I want to remove the silver trim on the doors and dash on my car, to see if I can paint it high gloss (piano) black, but how do i do that?

Thanks.

dash stuff will pop of with the help of a trim removal tool or carefully with a flat screwdriver. not sure on the door ones sorry

I kind of suspected that,but indeed, the door card ones are the one I'm more interested in removing.

No transformation unless I take everything off.

Bad news I'm afraid - the door card ones don't come off. They are attached to the door card with plastic rivets which are melted into place when the door card is made.

I guess if you were able to get hold of those trim pieces separately (not sure if that's possible), you could cut the old ones out and melt new ones in, otherwise you'll have to paint in situ. Obviously you can remove the whole door card to make life easier though.

Not an option for me, as I'm sure per Murphy's laws some bit is bound to be touched by the spray.

Bad news indeed, the Golf ones come clean off, likewise the Passat and various BMWs I've seen. Would have been better if the bits were glued in, that I can replace, no problem, but not plastic rivets.

Rivets was probably bad wording, on my part. The decorative trim has a series of plastic studs on the back, which are pushed through the door card then melted flat. They'd be very easy to snap away from the inside of the door card, IF it's possible to buy replacements separately.

As for re-fitting, just a hot knife or soldering iron is all you'd need to melt the new studs flat.

I mention this because I know in the Mk3 mondeo, the actual door pulls are connected in the same way, but the Ford workshop manual actually details the process for replacing them by exactly the method above (splitting / re-melting). I've been thinking about this quite a bit, because I'd really like to convert mine to the piano black trim.

Can anyone with access to a parts database tell us whether you can buy these decorative strips separately, or is it a factory-only thing?