I apologise if this has already been posted somewhere else.

I have an '08 Fabia and the black vinyl/plastic pieces that sit on the front doors at the B pillar are flaking/peeling.

It's got to the stage where every time i drive on the motorway in bad weather more flakes off. :(

Soon i'll be left with large patches of white on what is meant to be a black surface. Very silly i'm sure you'll agree.

Is this a common problem on poverty spec Fabias? If so has anybody had any experience of what a dealership might do to assist. (the car has no warranty.)?

When i rang D.M. Keith in Huddersfield the Service Manager asked me to bring the car in so they could take photos. Perhaps they were thinking of going down the Goodwill route.

Anyway, if i can't get something done by the dealership, how expensive/hard are they to replace.

I'm assuming you mean the black shiny bits on the outside of the doors, between the front door window and the rear door window?

Mine is also poverty spec, from '09, but it's been fine. In fact, I see plenty of poverty spec Fabias round here, but I've never seen what you describe. It's obvious that this bit on yours hasn't been painted properly, probably at the factory, unless it has been repainted since. Being realistic, I wouldn't expect the dealer to help at all, especially as it's out of warranty. Well, I wouldn't expect them to help even if the car was still under warranty, but anyway.

Best bet would be to have that area painted at a good body repair garage. It's not a large area to paint, so I wouldn't think it will cost too much. I'm not sure if you can just replace this bit, I think it's part of the actual door, but don't quote me on that.

Don't think its painted, more a stick on vinyl cover. Lower specs appear to have a textured satin finish, while top and 'sports' trims get smooth gloss. Would have thought a decent quality body shop would be able to fix this for not too much cost :wonder:

TP

I'm really not sure, I wonder myself whether they're stick on covers or not. For what it's worth, my car is Black Magic Pearlescent, and as hard as I looked, I couldn't tell any difference between the colour and finish of the body and those bits on the A and B pillars. It all just looks like black metallic to me.

Just had a look on Elsaweb. A pillars can be removed, B pillars can't. It's part of the window frame on the door, so they're probably just painted black at the factory.

Don't think the black magic body colour cars have these trims, which might explain the differences :wonder:

TP

Oh, I see. Wasn't aware of that. In that case, forget what I said earlier.

mine's peeling off a tiny bit on one side, not very noticable from a distance

is it covered under warranty 12 year? it's obviously not durable enough.