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CLADDING vs. NO CLADDING

I had a naked 05 Z71 and loved the clean look bu didn't love the door dings. When I bought my big block the cladding was painted the factory Indigo Blue and I absolutely love it. I had a little Honda type car change lanes into me on the highway then hit the exit before I could follow him. I heard the crunch of his car and mine was untouched! so after owning both, I love the cladding
 
The 'Green Booger' ('04) has the cladding. When they introduced the Avalanche ('02 or so) I liked the "mean" look of the cladding.

Now 2 decades later I still like the the cladding look, but history proves GM did a poor job of color retention.
The other realization is in Michigan, where the roads are intentionally crap and salt is intentionally used to make sure cars rot away faster then the roads can destroy them.. the cladded Avy's like mine have more rust due to the cladding "protecting" the metal from being cleansed of salt.

My future plan is (when I get around to it, and higher priority items get completed) is to spray all the cladding with truck bed liner
 
You talking just the lower cladding or are you also talking around the sail panels/ toolboxes? If so, tell me how it goes. I may have to invest into doing that for my sail panels. toolboxes.
You should take some time and read older threads about ways to restore/treat/paint/ line-X etc. the cladding. There are many threads with photos and info on what has been tried over the years.
 
Cladding got my attention in the first place in 02. Got my cladded 03 in September 02.
Like the cladding so much I just cladded my side mirrors (Plasti Dip)! Mirrors finish hade taken a beating. Looks new now and matches the cladding.
 
My cladding got "stripped off" by a passing rental truck......whooosh! gone. Now I have to source a replacement. Has anyone done this? Is it hard to reinstall? I can order new clips from Chev np but not a new piece of cladding.cladding.jpg
 
I don't think there is any tape on those pieces. I just yanked the ones off my 1500 I am stripping and it was just clips.
 
I like both but prefer the non cladded look. Between the side molding and side step/ rock sliders I don't get alot of dings. All of the scrapes are up higher on the doors where there would not be cladding anyway. Screw having to treat more plastic. It already takes forever to treat all of it. But it does look nice once it is done. I get told its a parking lot queen when she is all cleaned up. Fools you should have seen it last week. Thank god for undercarriage pressure washers and sprinklers. All those little drain spots are clogged every time i hit mud. That dark green looks pretty good in textured tan. The wheels are even easy to clean. I learned the hard way with my other truck on fancy rims with little grooves and divots on them. Takes an hour on each rim to clean them right with a little brush and rags.
 
I always had AV's with cladding, with boys and sports, dirt bikes, paintballing in pastures, cattle, it was great to have and not worry about the sides getting scrapped up and door beaters in parking lots. But the kids are gone and I just bought my first one without it because I shouldn't be driving offroad as I once did.. I'm a fan of it though.. I never figured out why GM couldn't just leave it as an option for the newer models.
 
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