not too sure on this one mate, i think they come prepainted from fiat. personally i would paint them myself.

Rub them with sand paper, when you have the surfaced "keyed" rub some panel wipe on them to clean the surface and degrease it. spray on some plastic primer, let it dray rub it down smooth with sandpaper to get a nice surface on which to paint on. spray the paint on. let it dry. then laquer it. and finish with some 2000/2500 grit wet sandpaper. to get a nice smooth as glass finish.

You can get them ready primed as well as plain matt black like the ones you've got, places like shop4parts sell them as well as eBay and Fiat dealers. Second hand painted one's are on eBay as well of course.

Main problem is that if you want them off the car to paint, which ideally you need to do, the clips holding the trim on is rather fragile. If you're careful though, you should be able to get them off. Not done it myself though, so can't advise on the procedure for it.

As Scottie says, you can sand down the matt black one's with the right sandpaper, prime, paint and lacquer it all yourself. So long as the prep's done well, you should get a pretty decent finish even if you just use a rattle can. Paint code's on the underside of the bonnet if memory serves.

yes the clips are rather fagile, but you can buy them new off fiat bloody expensive for all they are IIRC they are £1.20+vat.
if you can get in behind the panel and pop them out would be the best job. but this is not always the case. its not really the clips breaking you need to worry about its the piece of plastic that holds onto the clips that usually breaks. and as we all know Fiat's plastic parts aren't the most robust.

Originally Posted by scottie2065

yes the clips are rather fagile, but you can buy them new off fiat bloody expensive for all they are IIRC they are £1.20+vat.
if you can get in behind the panel and pop them out would be the best job. but this is not always the case. its not really the clips breaking you need to worry about its the piece of plastic that holds onto the clips that usually breaks. and as we all know Fiat's plastic parts aren't the most robust.

Ah, I see. That's kind of what I was meaning as I knew there was something around the clip area that you had to watch out for when removing the trim.

Thinking about colour coding the trim myself at the same time as the rest of the body work's getting done. Want to smooth out the rubbing strips on the bumpers but leave the side strips as don't want to leave it too slab-sided. It'll be sometime next year I'll probably get round to all that though, when funds allow : )

i was going to do the same muppet, but i just dont have the time at the moment, but i'm in the market for another car at the moment, cant afford to have to stilo off the road, as i dont wanna drive the focus £150 a week in fuel if driven everyday, as opposed to 30/40quid in the stilo.

i'm gonna buy a diesel and i'll paint my stilo myself dont know yet wether to paint part of it or go the whole hog and give it a full respray.
the trim is a pain to remove without breaking anything., if you can get it prised out some way and pull it upwards the clips should release and stay in the bodywork. and then just remove them with a pair of pliers and refit.