Went to the JY and found a dashpad in a 1983 camaro with no cracks, sun damage, or stains (so i thought). Get the thing home and clean it all up with armor all and low and behold there is little tiny stains that wont come out no matter how much i scrub. they are only visable if you have it at the right angle.
They arent on the surface either, they must be deep they wont scratch if i try. They resemble a spill of some kind.

My question is, what is a good product to get even the toughest stains out on a dash pad without damaging it in the slightest?

Thanks.

 

I just went to an autozone and picked up a can of black spray paint for plastic. Spray it on evenly and no one will ever know you had any stains.
I did this when I epoxied a crack in my dash and was trying to cover it up.

 

Really you wont probably be able to get those out without using a harsh chemical of some sort which is not what you want. I would try cleaning the dash pad again with vinyl/interior cleaner or hot soapy water and scrub it with a soft bristle brush. Instead of armor all try using a leather conditioner, lather it on there with a applicator pad and let it soak in for an hour or two and see if that blends the spot's into the rest of the material. the leather conditioner wont have a glossy finish such as armor all has, it will make the material look rich or "like new" in appearence. Hopefully that helps some, its really the only other way to try and get rid of the spots without color dying the dash pad.

I worked a detail shop for a long time and we used to use this method on cars with high quality leather interiors (such as porsche, bentley, lambo's etc.) except we worked with toothbrushes to work the conditioner in to all the seams and whatnot. Let it soak for a while and wipe off the excess then usually repeat the process. Good Luck!

 

If you want the pad to look right you will need to refinish it..Go here http://www.vinylpro.com/
and purchase a aerosol can of SEM Color-Coat along with the recomended cleaners. Easy to do and you will be very pleased with the results.

 

I have no idea how it would work, but my thought was shoe polish. But please don't do this unless someone with any experience chimes in - it was just a crazy thought.

 

I would suggest trying it on a SMALL area and see what it looks like. As stated, you can refinish the dash with SEM vinyl spray paint, but if you keep on adding waxes and such, it may soak into the vinyl and cause it to develop "fish eyes" because the paint will not stick to it.

 

My dash wash spot faded due to sun. After fixing some cracks on my dash, I sprayed it with SEM Landau black spray paint. Looks very good and can't tell difference. You can buy it at Sherwin Williams auto supply store, search their website for location, not same as house paint store. Check out my pics in post #19. Spray paint is good and not too glossy for driving.

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