TLDR: not a car-savvy person and have never done restoration work. Feeling overwhelmed by info. My car is an '07 and is clearly showing its age, both interior and exterior. I just pumped $3k into a new hybrid battery and have decided I'm going to do my best to get everything back into as good a shape as I can, and try to get another 5-8 years out of her. 1. I picked up a bottle of Meguiar's Interior Cleaner and ordered a boar's bristle brush to work out some of the dirt from the textured dash. I was planning on using a microfiber cloth and the brush to get all of the plastics in the car clean. Hoping this might work on some of the whitish sunblock spots too. 2. I also bought a bottle of Meguiar's Supreme Shine, but I'm not sure this is what I really need. Read on... 3. I want to get as many scratches out as I can (see photos). This is where I'm getting tripped up. For lighter scratches, what do I use? For deeper scratches, my research is saying use sandpaper (and if needed, a blowtorch) to smooth the plastic, and to take a mold of the texture if a filler is needed. 4. After scratches are worked out, what's the best way to restore or re-color the interior plastics? There seem to be some products out there that are a tinted spray. Others say to avoid it. I want to restore the plastics as much as possible over the dash. Can anyone give me direction beyond what I've written above? This is all new to me and I'm really out of my element.
wow, uncracked dash... imo leave the gloveboxes alone due to cracking issues.. what I did was sandblast all my doors with walnut and they came out like new..
Is it uncommon to have an uncracked dash? Do you have before and after photos of your sandblasting? Did you do anything after to add back shine or condition? Did it affect the plastic texture?
TLDR: not a car-savvy person and have never done restoration work. Feeling overwhelmed by info. My car is an '07 and is clearly showing its age, both interior and exterior. I just pumped $3k into a new hybrid battery and have decided I'm going to do my best to get everything back into as good a shape as I can, and try to get another 5-8 years out of her. 1. I picked up a bottle of Meguiar's Interior Cleaner and ordered a boar's bristle brush to work out some of the dirt from the textured dash. I was planning on using a microfiber cloth and the brush to get all of the plastics in the car clean. Hoping this might work on some of the whitish sunblock spots too. 2. I also bought a bottle of Meguiar's Supreme Shine, but I'm not sure this is what I really need. Read on... 3. I want to get as many scratches out as I can (see photos). This is where I'm getting tripped up. For lighter scratches, what do I use? For deeper scratches, my research is saying use sandpaper (and if needed, a blowtorch) to smooth the plastic, and to take a mold of the texture if a filler is needed. 4. After scratches are worked out, what's the best way to restore or re-color the interior plastics? There seem to be some products out there that are a tinted spray. Others say to avoid it. I want to restore the plastics as much as possible over the dash. Can anyone give me direction beyond what I've written above? This is all new to me and I'm really out of my element.
Stoner Trim Shine, squeeze/pump spray bottle. Leaves a nice like new finish, not that shiny and slick Armor All look and feel. Easy to apply, reasonably priced (Amazon of course has it, but I never really looked too hard to see who else might). It also doesn't attract dirt & dust the way some of these type products seem to. Detailed a Jeep Liberty last fall and it still looks great, and I use it on everything I sell, but once they're gone I don't see them again so I can't speak to how they've held up. Used it on all of our vehicles with great results. Gouges and scratches in textured plastic are another thing, but I will say that this stuff has made the ones that I've had considerably less noticeable.
so this might seem crazy but when it comes to the black Dashboard pieces, (like the glove box cover) i had really good luck with this buy an old one from the junk yard ... this is an experiment (it worked for me, might not for you) clean it really really well brush-paint it with plain old black acrylic paint from the supermarket. use thin coats. since its so highly textured, the brush marks are not very visible. as long as you keep the coating thin there wont be blobs. please note this only works on the Dashboard piece. And also note those changed between different years of the Gen 2 , like older ones are not textured but later ones are. This technique is only for the later textured ones. i havent tried it on any other piece of plastic and doubt it would work well. Also i dont know the longevity, as there is probably not any UV protector in there. but its lasted several months.
