thumb print where I'd pushed too hard. The screw holes above on the bumper itself were inflicted by other people/garages when putting plates on. I'll never understand that as there's 2 really good screw holes right in the middle of the bumper.
Fortunately, those screw holes and the finger marks I caused are all covered up by the number plate holder/plate
Quite happy with the result. You can't see a lot of difference in pictures, but in person they are a lot blacker and look a lot better than the standard plastic that they used to look like.
Here's hoping they stay like that for quite a while.