I have a 1987 BMW 5-series with BBS side skirts which I'd like to refinish. They were probably installed by the BMW dealer when the car was new. I believe they're made out of either ABS or polyurethane; in any case they're pretty rugged. They're in good shape except that the original paint is faded and they have some light road rash.

The problem arises in removing them from the car for painting. From what I can tell, there's a 1" wide plastic bonding strip that's riveted to each rocker panel and runs the entire length of the rocker. The top of the side skirt is bonded to it using an adhesive or epoxy of some kind; the bottom of the skirt runs under the car and is attached to the frame rail with some screws. Removing the screws is no problem, but I'm concerned that in the process of removing the skirts I'm going to break the upper bonding strips and maybe some other plastic parts that are NLA.

My local body shop guy doesn't want to take a chance on removing the skirts; but he says he'll repaint and re-install them if I take them off. I'm not a body guy and am hesitant to try this myself. Any advice on this job? Is it possible to repaint them ON the car in a way that will produce a nice result?

Well, I'd agree with the not taking them off because you will bust them up thing. Most plastics will get stiffer/more rigid with age and exposure. Some get downright brittle. I wonder though.... if you could slip one of those oscillating cutter blades up in there to just break the bond loose. Maybe dip the blade in some naphtha and even let some of it soak in from the top. This is the kind of tool I'm talking about.... https://www.harborfreight.com/2-amp-var ... 57808.html
Past that.... trying to do them on the car is tough but might be doable. How about throwing some pic.s up here?

I would repaint them on the car, Getting a Match is gonna be hard with older paint on the rest of the car any way and doing a Blend would be the way to go to get a good match/ Blend. If not a complete repaint may be best.