We often get cars in with sticky buttons and controls. This was a Jaguar XF.
Typically car manufacturers coat vehicle controls with a rubber coating for a “soft touch feel”.
Things like; steering controls, indicator and wiper stalks, buttons, and dials, like your window, aircon, and other features may have it on.
It doesn’t matter the brand of car, I’ve had to remove this kind of sticky mess from Ferrari of all things!
These coatings degrade over time for a number of reasons typically:
- The dirt on our hands that transfers to these controls and damages them…
- Sweat, food (yep some of that KFC chicken wings!), makeup, grease …
- With the COVID pandemic, sanitizer residue on your hands if not the direct use of inappropriate disinfectants inside a car
- Humidity and heat also play a big role.
- The use of silicone-based products car care products not to mention the wrong or incorrectly used general cleaner …
- You should only use quality water-based dressings and dedicated car cleaners.
It looks terrible when these buttons and controls degrade and are off-putting.
The goo can come off on your hands, they tend to hold dirt and most likely germs as well!
Point in case, this vehicle shown here was for sale, the buyer’s condition was to have this first removed!
The problem however is the risk. In an ideal world, these things should be stripped out, but would be massively expensive and time-consuming for the client. These are all electronics by nature and the way to clean them is with a cleaner, (which is wet) and of course rubbing them clean.
Most of the time, we clean them in place. Removing knobs etc where possible as well as taping off as much as we can before very carefully cleaning them. The danger is moisture finding its way into a switch or busting a control system!
Additionally, most of these controls have symbols on them. These can come off through cleaning as the previous “rubber-like” coating protected them. These are typically laser etched, so having them redone in South Africa is next to impossible.
We have had great success in cleaning them up as the photographs that follow demonstrates.
This was a 2012 Jaguar XF Diesel. The total time for cleaning the various buttons, dials, knobs, and controls was approximately 2 hours. Our detail cleaning rate, currently ( May 2021) is R350 per hour which included the materials for this specific job.
If you need your car done please don’t hesitate to call Qiyaam (Keyyaam) on 071 686 8055 or complete our contact form on our contacts page
Steering Wheel
Before
After
Steering Wheel Controls – Buttons & Dials
Before
After
Jaguar Gear Dial Shift / Gear Selector
Before
After
Climate Control / Air conditioning buttons and knobs
Before
After
Window Buttons
Before
After
