My wife (who could care less about cars in general) was sufficiently annoyed by the sad state of the silver strip Ford put in the side trim of our '97 Expy that she actually went to the dealer to inquire what could be done. The mechanic admitted that "pretty much all of them look like that after a couple of years- that's why they stopped using that kind of trim." However, he didn't really offer a solution (other than replacing the whole side trim unit).

Anyway, yesterday I stumbled upon a happy solution. I was intending to strip the silver and paint the inner portion of the trim flat black, so I carefully began to pull the trim strip out from the holder (just the silver part). Turns out the thing is just a rubbery strip. You can (with a little effort) peel off the entire plastic covering and wrinkled up silver stuff off by carefully using a razor blade on the edges of the strip and peeling. Underneath, the strip is a light green color (which just happens to complement the Vermont Green on our truck), but I think a vinyl paint would allow one to choose any color desired. Afterwards, just clean the back and use mold adhesive to refix the trim.

Perhaps there have been 100 posts in the past containing just this fix, but it seemed pretty ingenious to me (and more importantly, the misses) last evening.

Also, the stupid flat black trim under the side windows can be rejuvenated with clear silicone (which I've done several times). However, I've found that careful application of Ajax works much easier and just as well. (If you are really careful, you can also use Ajax on the vertical black pieces that get so waterspotted- any tiny swirls can be resolved with an autopolish, and a wax coat keeps the spots from reoccurring.)

Can you tell I spend way too much time washing the cars?

PS- If anyone is actually interested, I can post a pic of what the stripped trim looks like.