QuestionHello. New to this forum, so please excuse me if the answer to
this is somewhere and I just can't find it. I just made a private-
party purchase of a very clean 1998 Volvo S70. However in a
mix-up between the husband-and-wife who sold the car, he
was away on business and she had the car "detailed" at a local
car wash instead of going to the nearby detailing business that
he would have preferred. The upshot is that almost all of the
plastic switches and knobs inside the car have a kind of gummy
residue that they did not have before (Seller was forthcoming
about this). My guess, of course, is that whatever the car wash
used it somehow reacted with plastic. I'm afraid of making
matters worse by applying the wrong kind of substance to
minimize the damage if that's possible. On some of the knobs
there appears to be a sort of "oxidation haze" and I don't want to
goof them up any further. So is there anything I can do to
address this problem? Thanks so much for your time here.
AnswerThe real answer Bob is to take the car back to the car wash and have the manager deal with the problem they created.
A good all purpose cleaner like 409, etc. should clean plastic just fine. If the plasic is damaged, there are plasic polishes, and even auto polishes that should shine up smooth plasic surfaces in an automobile. Ask your auto parts guy at Schucks, etc. what would be good. Meguiar's makes a plastic polish that is good.
Have the people that messed up deal with it if you can.
A real detail shop could clean it, and then have the seller agree to pay the bill. It shouldn't be much if they just clean up the plastic.
Hope that helps,
Notto
