Soft touch gone very sticky.

simufly

A2OC Donor
United-Kingdom
Why oh why did Audi persist with soft touch? Very nice but fragile when new but a few years down the road it deteriorates into a stick mess.
What is the best way of removing the goo?
I am going to recolour anyway from soul to platinum so a bit of an adventure awaits.
 
What works for me is IPA, old microfibre cloth and an old toothbrush. Use the kitchen sink but place a large bin bag in there first to protect the sink and you from when the Mrs catches you!! Remove anything you do not want to strip if possible, then soak a corner of the cloth in the IPA and rub the soft touch in a figure of eight until you see it soften, use the brush to get into the grain and remove the softened coating. Be careful that you know the colour of the plastic under neath the soft coating, as some especially switch gear fascias are white. The surface is suitable for painting after a final wipe down with more IPA on a clean part of the cloth.

P.S. IPA is Isopropyl Alcohol or rubbing alcohol. In this day and age you may even find that the thicker antibac hand sanitisers will work just as well as they are usually IPA based.

You can recolour soul to platinum, I have done this myself, but it does take a few more coats of paint ( Volico ).
 
I scraped the soft touch off my electric window switches using a Stanley knife blade, stripped it all off quite easily and with a quick 1200 grit sanding it was good to spray paint.
 
Be careful as you do not want to damage the plastic surface, so would not recommend a knife or steel scourer. Non scratching Scotchbrite about the most aggressive I would use.
 
Be careful as you do not want to damage the plastic surface, so would not recommend a knife or steel scourer. Non scratching Scotchbrite about the most aggressive I would use.
I had no issues as I only used the blade that was removed from the knife handle. As long as your careful and use a new blade it's very easy, as I said I had no issues and it stripped all the old soft touch. Its just the way I did mine but it's not everyone's choice for removal.
 
On later window switches it looks like Audi used a clear soft touch over hardtouch switches. Alcohol or nail varnish remover ( acetone free) will remove it from the switches but may stain the bezel plastic.
James
 
What works for me is IPA, old microfibre cloth and an old toothbrush. Use the kitchen sink but place a large bin bag in there first to protect the sink and you from when the Mrs catches you!! Remove anything you do not want to strip if possible, then soak a corner of the cloth in the IPA and rub the soft touch in a figure of eight until you see it soften, use the brush to get into the grain and remove the softened coating. Be careful that you know the colour of the plastic under neath the soft coating, as some especially switch gear fascias are white. The surface is suitable for painting after a final wipe down with more IPA on a clean part of the cloth.

P.S. IPA is Isopropyl Alcohol or rubbing alcohol. In this day and age you may even find that the thicker antibac hand sanitisers will work just as well as they are usually IPA based.

You can recolour soul to platinum, I have done this myself, but it does take a few more coats of paint ( Volico ).
And there was I thinking it stood for India Pale Ale, shows my age! I was looking forward to an excuse to increase the beer stock
 
This IPA ( isopropyl alcohol ) most definitely not to be taken internally. India Pale Ale IS to be taken internally but is useless at removing the soft touch coating and leaves it sticky and smelling like a brewery afterwards.
 
Try to avoid breathing the fumes in a confined area as well. Especially the 99.9% stuff will evaporate very quickly and can irritate the lungs. Open Windows for sure.

Also great at removing wound dressing adhesive residue.


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To bump up this thread. I have a problem that some soft touch plastic is becoming sticky. Currently, the problematic area is the lower bottom of the instrument panel (see attached photo).
Since the soft touch plastic is still in great condition and also visualy fine, I would like to spray it with something that would prevent further degradation and thus removing the stick effect. Any suggestions?
 

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Unfortunately once the break down of the coating has started there is nothing that can be done to slow it down. Either live with it until the area is too large then strip off or try to find a replacement panel.
 
That is a bummer. Can I at least spray it with something to postpone complete degradation?
 
No, as said once the process has started is will not stop. As it is lower dash and glovebox lid stripping the surface off will actually look better. Provided you take care the exposed surface will need no further treatment although if you do find scratches then the Volico paint is a perfect match and easy to apply
 
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Ok, thx for your input.
Just to clarify: I remove the ''ruber'' part from the trims and the hard plastic under this is the same colour as this rubber part?
Any tutorial how to remove it without damaging/scratching the plastic below?
 
Some plastic is white underneath but that is mainly switch gear. Just follow the methods listed above to remove the coating.
 
Perfect, I will leave this as it is for now, since it is still ok, when it will become annoying I will go on that route.
PS: Switch gear is still in perfect condition, since the car was not used much.
 
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