Melly's Z28

I was wondering what is ok to use to make the plastic nose as shiny as the rest of my car. I've been afraid to use anything (I wash it with a mitt when I wash my car and that's it) Can use use plastic detailer stuff or wax it? My nose is in great shape by is looking a wee bit faded and is not very shiny.

Camaroguy18

my guess would be that it's faded paint on the nose. There's no reason why it should be any less shiny than the rest of the car using regular waxes/polishes. any pics of what you're talking about?

JungleMan

I used the same stuff on the nose of my car as I used on the rest of the car. It shines just as good as the metal does

Melly's Z28

Thanks for your help and I don't want to sound like a complete moron but want to make sure that I don't use anything that may damage the plastic, so it is ok to use wax on the plastic? Also, is it ok to use bar & tar on the plastic to remove the bug goop? The nose isn't that bad, it's just a bit dull and want it to look like new.

I'd love to show a pic & I tried but it's a bit to big, can anyone tell me how to shrink it or something?

I just had it to the first show of the summer this weekend. It was actually this show that I bought it at, 3 years to the day. Walked around the corner, saw it & fell in love with it

Cadillac

Open the digital image with MS Paint and then go to the "Image" option in the menu choices. From there select "Stretch/Skew" and adjust the Horizontal and Vertical dimentions down. Start with 85% for each until the size is reduced to what TGO allows.

JungleMan

Yep, I did the full treatment on my nose as I did with the rest of the car. I used my Porter-Cable buffer and I threw on some Perfect-It 3000 for the deep stuff, then some Menzerna Intensive Polish, Menzerna Final Polish, a little Klasse AIO to top it off and Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax.

You don't have to use all that stuff but I'm just giving you an idea that you can use all types of polishes and waxes on plastic. Nowadays many cars are made out of plastic or fiberglass body panels (Corvettes and 4th-gens come to mind) so you get the idea.

Melly's Z28

Thanks a whole bunch This is from the first car show of the summer. This is actually a good pic & is difficult to see what I'm talking about, if it's not raining tomorrow I'll take a closer shot.

Camaroguy18

just remember that your nose isnt the only 'non metal' piece on the exterior....your gfx and spoiler are as well. Waxes wont hurt the plastic, because they are going on the paint, not the plastic....maybe a clay bar, or detailing needs to be done....I take it that it's the factory paintjob....it will be very faded after 20+ years, depending on how much time it's spent in the elements (sun, rain etc).

Melly's Z28

I'm only the 3rd owner of the car and I know two previous guys kept it in the garage and never drove it. The car only had 60,000kms on it when I bought. I use it as a daily driver in the summer. My whole family are car enthusists and feel that a car should be driven to be fully appreciated & I totally agree but unfortunatly it sees a lot more weather since I've had it then it'd ever seen. (I store it away in a garage in the winter) Well looks like I'll be waxing the rest of the car tomorrow. Thank you so much for peoples input & LOVE the advice.

MikeDirntRulez

I have the same thing you do. The paint/clearcoat didn't really adhere to the nose/spoiler/gfx, which as Camaroguy mentioned, are the basic plastic components of the car.

I don't think you can do anything about it except re-paint it. I've clay "bar'd" my entire car and it still looks the same. It's just old paint not sticking as well as it would on metal/steel.

EDIT: If you look in my sig, you can see that the lower GFX has sort of a dull shine, and the hood has a higher gloss shine.

dmair5_0

It is faded paint. Mine is the same way, which I need to repaint this summer. Do I need to do anything special with the paint to paint over plastic. I am also planning on getting a Formula hood so am I going to need to change anything between painting the hood and nose like flex, catalysts, etc.?

Jungleman, love your car by the way. Was the rear end swap hard? Did you need anything else to make the swap?

Jekyll & Hyde

Very nice.

Belker

Think about this ....

I can't see any of the "plastic" on the nose of your car. All I can see is the PAINT covering the nose.

Why would you treat this paint differently that the paint on the fender? It doesn't really matter what's underneath.