DE-CHROMING THE MINI ON A BUDGET

now I've made it pretty clear that I'm not a fan of The Styling on this mini for a car that was released in 2015 I'm still not sure why they even bother fitting so much Chrome to them well I mean I know exactly why it's so they can charge you a fortune when you take it all off and buy a replacement parts but today we're going to be sorting that out and we're going to be doing it on a bit of a budget not because I'm a tight ass York German even though I am but just to see if you can achieve similar results only spending about a third of the money I've got headlight tail light and Grill surrounds to fit vinyl to layer over the Beltline door handles Badges and a few other parts too which will hopefully transform the look of this little mini it's going to be a busy one but I'll try not to drag it out so grab yourself a copper get sat down and let's get into it [Music] thank you Chrome horrible isn't it reminds me of old Rovers I just need a wooden center console and I'll feel like I'm back in my childhood today I'm going to be getting rid of as much of it as I can on the outside of the mini there will definitely be more parts added to the exterior of the car later on down the line so make sure you subscribe and stick around if you want to see what's next and if you do press that big red button make sure you leave a comment down below letting me know what you'd like to see me do to it like every single one of my videos now if you subscribe and comment you'll automatically be entered into the free monthly giveaway where this month the prizes are a g Technic wash mitt and a bottle of stiana gloss Citrus pre-cleaner all thanks to the channel sponsor my car cleaning remember there's a discount code for you to use on their website too to serve a little bit of Dosh just pop lookship 10 in at the checkout for 10 off over 2 000 different detailing products so this was always going to be the first batch of modifications that I was going to carry out on this mini because I really don't like the way it looks at the moment now you can spend an absolute fortune on the OEM replacement but I thought you know what why don't I be the guinea pig to test out the cheaper alternatives and then I can let you guys know whether it's worth it or not so I've been on with fitting a load of different parts today and if they're decent I'll post the links to them down in the description for you to buy them if they're rubbish they're going in the bin I'll hand it over to real life Luke now you can do the rest of the video for me in a bit now then so as you can probably tell this isn't going to be an installation video because there's already Parts fitted to the car what I am going to be doing in the video is basically taking you around all the bits that I have fitted telling you the prices of them because there are some which are the cheaper alternative to go into mini for example and telling you whether or not they're worth it because as you can see there are some bits that are still Chrome and that's not because they haven't arrived it's probably because I've fitted them but they were rubbish um so they've gone in the bin now I'll start on the back these rear tail lights around these are really good actually I'm quite impressed with these these came as a bundle so there was the rear tail lights around there was the front headlights around and The Grille surround they all came as a bundle on eBay for 90 quid they were super easy to fit I mean the old ones came off and the new ones were back on within I don't know two minutes and the fitment absolutely spot on so can't recommend those enough now the only other bit of chrome that I wanted to get changed on the back for now because I haven't actually ordered the two badges yet was the Belt Line obviously the belt line goes all the way around the car underneath the windows I didn't want to spend three 400 quid on the genuine mini Parts because you can just take them off the car without actually having any tools now you can obviously take them off the car and then have a go with proper vinyl wrap or you can buy this stuff which is like a roll of 10 or 15 mil wide black vinyl tape with the idea of just going over it but I spent about 45 minutes just on this rear trim and couldn't get it anywhere near how I wanted it so I've been that idea off and I also had a quick look on AliExpress now iPad 15 quid from a fairly well-known aftermarket mini website for this roll of vinyl when I looked on AliExpress the same roll of tape was one pound 70 so felt like a dummy pants pulled down a little bit there but it didn't work anywhere so it's just a a straight up don't do it for me at least anyway moving on so after the rear tail lights around and the Belt Line fill a cup cheapest way to do this would be to just wrap it but because I'm no good at wrapping stuff as we've established already the next thing you can do is order a cover you can either order a full unit but the cheaper alternative is to order a cover that goes on there now I think it was my mistake just didn't fit it very well so I've ordered another one and I'll get back to you with that but that's still Chrome for the time being but I think it was just uh broke up on my part to be honest door handles these weren't exactly the cheapest I think these were 45 pounds for the pair you can get them on eBay I've seen them for 23 I think but I didn't know if they came with the little cutout you have under area for you know the put lights when you open the door I knew that these ones definitely came with it so I've ordered them super easy to fit they just clip on there's a strip of like 3M double-sided tape on the inside just for a bit of extra grippage if you like definitely recommend them um 45 quid maybe a little bit steep for some people when you can get them for literally half the price but the work spot on the other bits at the front I'll get to them in a sec you might notice that the stripes have gone made a massive difference really didn't like them definitely still have to go over it with Polish top tip instead of getting the heat gun on there and potentially knocking your paint up because you don't know what you're doing just go for a quick drive while the car's still hot tear it off that's exactly what I did and yeah it was a piece of piss headlights around these are really good these came in the bundle with the tail lights around and this black Grille surround these came with all new clips so when you take this headlight surround off the clips just ping off everywhere but you don't have to worry about collecting them all up because the new headlights around come with them on they were super easy to fit as well the Bonnet was up I did take the bumper off to do the grill surround apparently you can get it off without taking the bumper off but you take it off in pieces if you do it like that you're going to be damaging the original one I took it off because I also changed the plinth behind the number plate because the one that I had on it looked like it had been in an elementary school in America there was just holes drilled all over it I think it was 40 quid for the plinth Just Clips in absolutely spot on a nut pretty much does it for now there's badges which I do want to get around to doing um I did actually try to order one of these I just ordered it off Etsy it was the wrong Dimensions so that was sort of my fault for not checking so I've got one in my bedroom but it doesn't fit and same with these um quite fancy change in them for the LCI ones the uh the full black ones but the 70 pound for the purse so they're gonna have to wait so I've got more important things that I want to do on the car before I change punches but yeah that's uh pretty much everything the bundle from eBay with the grill surround the headlights around and the tail lights around definitely recommend that door handles yes filler cap Maybe but the cheaper alternative to doing the belt line is a big thumbs down for me um I'm just probably gonna have to bite the bullet and buy the expensive one if I can't get it wrapped anywhere but I might be able to pull in a few favors and get it sorted looks so much better from any angle really from the front from the back even from side on even with just the door handles uh it made a huge difference so yeah super happy and I think there was a few people who wanted to see a video on the secret compartment if you like it's not that secret everybody knows about it obviously it's not fitted to the f56 it's behind here um it was a thing that was in all of the R56 models um and I think the early f56s as well so I'll get one of them ordered and I'll do a little installation video on there if that's what you want to see I guess that's it I'll see you in the next one bye [Music] thank you

Channel: lookship

Views: 16,852

Keywords: dechrome, de chrome, dechroming, de-chrome, de-chroming, lookship, dechroming mini, de chrome mini, chrome mini f56, mini, mini f56, f56 mini, mini jcw, jcw, f56 jcw, f55, f54, f60, f57, mini cooper, cooper s, budget, mini budget, budget mini, dechrome budget, cheap, minibits, minibitz, mini bits, mini bitz, kill all chrome, f56, f series

Id: ZlT1Q7wBi_s

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023