Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

[Peen]

Hello, new member of course here. I have a 99 Dodge ram that has a plastic piece on the tailgate. I took it off and underneath where the adhesive was keeping it on my paint looks really cloudy. Now I used Goo off to get the residual adhesive off, then I started with Polishing compound by hand and it did nothing to fix the paint. I then tried Rubbing compound and still nothing. I have some pics, one you can see what paint looks like cleaned up and you can see the plastic piece on tailgate.

[Peen]

Re: Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

Heres another pic, not sure if it helps

[Bjkearns]

Re: Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

appears to be failure

[Peen]

Re: Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

So I need to repaint it? (Or put plastic piece back on)

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

So I need to repaint it? (Or put plastic piece back on)

Unfortunately, one or the other, yes. The problem is you've got paint that's had this piece essentially glued to it for 13 years and now that piece has been removed. This reveals paint that has been damaged by the adhesive applied to it and in place for so many years. But the "damage" is only damage in the sense that it makes the paint look bad, not that it would compromise the ability of the plastic trim piece to stay put for many more years.

[Bjkearns]

Re: Cloudy paint under plastic trim on tailgate

I would go shopping quotes for a repaint

Im thinking a tail gate would be really straight forward
no crazy curves or angles
pretty small piece

I wouldnt think it would be overly expensive to have it reshot