Honeycomb Grille Fading - Restore

[pat_ballam08]

Hey guys,

I have recently purchased some black badges for the front and rear of my GTI. My honeycomb grille has been quite badly faded for a while now and has been annoying me, but ever since putting on the black badge, I can no longer stand it.

I have read up on a few products such as Meguiars trim restorer, Poor Boys, 303 trim restore and they all seem like they would do the job. My only worry is that with the honeycomb parts being quite small, I imagine application would be quite difficult, especially with an applicator pad which they all seem to recommend using. So my questions, which product is best/have people used personally and can recommend?

If you were to go about doing this, how would you approach it?

Would you even bother? Would you spend the $150 on a new grille?

Is there anyone around the Brisbane area that could do this for me for a fee? (Such as an auto detailer) to avoid an uneven finish and wasting my time on a result I'm not happy with.

So really I am looking for your opinion on what products are best and is it even worth attempting.

Thanks for any help,
Pat

[j_man]

That is a good question. I like to keep all my plastics looking new where possible and I have 303 protectant which is what I use on the rear lower bumper, side mirror plastic etc etc. I did try it on the honeycomb grill once not long after I bought my car 2nd hand, what I used was a spare cloth/rag, sprayed the product on it, then used my finger basically to apply it in all the grooves best I could. The finish was not real great didn't dry all that well as that plastic has a super hard/smooth finish to it and after a week or a car wash later it still looks fairly average.... maybe it helped a little but still not overly happy with the result.

My 2 cents.

Maybe it might be worth purchasing a new grill?

[dubbinnube]

hye guys,
theres a product called forever black, its basically a black plastics dye, i use it on all my cars.
my local autoone stocks its and i think it works really well, delivers a deep black lustre.

[Deadpool]

Hey man, I just grabbed some gloss black painted grilles from a forum member and they look great. Any painter will simply paint them for you if you need the look.

[pat_ballam08]

Hey man, I just grabbed some gloss black painted grilles from a forum member and they look great. Any painter will simply paint them for you if you need the look.

Are those just the ECS grilles painted in a gloss at the bottom? As I have looked on ECS at this Volkswagen Golf V 2.0T > ES#2070654 Honeycomb Style Grille - 4 Piece Kit - 21-9539 kit.

I think it might be worth just buying the new kit all together, it's not overly expensive and will freshen up the whole front (which has been annoying me since purchase earlier this year.)

[Deadpool]

Are those just the ECS grilles painted in a gloss at the bottom? As I have looked on ECS at this Volkswagen Golf V 2.0T > ES#2070654 Honeycomb Style Grille - 4 Piece Kit - 21-9539 kit.

I think it might be worth just buying the new kit all together, it's not overly expensive and will freshen up the whole front (which has been annoying me since purchase earlier this year.)

I'd try and source it from Parts4Euro instead. ECS charges a buttload in shipping. Soon I'll be grabbing a gloss black painted top grille from the same Forum Member I grabbed the lower stuff from.

[ForceFed]

Honeycomb Grille Fading - Restore

Or you can buy this from me

http://www.vwwatercooled.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79982

[Deadpool]

Or you can buy this from me

SA MK5 GTI Style Grille and ED30 Style Lip

I was actually looking for a link to your thread, promise.

[Idle]

I'd try and source it from Parts4Euro instead. ECS charges a buttload in shipping. Soon I'll be grabbing a gloss black painted top grille from the same Forum Member I grabbed the lower stuff from.

ECS just announced that they're starting to use USPS for deliveries.

Don't know if that applies to overseas shipment, but perhaps they're waking up to the sales they're missing...

[pat_ballam08]

Or you can buy this from me

SA MK5 GTI Style Grille and ED30 Style Lip

If it's still for sale after January 3rd I probably will. I kind of want the whole kit, just for the sake of it, but just the grille would probably suffice and save me a pretty penny. Will hopefully be in touch soonish.

[lhennessy]

Can also plasti dip them with 1 can of glossifier for about $20.

[Deadpool]

ECS just announced that they're starting to use USPS for deliveries.

Don't know if that applies to overseas shipment, but perhaps they're waking up to the sales they're missing...

Honeycomb Style Grille - 4 Piece Kit

Sub Total: $148.71
Shipping and Handling: $134.74
Total: $283.45

Haha, hasn't helped so far. Absolutely pathetic for a shipping cost. I tried to grab a set of rotors from them as well and they wanted $200 for shipping.

[pat_ballam08]

Can also plasti dip them with 1 can of glossifier for about $20.

How hard would it be to prepare the surface and get an even coat? I'm worried about it looking worse when I'm done...

[lhennessy]

Honeycomb Grille Fading - Restore

To prepaid just give it a really good clean (everything humanly possible) and then it comes in a spray can and you do a couple of coats 2-3 for nice gloss and even coverage. If you like wait til the start of January and ill be doing my wheels with plasti dip gloss black and then will be doing the grilles badge mirror caps and maybe badges so you can see how it works and how easy it is

[Tom87]

The best result will be a brand new bit of plastic. Downside to this is you'll need to replace ALL your front end plastic for it to match.

It'd be nice if someone made the honeycomb with the 2 horizontal slats infront of it for the lower grille sections to imitate the more modern look the slats give it.