I painted the plastic bits: Silver Bullet's original purchaser didn't garage her. I knew that going in, but didn't realize how much the trim damage would bug me. The paint on metal is all fine, but on the plastic the clearcoat was missing from most top surfaces.

The question was how far to sand? Do you just take out the edges and leave as much primer and base coat as possible? Or do you take everything down to black plastic? I compromised and I'd say the results are 8/10. Probably good enough for a 15 year old car, but not quite satisfying to me. Next time I would take it all down to black.

For reference we're talking about the outside door handles, the top tailgate trim and the mirrors. (The mirrors on old Glory are painted and still going strong at 21 years, but the other items were matte black on base models back then, a bit of Mother's Back to Black still does wonders).

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2001 X5 3.0i Old Gold -built and bought 08/2000, now at 220K miles
2005 X5 3.0i Silver Bullet -built 05/2005, bought 03/2021 at 95K miles