Sunlight Discoloring of Top of Dash

Only ways I know of are

1 Use a dye and redo the entire dash pad over with it (not really hard but you do need to pull the pad to do a good job) 2 Cover the dash pad with a fabric/carpet type cover. 3 Pull the pad and have the pad flocked with a color of your choice.

Don't apply any armor all type products as they tend to make things worse. Also you might want to make a better shield. I like to buy one much larger than needed. Then trim the edges down and add hooks/velcro to hold it in place.

If you let it set for longer periods a car cover isn't a bad idea.

I saw these sites when I just now did a Google for, How to restore a car dashboard.

I've used Lexol's Vinylex for many years without issue. It has worked for me and protected the plastic and vinyl from sunlight.

this is going to sound facetious, but it's not. don't use a shade. that way, the dash fades evenly and will dry out evenly too.

as steve w says, the best way to avoid this going forward is to have an exterior cover. maybe not convenient each time you head to the post office, but if you leave the car out for days on end, it's a very effective means of preserving the polymers that are the car's interior and exterior from degradation.

i do not recommend using any of these "cleaners" or "preservatives". countless cars have been ruined by them over the years. don't wipe car interior surfaces with anything other than a wet cloth. or maybe mild hand soap followed by the wet cloth to remove soap traces. no strong detergents or solvents. the owners manual should tell you this also.

I use spray lemon wax, and have never seen any effects. Oh yes, at one time I used armor all, disintegrator.

Greg

I like Murphy's Oil Soap. (mild solution w/ warm water.) For real bad vinyl, I've found that hand cleaner w/ lanolin (but not pumice) is great

- with a toothbrush or soft scrub brush it cleans great, then if you slather some more on and then buff it off with a soft cloth it will rejuvenate old, hard, faded vinyl so long as it is not cracked.

nate

so to summarize, you took an uneducated [because you know nothing about polymers or their plasticizers] gamble on having to spend a bunch of money and a ridiculous amount of time, replacing a dash [assuming you could get a replacement of course], just for the sake of aesthetics that you could clear up with the cleanser recommended in the owners manual? aesthetics you could address [if they really were that bad] with a dash cover?

well, i'm glad you got lucky*. otherwise we'd have to put up with your bleating about how it didn't work.

• in the short term. we'll have to wait on the long term effects.

To be fair I don't think he could do much damage to the shitboxes to which he likes to bolt his go-fasters, and any mild soap solution is unlikely to damage plastic (but if not completely rinsed away, like any soap, will attract dirt). -----

- gpsman

Not even close.

I tried it on the recommendation of several people in the old car hobby, to see if it would rejuvenate some pieces that would otherwise have to be replaced and/or lived with in an aesthetically unappealing state, that were pretty much unavailable in better condition than the pieces on which I was working, or else would have had to have been custom reupholstered at significant expense. In other words, I had nothing to lose.

It worked fantastically.

Soaking hard leather with neatsfoot oil is another excellent, albeit olfactorally unpleasant in the short term, way to rejuvenate pieces that would be very expensive to replace.

nate

Forgot to mention, my owners manual referred me to my local Studebaker dealer for recommended cleaning products, and they did not respond to my inquiries.

nate

The dashboards in my 1978 Dodge van and my 1983 Dodge van still seem to be in pretty good condition.

does the sun hit them for hours day in and day out

iow, you're simply picking and choosing info from people you don't know, with products you don't know, based on no scientific criteria whatsoever. so apparently i need to emphasize what i said before: /YOU/ have no knowledge of polymers of plasticizers, so /YOU/ don't know what you're doing.

and relying on internet hearsay is about as smart as a retard that's never used an impact driver extolling instead the virtues of lotions and potions they've never used, some of which /cause/ rust problems.

visually, short term.

red herring. you don't know what you're doing.

most car dashes are competently designed and tested for years of exposure in the desert - i.e. extremely harsh environment. fading can occur, but cracking is very rare because of the u.v. inhibitors used in their manufacture.

therefore, cars that don't get cleaned, or that only get cleaned the proper way, only very rarely have any problems. but dashes and other polymers in cars that get cleaned with the wrong chemical potions fall apart dramatically, even when garaged. clearcoat peeling on paint is another classic example of inappropriate chemical use - by the seller as well as the buyer.

DAGS for "lanolin vinyl" and you will find that many commercial vinyl treatments contain lanolin, and that it is widely accepted that it is a viable treatment.

For several years.

I tried something that "should work" and it did. I'm sharing my experiences.

Likewise, DAGS for "leather neatsfoot oil" if you don't want to believe me.

The irony of you accusing someone of not knowing what they're doing is kind of delicious, in a sad, retarded sort of way.

You ever figure out how to set cam timing yet? Or are you still staring at the pieces of your engine in your living room? (some of us have built engines that ran, you know.)

nate

hey, can i use armor-all too? it's "widely accepted" as a "viable treatment".

uh, huh.

says the "engineer" that doesn't know, and can't be bothered to look up, what kind of "rubber" is used in automotive belts and thinks they'll disintegrate on oil contact.

fact is, you're just too retarded and too dishonest to man up to the fact that you don't know polymers, you don't know what plasticizers are used and therefore you don't know what you're doing, you're merely shooting in the dark and hoping for the best.

idiot.