2001 Buick LeSabre

Here in central Florida the summer was so hot this year that the body-colored side molding dropped off the driver'* door. This happened while out shopping
and I just happened to notice it while walking to the house after returning. The molding was dangling from the front, hanging by a molded "pin" on the back side.

The molding has three "pins" protruding from the back side which look as if they could have originally been used to retain the molding via some type of push-on or
self threading retainers, but none were used here - just upper and lower strips of double-sided tape. I'm not sure if the tape is OEM with the "pins" used for positioning,
or if it'* been replaced and tape used as a shortcut - avoiding the removal of the interior trim panel.

I used a wooden popsicle stick to push the tape from the door panel. I pushed along it'* length, not across. This worked well as I was able to remove several inches per
minute, leaving almost zero trace - and in some areas there is actually zero trace left. I know there is a removal wheel I could have bought to use with my drill, but those
were $30-$50. The popsicle stick did the trick in just a couple hours.

I'm going to use some Gorilla double-sided tape to reattach it - about $5 from Walmart.

I've been waiting nearly six months for the weather to cool down so it'll get and maintain good adhesion when I stick it back on. There'* no tape left on the molding, just
some powdery residue I can use a scrub pad to remove.

My Roadmaster decided to drop all of its adhesive-backed strips when it got cold one year. All of them decided the same thing within the first two weeks of cold weather arriving, almost one at a time. Honestly, I'm surprised yours held on to it for 17 years, especially in the heat.

I haven't personally had an 8th-gen apart here, but I'd suspect the pins are just for locating and the double-sided tape is intended as the primary retainer. GM has done this for decades.

Argh. So violent. Use Goop. Let it soak for a few then you can use your finger or a plastic spackle knife to kind of roll the stuff off in clumps and wipe on a handy nearby paper towel. Rinse with water when complete. Let dry plus an hour.

That looks good. I can't tell for sure from the pictures if it has some foam to it. If it doesn't then find some that does. I've never used it as I've always used 3M, but I don't have anything against it. In fact, it would be good to learn how your effort turns out, I might change my favorite.

I'm at least the third owner and am fairly certain my car has been a Florida native since day one. So yeah, with the brutal heating here I'm surprised
only the one has fallen off. The other three are still firmly attached.

Thanks for that tip. I'll be keeping an eye on the rest of them come next summer - that'll speed things up a bit should they drop.

The molding in the pic has no foam or tape on it - just the molding with a bit of dry, powdery residue along the edges. This morning, I took a Scotch Brite pad to it..
a light "sanding" cleaned it up pretty good. I haven't had a good look at the Gorilla tape I'm planning to reattach it with, so I don't know if that'* got foam innards.
The tape I removed was only about 1/16-inch thick, so that probably had no foam.

I'm going to go over the door panel with a surface prep cleaner just to make it more receptive to the tape adhesive. The molding should stay on the door at least until
our heat waves start up again, and maybe another 15 years, so I may not follow up here for 4 or 5 months.

Cool! Looking forward to it.

I put the molding back on the car last Friday, right after the temps dropped. Looks exactly as before - the tape thickness is just right.

I found this video - about the :45 point you can see there is no foam, just clear tape which is super tacky on both sides. I had some slight difficulty in keeping my fingertips from bonding to it.

The tape is 1-inch wide and I had to split it down into 1/2-inch strips. I used a box opener with a new blade which worked great.

Temps here are now in the high 30'* to 50'* overnight and 60'* low 70'* daytime. I won't know how well this tape is gonna work until next August, so we'll see.

Cool, thanks for the update! With all of the adhesive molding used on the fleet of cars we see here, I know this will be important.