Removed Side Molding

svaneld · April 21, 2011

I took my side molding off last night. I used some fishing line to get them off. I heated them very little with a blow dryer because it was actually fairly easy. My issue is that there are some small bubbles in the paint underneath where the side molding used to be. Is there anything I can do about this? Has anyone else seen this? Thanks for your help all. This is on a 2005 GMC Sierra SLE with 83k miles. Also these bubbles are not big but there are quite a few of them. They are about the size of the tip of a pen.

SparkySparks · April 21, 2011

Not sure how bad it is or if what fixed mine would help you at all but when I removed my moldings I had a couple of hard straight lines in the paint. it looked like they stuck the moldings on while the clear was wet and either the molding or what ever they used to put the moldings on with pushed into it. Took a little bit of wet sanding and buffing to mostly get rid of it.

svaneld · April 21, 2011

Thanks for the response. I will see what it looks like once I get all of the stuff off tonight. I will try to add pics tomorrow if nothing changes after the cleaning.

pm26 · April 22, 2011

What's the point in removing the body side moldings? Do you like door dings?

8.1HD/ALLISON · April 22, 2011

Usually they remove the side moldings because they are color matched and start fading over time. They look really bad when they do. I have seen them removed and look a lot better.

svaneld · April 22, 2011

My reason fo removing is that mine were chrome. I have black wheels, black door handles and black mirrors. The chrome just looked way out of place to me. Plus on the passenger side the chrome side molding itself was falling apart. Not sure why but it to had what looked like wrinkles in it. I cannot decide if the bubbles bother me or not. They are not easily visible if you are not looking for them. I still may order some black side molding and put that on.

700 sportsman · April 23, 2011

Never heard of that before, but I'd like to see some pics. out of curiosity.

L76PWRD · April 23, 2011

A reason y I would like to remove the side moldings are that they are fading. But I don't like how GMT-900 Silverados looks without the side moldings. If my truck was an 2006 I would have removed them already. Side moldings are great for when people slam their door on my door. On time a kid did that to my 2003 Suburban and thank god for those moldings nothing happened but if not I'm pretty sure it would have gotten a dent without the side moldings. But the GMT-800 SUVs & Trucks do looks great without them.

SouthCo · April 23, 2011

I agree, GMT900 look better with the molding. GMT800 have the contour in the side that looks good with or without.

jdubya · April 23, 2011

I could go either way with or without the side moldings on a GMT900 but mine are are faded and they look terrible. THUS they are getting removed. The bubble issue is concerning me though, please post pics when you can.

If you could buy factory painted ones this would not be an issue, i would just buy new ones. GM however only sells them unpainted and according to my body shop guy the last time I had work done, my color is a pain in the ass to match....

pm26 · April 23, 2011

I could go either way with or without the side moldings on a GMT900 but mine are are faded and they look terrible. THUS they are getting removed. The bubble issue is concerning me though, please post pics when you can.

If you could buy factory painted ones this would not be an issue, i would just buy new ones. GM however only sells them unpainted and according to my body shop guy the last time I had work done, my color is a pain in the ass to match....

You can paint faded moldings, you know. I did that on my car. They turned out quite good. I used a spray can for this, and then I polished the paint. One problem with removing faded moldings on an older car or truck is that the paint around the molding will be somewhat faded and the paint directly under the molding will be most likely somewhat darker.

jdubya · April 25, 2011

true but a good detail job will take care of the fading issues I believe. I will be first to admit that my skills with a paint can are somewhat sketchy, I would be nervous about doing that....

wtbrowne · April 25, 2011

The door molding adhesive used is strong and doesn't release easily. I've read on other forums where the paint on the door came off with the moldings. You may have inadvertently pulled the paint loose taking them off.

mfennema · April 25, 2011

Or your truck could be like mine and they could just fall off on their own within a year of owning the truck. I've had 3 of them replaced already.

svaneld · April 25, 2011

I have it cleaned up and will get some pics of the bubbles as soon as I can. I did not have any scratches under them except where a couple of those bubbles came off when i was cleaning the adhesive off. I was trying to be careful but still got a couple. I do believe this happened first because of age of my truck (6 years old) and it was owned in Casper Wyoming by the first owner and it hits the 115 degree mark there often in the summer I believe. That extreme heat may have had something to do with it. I do really like it without the moldings though.