I melted my car (with picture)! Help!

Woops. That must be strong solvent. People have installed black shifter applique over the white shifter, but I don't know white applique exists. Not sure if you can easily take it off the OEM part. Search for "shifter applique for Prius".

 

Just realized that you are in UK. So, you will need right hand steering wheel version sold in JAPAN. US version will not work for you.
shifter applique for Prius - Google Search

 

Strong solvent or very cheesy plastic panel? I thought the reviewers called that "hard plastic". Apparently not.

 

Thanks for the warning. From the packaging, it seems innocuous enough. The warning verbiage is something you could expect to find on any product containing chemicals. We've all used those pine scented cardboard Christmas tree cutouts, and including an image of that on the front would lead one to believe their product is perfectly harmless. I'm sure you were as shocked to see what kind of damage it did as any of us would have been.

 

That's so disappointing. Bad product and it messed up your car. I'm such a boob when it comes to damage to my car. I feel for you.

 

I accomplished the same thing a few years ago by letting a small bottle of DEET bug repellent sit on the plastic top of my washing machine.

-Chap

 

I've had similar damage to the plastic bag containment around a DEET bottle that leaked inside checked luggage during a flight.

The original plastic bottle was properly resistant, but its top didn't adequately seal against air pressure changes, and the plastic bags I put around it were not properly resistant to the stuff.

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Back to the OP, that first active ingredient, "(R)-p-mentha-1,8-diene", is a hydrocarbon, the major component in the oil of citrus fruit peels, and a renewables-based solvent. Here is more about it than I understand:
Limonene - Wikipedia
(R)-p-mentha-1,8-diene - Substance Information - ECHA

 

The first ingredient is I believe Limonene. It is "fake citrus" smell so used in lots of cheap fragrances but more notably it is a paint stripper and plastic solvent. It is really good at eating away bio-plastics, aka almost the entire Prius. I use it with my 3D printer when I print a dual extrusion with HIPS plastic for support and ABS for structure. The HIPS just turns to goo and melts away. Used in lots of cleaning products because it smells mildly nice and also kills things chemically. How fun.

Acetone does the same thing to ABS as you say but won't do anything to HIPS.

The coumarin just makes it smell like fake cinnamon (cassia). The citronellol is actually more of a flower garden smell, like a rose or lemongrass. It's another very cheap scent chemical and in high enough quantities even the mosquitos will hate you.

That little bottle is a swirl of evil spirits. Everything in it is toxic in some way and can cause anything from irritation if it gets on your skin to blindness if you touch your eyeballs. Some of the stuff is thought to cause various forms of kidney tumours even. But it's not proven... yet.

Also, none of that is coconut lol. You have "cinnamon-lemon-orange-garden-bed" smell. I would not put that anywhere near me let alone hang it in a car where it would splash all over me in an accident. Not to mention most of those chemicals are super flammable...

 

Apparently the D-isomer is a major component of the oil in citrus peels, is part of the fragrance of oranges, and is used as a food flavoring agent. So it can't be too toxic, at least in those more natural doses.

As for flammable yes. As an officemate once demonstrated that, the spray coming out of squeezed orange peel is itself flammable.

 

Looks like damage here too:


The "p-mentha-1 8-diene" - looks scary:

https://www.xerox.com/download/ehs/msds/4-0099.en-gb.pdf

 

So if it does that to plastic. What is it doing to your lungs? I hate a fake fragrances. Most of them are unsafe.

 

I'm only a mild asthmatic, but they get me short of breath. Never put one in my car, but one car I bought had one in, I tossed it straight away, but the residual stench of it mixed with stale smoke came back every summer. Despite scrubbing the car thoroughly, it never went.

I became transport provider for Mum & Dad after Dad wasn't able to drive any more - Mum would spray some perfume on herself just as she left the house to get in the car - which would leave me breathless in the closed car. And often, I'd still be wheezy later in the day/night, as though it had an ongoing effect. I had to finally ask her, if she was going to put it on, to do so well before I got there ("like a couple of days" I muttered under my breath!!).

 

Certainly gives one second thoughts before touching, let alone eating, citrus fruits. Oranges, lemons, limes.

 

Toyota calls this part the shift lever hole cover, and for right-hand drive cars, it has part number 58841-47050.

Yes; the cover is secured with five orange plastic clips, part number 90467-05171. The Repair Manual (available by subscription to toyota-tech.eu) says to use a molding remover to disengage these.

The pattern select (EV MODE, DRIVE MODE) and transmission shift main (P) switch assemblies are sold separately, and each has an electrical connector.

 

- I thought it was unrelated to real citrus - but some GOOGLE searches indicate that Citrus skin does contain the same chemical. I'll be more cautious - though I tend not to eat the skin. I remember quite a few years ago that they started selling a washing detergent which was "lemon fresh" which supposedly had real lemon in it.

I hope citrus doesn't get "banned" - I've got an early and a late orange tree, and an early and a late mandarin keeping me in fruit for almost 6 months.

 

... which is what I've been trying to point out with and since my link to Wikipedia at post #11.