Hey fellow HHR owners. I have a question regarding the plastic strip that's roughly an inch wide and around 26 inches long. If you look at your drivers door it's located below the power switches for the windows. You will find it at the same location for all 4 doors. I'd like to paint mine because they show alot of wear but do not want to take them off without knowing how they are applied. Does anyone know if they just snap on or is there a 2 sided tape keeping this piece onto the door panel?

 

Welcome 2 the site, those are heat riveted on so if you're careful you can use a flat blade on a soldering gun heat the river and pop them off , paint them the put them back into place and heat them up again to fasten them.
This was my method to fix a loose one on a friends right rear door!

 

Thank you Oldblue. And thank you for your response. Hmmm...I dont have a soldering gun. You think it would be easier if I masked everything around them off? Hopefully I didnt damage them as I did try loosening one a bit since I was curious how it was on there.

 

Many here have just masked them off, very carefully papered them and rattle caned them
I suggest a careful sanding with 400 grit , a coat of sandable primer, another lite sand , then two or three colour coats, about 20 minutes apart. Let dry over nite then a lite sand with 1000 grit and clear coats maybe 2 or 3, then if there is any orange peeling you can cut and buff to a nice deep gloss!
I'm OCD and would spend way to much time, and then get upset when my jeans wear thru the paint again on the left front door ! That's were mine tend to go south!

 

Ok thank you very much for the tip and I will probably give it a shot in a week. I'll let you know how it turns out. And I too am OCD when it comes to my vehicle. I sold an 01' Ranger to get my HHR and I washed that thing once a week. Just waxed my HHR today.