White 'bleached-looking' spots on interior black plastic: Help!

Crap!
I picked up my new RAV4 at my friends garage after he had done it's first oil change and I was distraught to find these white spots on the interior plastic door panel, near the driver-side speaker:


My buddy had noticed a smudge of road tar or something similiar on that little plastic foot rest pad that's situated to the left of the brake pedal and decided to help me out with removal. He used some generic glass cleaner areosol and told me that he only sprayed it on the cloth that he used to attack the tar with, but I'm guessing some overspray hit the door panel and caused these white 'bleached-out' spots you can clearly see in the pic above.

• I first tried removing the spots (thinking it was some glass cleaner residue that was merely sitting atop the plastic trim) with a MF wetted with distilled water only (I did'nt have a dedicated interior plastics cleaner on-hand): the spots seemed to dissappear but then re-appeared minutes later after I hit the panel with a dry MF to dry it off.
• On my way into work this morning I stopped over at Shoprite and picked up the only product available for interior cleaning detailing: ArmorAll's Interior Cleaning Wipes. Once again the spots seemed to disappear after a thorough rub-down with the wipes and a second pass with the MF with distilled water as a rinse wipe, but then they re-appeared again as the panel dried.

So I've come to the conclusion that whatever that glass cleaner was, it bleached these little spots and this is no mere surface contaminant that needs to be wiped off.

Has anyone ever had to deal with something like this? Is there a product out there that specifically can restore the black pigment to the bleach-like spotted area?
Help please!!

Directly after posting this I clicked over to the AG store page and checked out the interior products. The only applicable color restoration product I found is 'Forever Black Truck Bed Liner Gel': "Forever Black is a pigmented gel that soaks into the liner’s pores to re-color it."

Will this work?

Anybody ever use this product on an interior panel?

Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:

It would tint the white spots the color of the tint, (black), but it would tend to tint the rest of the panel also, not a problem if the panel is black like the tint but it looks kind of dark dark gray?

How about a sharpie marker?

Another option would be to check with your local PBE store and see if SEM has a product that matches the color of your door panel.

Usually projects like this get so complicated that a permanent Sharpie marker starts to sound better and better. A lot of times, more and more work won't result in better and better results.

There's always the old 64 Crayola Crayon trick...

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Thanks Mike. I was starting to think I wouldn't get any replies.

I was thinking about resorting to a Sharpie but am thinking that the marker's shade of black may be darker than the panel's shade, which would result in a bunch of darker dots.
Maybe the Pearl Arts store near me has a dark charcoal colored marker: they have a ton of various shades and colors available.
Once matched and applied I'm planning to 'seal' it in with an application of 303's Aerospace Protectant.

From the lack of response I've gotten from my thread's topic I'm guessing that my situation (bleach-like spots on the interior plastic panel) may be unique and rare.
Regardless, I'll follow-up with pics of the aftermath (*gulp*), whatever my results and technique ends up yielding.

Wish me luck.

Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:

Definitely check out the Pearl Arts store and see if they have something that matches.

Polished, aluminum Diamond Plate is another option and would give the inside of your door panels a real tough look!

Please do keep us updated as this might help someone in the future!


:dblthumb2:

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You're kidding about the diamond plate, right? Don't temp me

Just when I thought I had these spots pegged as area's of the plastic that had become bleached and stripped of black pigmentation...

I stopped over at my local supplier/detailer's place to pick up some goods and showed him the spots. He tried applying some P21S Total Auto Wash with a MF and after a bit of extra rubbing the spots started to be successfully removed.

I haven't taken any pics yet but will tomorrow and add them here.