Can Peanut Butter Really Restore Faded Plastic on Your Car Truck SUV

Man 1: Andy, what's the plan today?

Andy: All right. So, we're gonna fix this panel up. Take all this white stuff off the trim. Make it look all nice. We'll use this trim restore.

Len: Hey, what're you guys up to today?

Man 1: How you doing?

Len: Oh, not too bad. Making my little sammich here.

Man 1: Nice.

Len: Yep.

Man 1: Wow.

Andy: We're gonna restore this panel using some trim restore.

Len: Oh, man. This looks good.

Andy: Aw, Len. Seriously?

Man 1: That's nasty, dude.

Len: What? My hands are covered in peanut butter. What do you want me to do?

Man 1: Oh, my God.

Len: It'll be fine, dude.

Man 1: That's nasty.

Andy: Thanks, Len.

Len: Yeah, I'll see you later.

Andy: I got to clean this up.

Man 1: Whoa.

Andy: What the heck?

Most vehicles have some type of trim on them. And when the vehicle's left outside in the sun, in the rain, or the elements, it's gonna start to fade. As you can see on this vehicle where the license plate was covering up the plastic, it's not faded like it is over here. Not only does this not look good, but it's actually not good for the plastics, and it can cause it to break down faster. So let's go over some of the techniques on how to restore this.

One method a lot of people use is actually heating it up. You can use a heat gun. You can try a torch, but it's pretty dangerous if you're using a torch. And you wanna be careful not to hold the heat gun for too long in one area. You wanna constantly move it. The other thing, it's somewhat dangerous to use this. You're gonna have chemicals coming up from the panel itself, and it's not really safe. So, we're gonna try that method on this panel. The next method some people use is peanut butter. Now, I have no idea how this method's gonna come out. I don't know if it's easy to use. I'm assuming your car's gonna smell like peanut butter after you're done. That might not be a good thing, but we'll try that on this panel. And the last panel, I'm actually gonna use a trim restore that's actually made to fix this problem. To test this we're gonna do each one for five minutes and see how good it comes out, and how far we got.

First one we're gonna test is the heat gun. And now, we're gonna do five minutes with the peanut butter. And last panel, I'm gonna use the trim restore, the same five minutes. So, I'm not surprised. The trim restore did the best. It looks the best. It has a nice shine to it. The peanut butter actually surprised me. I didn't think it would look this good. Although it has a strong peanut butter smell. Definitely need to wash it with some soap and water. That might make it better. But it's still a lot more dull than the trim restore. And the heat gun did the worst. Now maybe if you had a different heat gun, one that was higher temperature than this one. Still, it took a long time. It took forever, and it's not easy to do. And I don't think the finish came out that great.

After letting this sit for a couple days, we actually found out that the peanut butter one actually looks the beast. The trim restore actually started fading a little bit. Now, in my opinion, what I would do is just do another coat of the trim restore because it was the easiest to do. Maybe leave it on a little bit longer. The peanut butter, we did not wash it afterwards. So maybe some of the oils soaked in and that's why. I wouldn't recommend doing the peanut butter one just because it's not made for this. But surprisingly, it was the best one. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to our channel, ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.

Thanks for watching. Visit 1aauto.com for quality auto parts shipped to your door. The place for DIY auto repair. And if you enjoyed this video, please click the subscribe button.