I have seen many suggestions on here of how best to clean the white waistline strips that become discoloured over time. My new-to-me 2016 Troll has discoloured particularly badly (first photo) and, therefore, I decided I'd have a semi-scientific go at testing all the various ways suggested by members on here (and elsewhere) of getting their trim back to white. Please note this is just my attempts to do so - I may well have misunderstood, or not tried hard enough, or long enough.

I was particularly keen to find a cleaner that was reasonably quick and easy to use - and effective in as short a time as possible. So, needing to put on masking tape first was not a plus point!

So, I tried Meths, Bleach, Care-avan waterless cleaner, Colgate whitening toothpaste, Grunt! boat cleaner, Bar Keepers Friend (cream) and "The Pink Stuff" cleaning paste. All applied with a thin, soft microfibre cloth

By far the best were Meths and Pink Stuff. The worst were the toothpaste (lots of mess and needs a lot of water to clean up), the Bar Keepers Friend (surprisingly - I expected it to work much better than it did) and the Care-avan cleaner (no great surprise as it's not sold as a spot cleaner), which had very little cleaning effect at all (not as good as Ultragrime XXL cleaning wipes). Bleach needed leaving to work (and runs the risk of damage to other components) and Grunt! needed multiple applications, plus its liquid formula softened the masking tape, which then came off.

Final decision time on which of the two best to choose: Meths was very good, but risky, because it took the paint off (my dimpled finish van) easily, so masking up was essential. Pink Stuff will take off the paint (it's an abrasive paste), but, after practice, you can do several cleans with it without using masking tape, which gives it the final thumbs up for me as the best product, with some spot treatment of stubborn stains needed using undiluted bleach applied with a fine paint brush. Really bad areas (the front on my Troll was particularly discoloured) I also used Meths to get it as good as possible. The Pink Stuff is also a very firm paste, so it stays put in one place on the cloth, allowing more precise application. So, it's The Pink Stuff that was the clear winner for me. And it's only £1.50 a tub at Sainsburys or Dunelm (£6.50 on Amazon!!)

After treatment and then wiping off, the trim was left slightly matt in finish. To restore a gloss to it (and, hopefully, allow it to shrug off dirt in the future) I then cleaned it all with AutoGlym Bumper and Trim Gel. All nice and shiny - will see how it lasts.

Simon