DS5 - Air Vents and gear shifter/knob silver trim/wrap

[splesa]

Hi,

I have an issue where (as you can see in the image), the silver chrome/wrap trim has wrinkled up due to heat.

Is there any way to repair this without completely replacing the center console?

Cheers

[GiveMeABreak]

Hi and welcome.

Crikey you must like the heaters where you are!

Never seen that before, but there is no repair other than removing, stripping, priming painting and lacquering - and to be honest that would not be worth the cost and time. Getting the oil and contamination removed is a huge problem and it probably won't look great.

However you can purchase the air vents separately that are the louvre and the wrinkled bit in your photo, which slot into the surround. They are available for the Centre and the ends.

Then I'd suggest you put 4 knitted jumpers on instead and turn the vehicle heating down!

[NotAnInterestingName]

It's possibly a sunlight/age thing, as it's the surfaces that are facing upwards, where the coatings are expanding or shrinking and/or losing their stickiness. It looks like it's a plastic coating, presumably to prevent tarnishing, over chrome plating.

The black panel around the gear shifter on mine has done similar. This is a rubbery coating over plastic.

It's probably becoming more of a thing over time - the car reviewers complain bitterly about cheap looking dashboards and scratchy plastics, so they end up putting all this multi-layered posh looking and feeling stuff in them. It started with the posh cars, like the DS5, but most cars will look like this over the years as the more complicated materials age.

It might be worth checking a price with a dealer, but it may well be expensive. Alternatively it may just peel off, leaving the bare metal. Or just accept it as patina!