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My paintwork is mostly decent (apart from a couple of dents from the hardtop landing on the boot). My bumpers and mirrors are quite faded and look out of place with the paintwork. Polishing seems to have little or no effect on the plastic components. Are there any products that will restore shine to these surfaces? Am I stuck waiting until I can re-spray the entire car? Eventually the whole car will get new paintwork, but I am trying to wait for a few years (when the kids are no longer dragging school bags down the side etc).

Thanks

IN MY EXPERIENCE, and as far as i am aware, our earlier NA's are not a COB, and are a straight colour. This is especially true of the plastics. Indeed, the MX5 was one of the earlier cars to utilise large sections of plastics and hence paint technology back then is not what it is today.

This means, that your car, being red, has red paint on the top, and no clear on top of it (if it is genuine). once it fades/oxidises, the only way to restore lustre is to cut it back, and then polish and wax/seal it. Sadly, if it is further exposed to the elements it will still continue its fading demise. You can slow it down wby religious application of the sealant.

The problem is, however, if you cut too much or too many times, you will start to expose a "blotchiness". this is where the red paint is so thin that you can see the underlining primer...

With my car (same as yours) I used a medium to hard cutter, and then 3 other stages after it. I was ecstatic with the result, but it was very very labour intensive. Do a search of my posts and you'll see I used a U-Pol system...


all the best

Thanks.... The body is mostly fine, but the mirrors and bumper are a pest. Polishing has really achieved little, but maybe it is my method... I will search for your previous post and let you know how it goes.