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I love my 2021 Q5e ... with the exception of that Piano Black trim around the shifter. Dust magnet, fingerprint magnet, and at some point prone to scratching.
We recently had all of the chrome exterior bits wrapped in satin black vinyl (the black optics package wasn't available on the '21) - and that gave me the idea to wrap the piano black interior trim.
Rather that have the shop do that small piece (in in the San Francisco area where shops that do vinyl wrap installs are very over-priced), I decided to go solo. Being an engineer, I also decided to over-complicate the solution.
First, the before & after pics.
I decided that my approach would be to use a Cricut machine to cut out the vinyl using a pattern that I made and rendered into an SVG file. I did this vs just using an x-acto knife and sheet of vinyl because:
I didn't want to worry about damaging the leather or chrome-ish trim around the piano black with a knife
I wanted to have the option to easily swap to a different color (maybe brushed aluminum) if I got tired of the carbon fiber
Option to replace the carbon fiber vinyl if it started to discolor (e.g. from oil from our skin)
I was looking for a good excuse to buy a Cricut for other Maker projects ... and they were pretty inexpensive on sale at Christmas :-)
I'm really happy with the result. The vinyl is VViViD XPO Black Carbon Fiber Car Wrap Vinyl from Amazon - looks good and have a slight texture to it, but nothing too heavy.
Wanted to share the photos in case anyone else if looking for ideas on how to ditch the dust & fingerprint magnet piano black interior pieces.
This looks great. Did you have to remove the console in order to apply the wrap? If not, how were you able to make all of the cuts?
No removal needed. With the vector file I created, the Cricut just cuts out the removable vinyl film in the exact right size. The pain was making the templates - started with newspaper (since I could cut that with my fingernail, and created the first revision of the SVG file based on that (similar to creating an AutoCAD). That file allowed me to cut out a new template on the cricut (first with construction paper, then cheap drawer-liner vinyl). With each new template I'd hold it on place in the car to markup where adjustments in the vector file were required.
The photo below shows the progression from first rough template to usable product. The newspaper was cut by hand, whereas the other three were cut by the Cricut.
Looks great!.................You also did the audio volume control **** center...........................the worms are celebrating their new found freedom from the can you just opened.
Please provide your address we can all send ours to be done.....
Looks great. I'm in the Bay Area also. I'll be by before noon. Do you have the carbon trim interior? Wondering how this matches the factory trim. My daughter has a Cricut. How steep is the learning curve?
I looked to ETKA and found that there is 2 inserts are available. High gloss inserts are installed on vehicles with PR-code GT6. The code for the insert is 80B864241G V58. There is another PR code - exists - GT0 with insert code 80B864241E 6PS. I'm wondering what is the color and texture for this insert?
I love my 2021 Q5e ... with the exception of that Piano Black trim around the shifter. Dust magnet, fingerprint magnet, and at some point prone to scratching.
We recently had all of the chrome exterior bits wrapped in satin black vinyl (the black optics package wasn't available on the '21) - and that gave me the idea to wrap the piano black interior trim.
Rather that have the shop do that small piece (in in the San Francisco area where shops that do vinyl wrap installs are very over-priced), I decided to go solo. Being an engineer, I also decided to over-complicate the solution.
First, the before & after pics.
I decided that my approach would be to use a Cricut machine to cut out the vinyl using a pattern that I made and rendered into an SVG file. I did this vs just using an x-acto knife and sheet of vinyl because:
I didn't want to worry about damaging the leather or chrome-ish trim around the piano black with a knife
I wanted to have the option to easily swap to a different color (maybe brushed aluminum) if I got tired of the carbon fiber
Option to replace the carbon fiber vinyl if it started to discolor (e.g. from oil from our skin)
I was looking for a good excuse to buy a Cricut for other Maker projects ... and they were pretty inexpensive on sale at Christmas :-)
I'm really happy with the result. The vinyl is VViViD XPO Black Carbon Fiber Car Wrap Vinyl from Amazon - looks good and have a slight texture to it, but nothing too heavy.
Wanted to share the photos in case anyone else if looking for ideas on how to ditch the dust & fingerprint magnet piano black interior pieces.
You need to make that machine pay for itself by cutting pieces for the rest of us. I'm thinking Matte Black.
That does look amazing. I never got the piano black idea. It literally looks good for 15 microseconds and then "life happens" and it starts to get scratched, scuffed, etc etc. And then it's just a bunch of "sighhh....." for the rest of the ownership period.
All things considered, it is not that difficult to keep the piano black looking nice, but to each his(her) own.
I suppose so; but it does require a much higher degree of attentiveness to the manner of cleaning - and arguably to normal use or activity in that area given how susceptible that finish is to micro scratches.
Granted, that piano black really has a lot of visual snap to it. However, one might question whether it was the wisest design move to use such a scratch prone finish, particularly given the color and location.
My trim - the gloss simulated brown walnut bordering the standard textured grey/black console surface - shows micro scratches even with careful cleaning (clean micro fibre cloth). Micro scratching of black gloss would likely be even more apparent after a while.
Insofar as the textured material in my Q5 used for the surface of that console area, Audi deserves high marks for going with that. I’m particularly pleased with how well and effortlessly that textured console surface cleans, and is holding up. No worries when cleaning it, wear marks or scratches in that high profile area of the front interior. After 3 years, still looks brand new.
I plan to take a shot this weekend at lightly applying some polishing compound to the gloss trim pieces to see if it gets rid of the micro scratches.
01-14-2022, 06:26 PM
Goodbye Piano Black Center Console Trim
