The trim in the 2018 M3 I just bought recently was looking dry and faded. I bought some tung oil from amazon (
Amazon.com). I used a paper towel, folded over to cover the opening of the bottle, and tipped the bottle upside down briefly to introduce a small circle of oil to the paper towel and used that to rub oil into the wood. I had to do that about 4 times to cover the length of the trim. After 24 hours, I repeated the process. The bottle is like 100x more oil than you will need, but maybe you have some cutting boards and stuff that could use similar attention.
The tung oil restored some color and left it very slightly glossy. I might do one more application, depending on how it looks tomorrow. As a woodworker, I know it would have been better to sand it with very fine sand paper or steel wool first, but I didn’t really want to fill the car with wood dust. It still looked reasonably good, but not as smooth as it could have.
In my case, the wood itself didn’t seem like the highest quality stuff. There are some strange patterns in it that look a bit like water damage / mold, as if the wood wasn’t stored properly before it was machined into car parts, or maybe the wood was punky in the tree. So, not something I would have chosen to use for a project. Nonetheless, while not gorgeous, it is passable and looks better than it did. If I had to do it again, I’d use a cloth rag. The paper towel left lots of little bits behind. They will come off, but why deal with the mess?
I was concerned the tung oil would leave a smell. I left the windows open last night while the oil soaked in, and didn’t detect any smell when I reapplied today. We will see how it goes. The next test will be to see whether the sun causes oil to rise back out of the wood on a hot day. The car will probably enjoy a week in the garage before I attempt that. In the mean time, my other model 3 (with preferable white interior!) will get all the love.
