Swirls in my Chrome Window Trim

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Mike, Could I ask your opinion on the best approach on how to care for this trim? Do you think the Meguiar's chrome polish is a good idea?

You can try... start with a soft foam applicator pad.

Removing a scratch out of anything means leveling the surface, I know the Meguiar's Chrome Polish is a very safe polish and making a chrome polish safe for the average person to use might also make it non-abrasive, if so... I'm not sure that it will physically abrade the surface to level the surface and thus "remove" the swirls and scratches.

If the OP polished the trim piece and it turned the applicator black it's an uncoated metal, likely aluminum. My car has the same metal trim around the windows.

Chad's correct and you would be very, very lucky to find that the trim is in fact un-coated, polished aluminum because you can work on aluminum... you can't really work on true chrome.

Even the black trim on the BMW is metal ..........

And the way they get it black is they anodize it and when the trim pieces dull or stain due to exposure over time there's nothing you can do to undo the damage except remove the piece, have it de-anodized, then polish it and then either put it back on or have it anodized again.

In other words... you can't work on anodized aluminum.


Again, this is akin to why I like bare aluminum wheels... it's because you can work on them...

For the most part any other kind of coating or material and you can't work on it... thus you can't fix it, thus you're at the mercy of someone who can or time to replace or live with it...