how to care for dash in 1997 528i?

Zymol vinyl cleaner :-)

thanks

Lexol Vinylex.

All of these are IMHO a BAD IDEA. The E39 dash is made from recycled plastics and rubber. It is somewhat porous. Putting any "treatment" on it will "muck it up"

The only treatment it needs is a wiping with a damp cloth once in a while. It looks just fine after that - and I have never seen or heard of one cracking. It is NOT vinyl.. and the stuff made for vinyl is not good for it.

That's news to me. I know of no way that 'plastics' and rubber will combine to make a homogeneous material like this. While it may be composed of *a* recycled *plastic* (of which there are many - mostly incompatible with one another, just as they are with rubber), this would no doubt be a thermoplastic.

I fail to see how this is a cause-effect relationship. Porosity has nothing to do with susceptibility to proper treatments. All this means is that the treatment solution might reach the underlying foam padding

- also a plastic (probably a blown-in-place urethane impervious to typical surface treatments).

I'm just waiting for the details on this theory ...

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there; done that)

C.R.,

You can wait all'ya want. When you move into a new decade of BMW engineering maybe you'll actually have some reason to be concerned.

Jeeze - who'da'thunk'it? Glad I was able to deliver some news.

BMW lied to us again? It's THEIR claim that the dash was made from recycled plastics and rubber. And in case you're wondering - rubber no longer comes from the rubber tree.. it comes from the same oil that your thermoplastic comes from.

Sorry - you're wrong again. It IS one solid mass of material. There is no covering and there is no foam padding inside it. It is one and the same. What you see is what it's made of - through and through.

I think when you finally (if ever) leave the 1980's decade and move into the 1990's (or - GASP - 2000's) of BMW design it will be like an entirely new world opening to you. So much more for you to be crabby about. You should give it a try sometime. Or not. Doesn't really matter.

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I used nothing but a damp cloth on mine. It has a strange soft texture to it, and I really didn't want to "muck it up" with any cleaners that would either leave it with a shine, or a sticky mess.

For those who have no experience with the surface, suffice it to say that it isn't anything like a normal vinyl surface - more like soft rubber.

DS