(My suspicion is that this oxidation is exacerbated by infrequent baths.)Now, go forth and make the rest of your car as clean as the molding!
I know that the Great White North comes down hard on cars. But I've accustomed myself to washing daily if necessary. It's actually fun, the challenge to keep a car looking literally spotless. My "half hour wash" method makes this possible. If necessary, I take the car first to a hand wand wash to get the major grime off if the weather that day did a real plastering. Of course, if you park your car outside, you can forget what I have to say about this. Out of the weather, out of the sun, is a luxury I'll happily admit.
You definitely want to wax the molding , its keeps the water spots off , I use Megs Cleaner Wax to remove water spots and it last for months .........
Ceramic coating is pretty much pointless if he regularly visits the contactless self-washes, the chemicals that are used in those coin-washer things are so strong that they will just wash off the ceramic.
Did you try rubbing compound on it first? Those 6 pieces of trim are stainless steel. You will eventually encounter the same problem with new trim. Need to wax it frequently or otherwise protect it.
There isn't likely any finish on the trim. What you were doing is rubbing the oxidation off. But it is pretty labor intensive to fully clean it so that it looks new again. The finish is a satin look and is reflective but not quite mirror like. It's not a mirror like coating like the black chrome on some of the plastic parts like the mirror housings.
Wow.
I haven't heard of any ceramic coated trim going discolored until your post. That's upsetting: to think that a protective as touted as ceramic doesn't actually protect against this fairly common complaint. Is there no satisfactory preventive for faulty pieces, then? It looks like the only possible fix that is anything like "permanent" is going to be wrap.
Wow.
(I'm always tucking these anecdotes away in my head, just in case I have to deal with any of them; and now, ceramic coating has probably taken a fatal hit.)
Dealership replaced 3 of them no questions asked. Might want to give that a try. This should not be happening after a couple years . Not a fan of car washes either but the molding still should not degrade that rapidly in my opinion.
Yeah one of the weak spots of the car. My coating is physically coming off, I can actually remove it with my finger nail on one side. I bought some wraps on amazon to try. But maybe before I do I will ask the dealer to replace. Just don’t want all those rubber seals getting messed up by the dealer.
