89 300CE 170K
Car is 040 black with grey cladding. My door handles are grey, almost the same color as the cladding. Should they be black or grey?
Car is in good shape, but I'm wondering if these handles need work.
thanks

Handles on a the older 124s are grey. Fading made them that way, they never were black to start out with I dont think either.

Sand them down and get a few coats of color matched paint, replace the rubber gaskets. It makes a huge difference.

While youre at it and have a few extra bucks, get the cladding color matched, the car looks so much more upstanding that way.

Good luck,
Peter

Thanks for the answer, Peter.
When you say get the cladding color matched, do you mean matched to black of the body or matched to the grey of the handles. I don't think I've ever seen a car like mine where the cladding matched the body. Wouldn't the flexing and abuse the cladding takes break up the glossy black paint?

In my opinion where everything on the car matches the paint, it looks nicer. In your case, everything shiny black would look great. The doorhandles on the newer ones were color matched. The cladding looks faded and old when its grayish in my opinion and would look much nicer in glossy black. I dont see why it would get more abuse unless you hit it into other cars or curbes. I dont think there is any flexing in these otherwise the paint on there would get damaged.

Peter