Brushed alloy interior trim?

[Yeti-RS]

So my car is the very base model, it has nothing going on in the interior department, the decrotive trim that wraps around the console is just plain black, its bugged me since the day i bought it.

I have looked into everything possible, but the only option was to paint it or wrap vinyl around it.

Most of the vinyls are carbon and to be honest i think carbon looks tacky especially in a family car.

No what i wanted was brushed aluminium........... but how the heck can i get that?.

Well it just so happens 3M make a vinyl wrap that looks 99% like brushed aluminium, problem is the trim is quite big in size and the sheet needed is going to be rather large (read expensive).

Yes the 3M is probably the most expensive of all the vinyl wraps, but it is for a reason (i wont go into it here, look it up on youtube!).

So here are my panels on top of the vinyl:

Now i have never done this stuff before, i was told all i need is a hairdryer and a knife.......... and using just that i managed to achieve an almost perfect fit on the small trim here!:

I was very pleased with the results, usually im a right idiot with these kind of things so its safe to say that if i can do it... so can you!.

The larger piece of trim took me about 3 hours though :S

Ok here is the finished trim pieces installed in the car:

Not bad eh!

Its hard to really appreciate the results because its dark, in the light it looks fantastic, you would never know its vinyl!!

It wasnt cheap to buy the vinyl (about £40 for the large sheet) but i didnt mind paying it as i have tons of spare wrap left for other bits and pieces, plus i can rest easy knowing that it wont bubble or peel later compared to the other vinyls on the market.

Next up is the factory look sat-nav

[sojourner_mer]

Nice!

but what I liked the most is the eject button under the aircon..

[sebast]

Excellent work with the trim!

I have put the Invisibility one and the Eject one also )

[JonA]

Good job !

[Yeti-RS]

Thanks

I bought those stickers from the USA, they are for a golf mk.6 which uses the almost exact same buttons.

For some reason all the colours in the photos are a bit off, the dash looks blue and the stickers stand out more then they do in real life.

In real life everything is black and the stickers blend perfectly.

[900000]

Well done! That certainly lifted your interior a great deal!

[Macdemon]

Nice photos, and you have done a GREAT job with the vinyl :yes:

[allena]

You've certainly done a great job with that vynil. I see they do wood grain ......

Edited 8 January, 2011 by allena

[Yeti-RS]

You've certainly done a great job with that vynil. I see they do wood grain ......

I have a thing about wood trim, every crap japanese car in Taiwan has wood trim, its on everything from corollas to lancers.

Also my old E39 M5 had wood trim and i hated it everyday, tried to replace it but at that time the trim pieces were extremely expensive and vinyl wrap didnt exist!.

Brushed alloy for me!.

I guess its a culture thing, over here all the older 3 and 5 series bmw's have wood trim (only one spec brought in) but back in the uk all of these models had the alloy trim.

So i guess we always want something we dont have