I am not sure if this happened to anyone else also, but after reading those stickies for the 4th Gen, I decided to make my pillars body colored. Today I started on the passenger side, everything went just like the stickies said they would, they came off easily after I heated it up with a hair dryer. I couldn't get it under the bottom trim for both doors so I just trimmed it off with a razor blade. When I got done there was still a lot of glue left, so I decided to clean the pillars last...

On the driver's side door, I got kind of lazy so I just trimmed all around the pillar and everything came off in one piece. On the passenger's door on the driver's side, I heated it up and waited and waited... but it wouldn't peel off like all the other doors, so I did a scratch test with the razor blade and found out that it was painted on! I panicked... it was already too late to go back and I didn't want my car to look retarded with all the other pillars white and have one be black with a scratch on the top... so I decided to shave off the paint with my razor blade, and it worked for a while until there were lots of scratches left over and it left slivers of black paint... I was desperate, I was kind of afraid to leave the house at this point to get help from autobody shop since I made my pillar now look even WORSE! and so I went into the shed and brought out a small hand sized sander, and I had no clue what I was thinking using a sander to try and remove one layer of paint, but I did it anyway...

The sander ended up taking too much off, and took off the black and the white underneath, I ditched the sander and just stood back staring at the mess I made, there were paint shavings all over, and black paint dust all over the car. I decided to screw taking of the black paint and instead paint white over the black. I taped everything off, and spraying white over the mess with spray paint. I am not a experienced car painter so I ended up having too much here and too little over there. And I remembered the way they paint cars on pimp my ride, and so I tried the quick sweeping method and it was on evenly... the only thing that went right so far. Now I waited about 10 minutes for the paint to dry, and I was scared that some paint might have went under the tape, so I took it off... which I later realized was too early and some of the paint got on the black trim... I brought down some nail polish remover and gently wiped it off. PHEW! The paint is a little too white to match the car but the mess was fixed.

For the glue that was left on the other pillars, I read online that oil based products like cooking oil removes glue... I didn't believe it but I gave it a try anyway and after 10 minutes of scrubbing I went back to the drawing board... I read in a online guide that acetone which is also in nail polish remover works to remove glue...... so I said WHY NOT! since everything I've done so far made things worse, how much bad could nail polish remover do... and it worked! But it took tons and tons of nail polish removed to take the glue off... and that is how today was the worse day I've ever had modifying the looks of my car uppet:

I would have posted pictures on here of my mess..........but I am too ashamed......... I'll post the finished "product" if you guys want

 

Oh and the can of spray paint I used was missing a freaking nozzle! So I ran all over the house looking for another can of paint, to take the nozzle from... and found one, but the can for some reason didn't want to spray... it sprayed for only a second then stopped! But after shaking it for a while and adjusting the nozzle ten times I got it to spray and today is officially the worse day in my life

 

I'd like to see pix of your little mistake.

 

LMFAOOOOOO i was reading that with suspense and laughing my *** off at making it worse every time

 

That would have made a great video

Dude, don't sweat it, any real DIY'er here has made their handful of tremendous mess-ups

 

Exactly. True words spoken here.

 

Have you thought about this for a solution? kinda ricey, but looks clean and neat, pre-cut to fit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NISSA...Q5fAccessories

 

Those may be his only option.

 

haha. bro same exact thing happened to me! paint faded from scrubbing, i ended up with spots up and down the pillars. i covered them with carbon fiber vinyl. came out great.

 

i did mines and it was breeze...in for pics!

 

or the CF ones from paradox-systems. i got them .. but a random strip of CF on my max would definitely be weird.

 

LOL reminds me of that Mr. Bean movie in which he messes up a ridiculously expensive painting and ends up replacing it with a poster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9xR2MI2KQo

 

FYI, most used car managers have a vendor who specializes in "re-blacking". Does trim, wiper arms, etc. Pretty common and cheap to get it redone.

 

Haha I think the Maxima Gods decided to punish me for keeping my car dirty for so long... but I'll post the pictures tomorrow. Right now its dark and I am actually suprised at how good the spray paint looks! I don't have any pictures of the actual mistake with all those shavings and scratches and holes in the B-pillar from all that sanding....BUT! you guys can just use your imagination. I mean just imagine the normal black pillar with silver holes here and there with white around it and little silvers of black everywhere and then cover the whole thing in black dust and shavings along with some smuges on the pillar where some white is showing and you've got what happened to me

 

Thanks, I mean I haven't messed up this bad in a while... I think my neighbors might have made a video and sent it to America's Funniest Home Video. I could tell they were having a blast watching me freaking out.

 

Haha thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll be over doing the chrome thing on my car, I already have strips of chrome on the hood and side mirrors

Along with on both license plates

 

There is a company that makes gloss black trim panels as well, but they are a bit more expensive. Still way better than a day of horror like you had.

http://http://www.soaap.com/auto/nis...6_854_860.html

 

Yeah haha everytime I think about it, it makes me cringe..... BLEH! I'll post pictures right now... it didn't come out that bad actually since I basically covered the whole mess up.

 

Oh and thanks for those suggestions, I think I might go for that gloss black trim, looks really nice!

 

Here is the photo of the passenger side, the one that was perfect.

 

Here is the side that I had the mistake... you can tell which door it is from the tiny paint over spray and by the brighter shade of white at first it looked horrible but after a day or two the paint I sprayed dried and now it looks almost as good as "new"

 

just get the chrome pillars off ebay, sand em down, paint em, and stick

 

i dont think the spray paint is going to hold up.

 

Yeah I am going to hand wax the hell out of it and pray it holds for a few months I am definitely going to redo it though.

Anomaly117, I am planning on doing what you suggest. But I don't really want to lose the body colored B-Pillars just yet, I want to leave it that way for a while until I get tired of seeing all that white and then buy some chrome pillars, or even carbon fiber ones and stick it on......... yeah

 

Dude I totally know what its like to mess something up on your car... I have had a few scary moments. It looks pretty sweet thou! Hope it holds up for ya.

 

Haha, thanks for the entertainment of the day.

Don't feel bad, you made a mistake, but were able to fix it fairly well.

For what it's worth, I managed to snap my power steering belt when I installed my FSTB. Don't ask...

 

haha mind sharing your horror story?

Thankyou guys, I was seriously panicked, my mom told me not to mess with the car and that she said I was going to eventually screw up my car. I kept telling myself as long as I take it nice and slow and think everything through I wouldn't let my mom be right since I am a determined DIYer...... but luckily I covered up the pillar before my mom saw

Being 17 and having to ask my parents before I do anything to my car is lame!!! haha

 

Haha, it was my first EVER mod on my Max (except for the radio), and when I removed one of the three nuts on the strut tower, one of them dropped into the engine bay. I searched for a while but couldn't find it.

Just so happened it landed in the V that is made between the belt and the pulley before the belt swings around the pulley. Well I started up my car, the nut got pulled in, swung around between the belt and the pulley, and the added tension snapped the belt and slingshotted the nut out of the engine bay. Had to drive to Pep Boys without power steering to buy a new belt.

edit: here's my NOOB thread for your entertainment.
http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...-steering.html

Everyone was a noob at some point.

 

Ouch. Should be something a body shop can fix for $150 in a day.