Wax residue?

What are some of the most effective products to remove wax residue from pebbled plastic trim pieces without recoloring?

I use back to black and a little foam sponge.

Do not use wax in the first place, and you will not have that problem.

What if other people wax and destroy trim?...is that the answer we should give the customer...or should we be educate ourselves on new products that could possible remove the wax....?

Gina

You got a valid point there. Why not try lacquer thinner. If that will not remove it, nothing most likely will.

APC w/toothbrush
Good for not only wax, but thick compound buildup too.


*laquer thinner can melt and discolor textured plastics* Not smart.

Recently while removing sticker residue from a windsheild I grabbed the acetone instead of the usual naptha. I spritzed a bit on the windsheild. And as sprayers do more often than not, a drip of acetone fell on the plastic molding at the base of the windsheild. Can ya guess what happened? Be carefull what you put on plastic molding! Lesson learned the hard way again...

*laquer thinner can melt and discolor textured plastics* Not smart.

Gina

You are right, that can happen. I guess I assumed wrongly you were talking about the worst case scenario where the wax
has been on for a long time. I was thinking of using a small amount on a rag to loosen the wax.If that is not the case, than maybe denatured alcohol may work .

I have worked with the majority of the vehicle manufacturers over the past 30 years or so.
Their engineers do not know what the composite of the trim is, only that customer complaints come to them.
When they would call me I would would ask the usual questions.
1.What is the composition of the trim?
2.Who is the vendor of the part to them?
3.Is it possible to have a conversation with their engineering group or contact?
4. Is this a large number of concerns through out the market area or just localized?
5. Are there certain dealers customers having the concerns, who are they?
6.Has that dealer a large number of other warranty issues vs the norm?
Etc.etc.
There are many things to be addressed as you may image.
However, that said, when we went on site to the dealers with the largest number of customer concerns and dealer warranty claims it be came quite clear.
A. The "get ready" employees used MEK (lacquer thinner) to remove anything that they couldn't wipe off with glass cleaner or an all purpose.
B. They then went to a product of solvent base, which they never read or if they did, the MSDS, to see what the "actives" were in the product.
which was for the most part a high concentrate of xylene or some other clorinated solvent.
C. The employee would be able to clean the trim part, and usually see that it was dulling out or discoloring, either then or when the lot manager brought it back asking them to correct the condition.
D. The normal reply from the employee was "I got it off, it looked great when I was done, it must be something else, I am not responsible".
E.Those employees then applied some high concentrate silicone fluid dressing to the part, and it looked fine.
F.A larger than what would be normal percentage of vehicle purchasers would return to the dealership within 3 months of purchasing with a complaint.
So what is this result of this?
The employee doing the work did not have the education of how to properly deal with the issue so just went for what someone who said they knew told them to do.
The dealership managers, who did not know as well, signed off on it.
The manufacturers of the vehicles, who holds and must honor the warranty, had to pay the labor and part cost to replace it.
Big dollars here, big, more than most even consider or know.
Those dollars end up in the sticker price of next years model, so in the end, the consumer pays for what a dealership's employee who has no real education about the issue, and if they did, it would bring to them "knowledge", which then allow them to be able to properly "diagnois" the issue, and that would allow them to perform the correct process and procedure to correct it without replacing parts.

To close, "don't use a clorinated solvent on any black trim unless you know what that solvent contains, is made of".
Don't assume that just because it looks good, and with a little dressing, everything is resolved/solved.
It's is not rocket science, but dealing with this issue is like dealing with today's paints, today's fabric's and leather, with the bright trim used today, one has to move forward and utilize resources in a continuing "education" to gain "knowledge", so one knows how to address these concerns without creating more damage.
Grumpy

Aren't there a lot citrus-based solvents replacing the chlorinated ones these days. Thankfully, education and knowledge is a little more common in the marketplace because of the internet and ethical suppliers, and the demand for hot chemicals is decreasing. But there are still a lot of them floating about and still a lot untrained employees. Cheap product and labour is unfortunately rampant - its the nature of the sector.

It's pretty simple gang

To clean wax and solvent based polish residue off injected resin, urethane, ABS, soft and hard rubber trims and textureds, I use this -
Milestone Lemon proof - on textureds gently wiped in with a soft bristle brush it works great. works on anything
A steam cleaner helps too,

The lemon proof is not solvent based or contain any ingredients that hurt the materials, I've tested it out for two years

To purify exterior trim to give them an absolutely brand new look and feel (dont use on textureds though as they never respond to any product except a coating), I rely on Glare Zero - chemical surface deoxidiser and enhancer. works on paint, trims, white and red walls, rubber door seals and many other oxidised or dirty surfaces

From there, you can polish the trim to a glass like finish with Gtechniq C1 or C4, permanon aircraft supershine (natural quarts/silica based) spray on coating or restructure marine water based marine polish or the solvent based crystal diamond glaze. or glare micro and infinity plus
these products although solvent based, have 1 to 2% solvent, the rest is natural silica and they do not stain trims or wiper arms

Forget conventional trim dressings or nasty cleaners.
[www.milestonechemicals.com.au]

milestone also have graffiti remover which is awesome to remove sap and all sorts of stuck on gunk. its also called gum remover and can take off paint to paint transfer



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2011 01:19PM by svr73.