Fading Door Handle

[MarkingTime]

After a few trips to a new car wash my door handles are starting to fade. Does anyone know of any procedure to restore the original color?

[E-BayX5er]

Use 'Forever Black' on your handles and it will dye them back to the original color. You can do a google search or find it on Amazon.com. You can also use this on your other plastic surfaces that have faded. You will probably have to reapply after a year or so.

[MarkingTime]

Thanks X5er, I'll take a look...have you used this product?

If someone could post a few before and afte pic that would be great.

Thanx

[XXX55]

did the car wash apply was to your door handles to make it this bad? I think try to use meguires trim detailer and it should be restored to its original colour

[E-BayX5er]

First of all stop going to those automatic car washes. The next thing to fade will be the rest of the plastic under your bumper and the rubber around your windows. They use harsh chemicals to get the dirt off of you X. Also a lot of times they don't completely rinse off the chemical well enough. They just blow dry it and it ends up sticking and staying on the X. I'll also bet you have a lot of spider webbing in your paint when you look at it closely. That's also from your automatic wash places.

2nd yes I've used forever black before. My wifes X5 is an 01 and it started fading last year. I put it on the door handles and it looks brand new and it has almost been a year. I also used it under the bumper trim to turn it back to a rich black color. Just be sure not to get it on the driveway or anything else you don't want dyed black. It also permanantly covered up the white wax marks left on the door handles after I hand waxed the car.

If you're not sure if you'll like the results buy it and put it on the bottom of your door handles only and wait a few days and see if you like the color difference. That's what I did to make sure the color stayed black and also to make sure I liked the results. The newer X's don't have this problem because they paint the door handles now to match the color of the X.

[MarkingTime]

Yeah, I think I'lll start doing the hand wash thing. When I first purchased the vehicle I it hand waxed so no spider webbing yet.

X5er I'll try Forever Black on a test area, see if I like the results and apply on the remaining trim if all goes well.

I'll post results and pics.

Thanx...

[Thunder22]

what kind of X do you have that the door handles aren't painted? shouldn't they be the same color as the body?

[avo8686]

it might be a 3.0 without premium package.. it came with plastic trim door handles instead of body color painted..

[xdrive]

It looks like some kind of aluminum door handle to me.

[MarkingTime]

02' 3.0i