cleaning plastic parts

I found a way to smooth out rough spots on the plastic trim pieces.
"mothers mag and aluminum polish"
while I was cleaning my taillights I thought I would use a little paint stripper to clean some old paint overspray off the black trim. Very bad idea, the stripper eats away at the plastic. I then had one very rough looking taillight. Seeing as it could not get any worse I sanded the rough area with fine sandpaper which helped but did not look good. So I tried the aluminum polish and after a bit of rubbing it took the sandpaper marks off the trim.

I also cleaned up a few small chips and dings on the pillar trim (the ones next to the window with the small supra emblem). The polish worked very well there too.

I am sure there are other rubbing compounds available that will do the same thing, but this was what I had lying around the house. I just wanted to share this cleaning tip.