[s-cars] Cleaning Glass and seats

[Brett Dikeman]

On Mar 30, 2006, at 9:49 PM, AUDIJIM at aol.com wrote:

> The previous owner of my S4 went very heavy on the Lexerol. At the  
> bottom of
> all the windows, I have a dried film of Lexerol, and on the seats  
> you can see
> spots of Lexerol product that was just sprayed on and left to dry.  
> Aside from
> scrapping, is there a product that will cut through it?

For any stubborn deposits on glass, including water spots- I'd  
recommend Autoglym Glass Polish.  The bottle is kinda small and  
pricey, but I've used about one every 2-3 years; a little will go  
quite a way with a small cloth.  Virtually any "pre-wax cleaner",  
metal polish, etc will work well too; good old fashioned polishing  
compound will gunk off your glass headlights you didn't realize were  
on them.  I would go with something gentler for glass you'll have to  
look through.

Clearvue glass cleaner is good for greasy stuff, but if you are super- 
fussy about your car, you might be bothered by the fact that it has  
acetone and a few other pretty strong solvents in it.

>  I haven't tried anything as yet for the seats. Any BTDT?

Try re-applying Lexol, either with a small cloth, or a small sponge  
(I've found a 2"x2"x2" "cube" of that cheapo yellow car-wash sponge  
stuff to be a great way to apply Lexol leather stuff and Vinylex.)   
The sponge will provide some gentle scrubbing action.  If that fails,  
try Lexol leather cleaner with a well-moistened sponge.  Failing  
that...maybe a little light dish soap+water, but 'rinse', dry and re- 
apply lexol conditioner right away.

As for any door panels, switchgear, etc...Vinylex is a superb  
cleaner.  I've seen it pull gunk off computer and test equipment  
cases I thought would never come off, and the first time I did my  
dash (black interior) I was shocked at how much gunk came off it.  If  
you have a grey/tan/brown interior, I strongly recommend it.  For  
best results, wipe down once, then re-apply somewhat heavily, then  
come back after a couple hours and wipe down again (the Vinylex acts  
like a solvent, somewhat.)  On a lot of surfaces, you can use a  
generous amount of Vinylex with a flexible nylon bristle brush with  
great effect.

As for the listers with smelly cars- I once stuck my head in my  
father's 944 track/race car (which has a full interior still- doubles  
as an occasional daily driver) and nearly passed out from the odor.   
I took care of the odor by getting one of those "industrial" sized  
spraybottles and wetting anything carpet or interior (yes, plastics  
too) with a lysol/water mix; perhaps half a cup's worth of lysol  
concentrate to a large bottle.  I let it sit for 5 minutes or so, and  
then rubbed everything down with towels, which came up brown-black.   
Not only did the carpet actually change a shade or two lighter grey,  
but actually -sparkled-.  After a day of airing out, the car was  
devoid of any smell whatsoever.

Brett