Forever Black VS Kiwi shoe Dye Contest on XC Trim

[brbevil]

Forever Black - WINNER - This stuff is amazing! I have the silver XC with the blueish trim all around. It was severely faded and I would bring it back to life every 3-4 months with 303 Protectanct which made it look great but was not long lasting. After reading the message boards I decided to test two products on my own car - Kiwi Shoe Dye and Forver Black. I did a small 2x2 section on the front bumper with Forever black and another small 2x2 section on the rear with Kiwi at the beggining of summer to see how long each would hold up to the rigors of the South Carolina sun. Both held up great however Forever Black is a Winner in two areas - ease of application and gloss. The Kiwi polish was foamier and left a high gloss shine that evenutally dulled but was not as attractive as Forever Black. Forever Black went on smoth with very little bubbling and left a great satin black finish that really complimented the appearance of the care. Remember Silver with black interior and now black trim. Looks really nice and aggressive when I finished entire car. Rain, heat , cold and sun have not affected product at all. I did need to put on two coats for a nice smooth finish. Word of warning when wet Forever black looks streaky and freaked me out. But once it soaked into the plastic and dried it looked fantastic.

[ifnt420]

Is Forever Black actually black?
Or is it just a clear protectant?

[BillAileo]

It is not black.

[brbevil]

Forever Black is a dye the penetrates the plastic. Mother Back to Black is not a dye and only lasts a few weeks. Forever Black has lasted since March of last year 08. Highly recommended.

[tomclick]

What should I use if I have blue trim? As previously mentioned, Mother's Back to Black last only a few months before another application is needed.

Thanks
Tom

[brbevil]

I had the blue trim also. 303 Protectant worked great for about 2-3 months. I really wanted something more permanent so I switched to Dye last summer. I was curious about Kiwi and Forever Black. Both had good reviews so I applied both to small sections of my car - front and back and then just waited to see what happened.

The dye actually soaks into the plastic changing the color so there is no going back to blue. I really like the way it rejuviated the look of the car and on my car the black and silver look really awesome.

[tomclick]

I dye my blue trim to black trim.....to gain the long-term effects and more permanent gloss, less maintenance and maybe even better over all look? Interesting thought.... Let me mull this one over and I will let y-all know and put up some pics if I decide to go black. But you know what they say, once you go black... er a never mind

BTW, I'll bet your silver with (now) black trim looks awesome. Does anyone have any pictures of a XC Nautic-blue where they have change the trim from blue to black?

[Lincoln]

Black goes with everything.

[tomclick]

Let's compare original blue with an approximation of brbevil's idea to use the Forever Black dye.

So I took an existing picture and did a quick-n-dirty selection on just the blue trim and changed it to black to approximate what my car would look like with black trim... what do you think?

brbevil, does the hue/lightness of the black conversion in the second picture look close to your dye job? Lighter/darker?

Original blue trim


"Photoshop-ed" in black trim

[kamiar]

Tomclick,

I want to know what mod did you do on your exhaust, it looks very nice, do you have more pic of the car from rear showing the exhaust.