Rubber/plastic discoloration

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Anonymous

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I noticed on my 2018 LEAF that the rubber/plastic in the little center cubby and on the dash discolors when you rub your finger or anything at all on it. Does anyone else's do this?
 
What color is the interior plastic and what color is the discoloration?

Reason I ask is some of the black plastic in my ‘14 when new appeared dry/porous. A pre-delivery prep guy wiped the dashboard with a rag that likely had some armorall residue which left odd streaking. Ended up having to treat the rest of the plastic to get it looking even.
 
rogersleaf said:
What color is the interior plastic and what color is the discoloration?
The interior plastic is black, and the discoloration is like a grayish color. I've never seen another car do this just by rubbing your finger across it.
 
Weird. I too wonder if the dealer was trying to be "helpful" by having someone coat the surfaces with some "protectant" BS. Had a dealer do that to me once.
 
eplus said:
rogersleaf said:
What color is the interior plastic and what color is the discoloration?
The interior plastic is black, and the discoloration is like a grayish color. I've never seen another car do this just by rubbing your finger across it.
Thinking some automotive plastics are really soft now. I own a '17 Honda Ridgeline with grayish fingernail wear marks near the window switches on the driver's door where I likely rest my fingertips on the plastic. My '13 Honda CRV has an almost identical switch panel with no signs of this plastic wear, with 10-times the usage on the car.
 
I don't know if this will help or not but, there are ceramic coatings available for plastics now. Last week I applied a ceramic coating to the exterior plastics on two of my vehicles (not the Leaf yet). Wow, does it look good now. It's supposed to last two years. If it was on the interior I bet it would last a lot longer.

The problem with the ceramic coating is that it stinks really, really bad when you put it on. You don't want to be anywhere near it for a few hours and need plenty of ventilation. 24 hours is even better. Once it's been on there for the "cure" time I can't smell it. But, again, that's on exterior plastics.

My coating kit came from Adam's Polishes. Here's a link to their kit: https://adamspolishes.com/collections/ceramic-trim-coating-kit/products/ceramic-trim-coating
 
HRTKD said:
The problem with the ceramic coating is that it stinks really, really bad when you put it on. You don't want to be anywhere near it for a few hours and need plenty of ventilation. 24 hours is even better. Once it's been on there for the "cure" time I can't smell it. But, again, that's on exterior plastics.
If I've learned one thing over the years it's the better a product is......the smellier it is :lol:
Whenever they come up with better smelling(or more environmentally friendly) alternative to something that was caustic and had a terrible smell, it never works as good as before :( Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer something less smelly and water-based but for whatever reason it has to be bad, to be good!
Take for instance PL400, a construction adhesive I used to use it all the time. It worked wonderfully but had an awful chemical smell, dried quickly(actually formed a skin quickly) and basically only wore off your skin if you were unfortunate enough to get it on your skin. About 2 years ago PL400 was reformulated to be more enviromentally friendly or maybe the feds forced them, I don't know but what I do know other than 1 tube, I haven't purchased PL400 since as it just doesn't work like it used to :( It was nice to be able to clean it up with water but it didn't dry nearly as fast and just didn't have the holding power as the caustic PL400. Note I've since found another brand selling a smelly/caustic construction adhesive that works almost as good as the old PL400 but I sure miss the original.
 
Whenever they come up with better smelling(or more environmentally friendly) alternative to something that was caustic and had a terrible smell, it never works as good as before :( Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer something less smelly and water-based but for whatever reason it has to be bad, to be good!


There are a couple of 100% silicone caulks that smell a lot less than typical, yet still dry fast and work great. I think GE brand may be one of them.
 
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