[cmc]

Hello everybody.

I've got a 1994 Taurus GL (3.0L), green interior. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the trim panel to the left of the passenger side airbag appeared a bit darker than the rest of the dash. Didn't really think too much of it at the time. Flash forward to yesterday when I finally went over and started cleaning the interior. I noticed that the rag I was using to clean the dash was sorta sticking to that panel. Upon further examination, that rag was turning green (to match the interior).

So I popped the panel off and took it in for further cleaning.

First thing I used was water, which didn't do me much good. Same as windex.

Then I tried a carpet cleaner product (Bluemagic) I'd used successfully to get some harsh sap off my paint and that started to make a difference. Well, it turned green as it hit the table anyway...

At first I would have suspected that perhaps this car had the interior panel dyed after being replaced. It's been a company car for my mother's ex-employer for the first half of its life, and then mine most recently. A pretty sizeable layer of material can be combed/sludged/mudded about on the surface of this panel near the edges though, what should be thicker than a typical dye I would think...

I guess my question is... what's going on?!

(With regards to "doesn't look very clean to me"... I wasn't done! )

 

[cmc]

I kept at it last night and managed to get the sticky off, mostly using alcohol. (Carpet cleaner seemed to help at the beginning quite a bit though...)

The panel's back on, doesn't quite match (it's a bit darker in spots, as well as the decorative groove that runs through it being faded from the chemicals...), but with a little more work can be made OK.

But what I'm trying to figure out is why this one panel decided to... melt, why no other panel in the dash (or the car, far as I can tell) has done this, and other than parking in a garage all the time*, how I can keep this from happening on other panels.


*I already park in a garage at work..!