Marks on plastic trim

[WhiteShadow89]

Hello,

I had a bit of an unfortunate incident yesterday. While I was out running errands my wife and I accidentally left our lava soap jug on the washing machine. The lava soap fell off and must have landed perfectly on the pump handle as I came home to my Mustang completely sprayed on the driver side by it. After seeing this I begin prepping my soap buckets to get this stuff off my car asap. It thankfully appears that the ceramic protected my clear, however the plastic trim that was hit by the soap damaged the plastic trim. As you can tell from the photo below there are spots left over from the area that the soap sprayed onto (the very circular looking spots on the dark plastic trim) I tried every product I have (all purpose cleaner, glue/adhesive remover, trim restorer products) and it is there to stay. I am curious if anyone here has come across anything like this and has a recommendation? From what I can tell it may have ate the texture from the plastic. I know it is cheap plastic, but it was still wet to the touch when I started cleaning it.

If it helps, for those unfamiliar with lava soap it is a heavy duty soap that has a very gritty texture and is meant to be used to remove heavy grime from your hands.

Car: 2013 Mustang GT

Untitled by Sean C, on Flickr

 

[Rsurfer]

Try Solution Finish, it should get the color back. Clean with IPA to get any residue off.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Sorry to hear about this....

To me - it looks like the Lava Hand Soap, (great hand cleaner), has chemically altered the material. Looks to be permanent. (just from the look)


Also sounds like you've tried a lot of safe ways to try to undo the damage.


For things like this I always start with the safest approach and that's simply soap and water. And I'm talking about HAND soap, like you have by the bathroom sink. Mix up a littel soap and water and then dip a microfiber towel into the mixture and gently wipe the surface. Water is a universal solvent and if the affected area can be fixed, starting out safe like this is the best first step.


At this point, you may be stuck with the damage. Perhaps a vinyl/rubber dressing will "improve" the appearance to the paint that it's less noticeable and won't bug you so much?

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I've cropped out the fluff for close look...

 

[WhiteShadow89]

Try Solution Finish, it should get the color back. Clean with IPA to get any residue off.

Certainly worth a shot. I think the soap ate the finish, but if solution finish can get the color to match in those circular spots it won't be very noticeable unless you are looking for it.

Sorry to hear about this....

To me - it looks like the Lava Hand Soap, (great hand cleaner), has chemically altered the material. Looks to be permanent. (just from the look)


Also sounds like you've tried a lot of safe ways to try to undo the damage.


For things like this I always start with the safest approach and that's simply soap and water. And I'm talking about HAND soap, like you have by the bathroom sink. Mix up a littel soap and water and then dip a microfiber towel into the mixture and gently wipe the surface. Water is a universal solvent and if the affected area can be fixed, starting out safe like this is the best first step.


At this point, you may be stuck with the damage. Perhaps a vinyl/rubber dressing will "improve" the appearance to the paint that it's less noticeable and won't bug you so much?

Thank you for the input as well as zooming in on the photos! I will try using some of our bathroom hand soap and see what it does. Unfortunately, the trim dressings I have used have not done much of anything in terms of hiding it. I think my last resort may be going to a pro to see if they can find a paint for the trim pieces that will match the trim color, but I am unsure if I want to go that far as it could introduce new issues.

 

[gorillapr]

Same thing happened to me after I applied carpro Dlux to my Jetta plastics, after like 3 months of the application I used a bug and tar remover and it fell on the plastic staining it. I have tried everything without succed with the exception of solutions finish or a polish