My wife drove her 2008 Focus Titanium home from work today, and noticed the chrome tailgate trim, holding the reg plate lamps, was hanging off the back of the car. I looked behind the trim and there appears to be some clips with blobs of glue on them.

Is this the correct fixing or possibly a repair from a previous owner (the car is secondhand)?

I have used trusty duct tape to hold in position for now, until I find out the correct way of fixing the trim back in place.

Anyone help with this?

As I can't get to a dealer at the moment, thought I'd ask on here. 

Is the trim held on with clips (if so, which ones?) or by the glue that I found behind the trim? If it makes any difference, it's a hatchback and not an estate.

At the moment the trim is hanging by the wires and held in place with duct tape. Don't want it falling off as she's driving along!

Do you mean the number plate lights? 

Hi Gazp I have recently bought a focus with a loose tailgate trim,my plan is that if it's not needed to be removed to access something else at any likely point I will try 'Sikaflex 221'  around £10 a tube

Hope this helps

Marty

On 2/3/2021 at 8:45 PM, F0CUE said:

Do you mean the number plate lights? 

Yes, they are fitted in the bottom of the chrome strip on the tailgate. It's the chrome strip that has started to fall off. There are clips behind it, but they don't all appear to be there and those that are have what looks like old blobs of glue on them. Would like to replace any missing clips rather than glue the trim back in place, just in case we need access to the wiring in the future.

On 2/3/2021 at 8:46 PM, Marty... said:

Hi Gazp I have recently bought a focus with a loose tailgate trim,my plan is that if it's not needed to be removed to access something else at any likely point I will try 'Sikaflex 221'  around £10 a tube

Hope this helps

Marty

Thanks Marty. It looks like the cars previous owner may have glued the trim back on at some point, and now the glue has failed. There's not much left behind the trim to put glue on, so the proper fixing looks the way to go. Other than that it could be a trip to the breakers!

Hi GazP thanks for the info 👍 not had a chance to look at mine properly yet but from what you say access is needed so the sikaflex is not the way.

Good luck with it 👍

 

Bumping this thread up again; can anyone answer this please? 

Got an MOT coming up soon and really want to try and get this fixed beforehand. Don't want to give any excuses for a fail!!!

Can't see any reason for it to fail MOT as long as the plate lights are not obscured by the tape.  

It was originally held on by the plastic clips and some foam adhesive tape...once the clips are broken that's it I'm afraid, it needs replacing as you'll never glue the clips back on effectively.  If you keep an eye out while driving or waling you'll probably start to notice a few of them broken on Mk2.5 Focus's.  Especially the chrome ones as they weren't all that common so very few in breakers yards, and cost more expensive to replace than the body coloured ones. 

Thanks Tom, couldn't make out what was original and what was bodged repair. 

Was just concerned the whole trim might fall off prior to the MOT, that's all. Wet weather has already got behind the tape and trim is hanging off again. 

12 hours ago, GazP said:

Thanks Tom, couldn't make out what was original and what was bodged repair. 

Was just concerned the whole trim might fall off prior to the MOT, that's all. Wet weather has already got behind the tape and trim is hanging off again. 

Fair point.  Maybe it's worth adding some fresh tape before the MOT, just to make sure it can't drop off on the test.

15 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Fair point.  Maybe it's worth adding some fresh tape before the MOT, just to make sure it can't drop off on the test.

Will do, thanks!