Just had a fabulous week in Padstow with my MX-5 (and my wife, of course !). in simply glorious weather - thanks Mr. Weatherman !
Anyway, after returning home, I gave the 5 a ‘thank-you-for-not-breaking-down’ wash yesterday, and noticed white smears on the door interior panels, and parts of the leather seats which had come into contact with our heavily sun tan creamed naked flesh. So, can anyone please give me some idea on how to safely remove these smears without wrecking my car’s interior ?
But be warned, as with most of this type of liquid product, they contain both of the common thiazonilones which are powerful fungicides and often produce an allergic reaction.
So I never allow bare skin to touch the seats for any length of time, and use gloves when cleaning them.
Yes, bad bit of luck. Not sure on this, maybe google it to see if there’s any tips. The only thing I find which is brilliant on all sorts of stains on literally any fabric is AutoGlym Interior Shampoo (about the only product I like by those). I’ve used it to awesome effect on carpets, clothes, walls even etc.
I’m paranoid to the extreme about sun tan cream. I drive top down 99% of the time and in the summer put cream on my ears as I’ve a cap and sunnys and long sleeves on. But to ensure my hands don’t touch the cream, I put the cream on a cotton bud, and use that to put it on my ears. The wash hands afterwards just in case.
I’ve never had this problem before, in some 50 years of motoring. Perhaps the white cream shows up more on black seats and door panels. And perhaps the Factor-50 stuff that we were using is worse still in this respect.
Had this problem recently, my sun screamed hands had marked the head restraints and door cards, plus made the gear knob sticky!
For plastic coated/painted leather (which is almost all modern car leather, unless it’s anline or nappa) I use face wipes, gets most stuff off nicely! Also turns the wipe a hideous brown colour when I’ve done the steering wheel with it
Every so often I wipe over all interior plastic and leatherwith CarPro PERL at 1:5 dilution with a microfibre - that stuff is magic and takes years off the interior (and exterior for that matter, I use it 1:3 on the outside and rubber seals), adding a dark non-greasy matt anti-static finish.
For fabric, I’ve recently taken to using dilute APC (all purpose cleaner, specifically I am using Koch Chemie Greenstar at 1:15-1:20 with a garden sprayer) spray it on, scrub with a soft brush and then wipe off with a damp microfibre - this is very alkaline so you may wish to test colour fastness first. Prior to this I had cans of foaming interior shampoo laying about I’ve been gifted over the years.
If you do go down the route of expensive stuff: Dodo Supernatural leather cleaner or Renapur Leather Cleaner both get good reviews but I have not used either. You apply to leather and work with a microfibre cloth, bigger areas like seats need vacuuming beforehand and the cleaner worked with a soft brush.
The AG Interior Shampoo mentioned by NDer gets a good write up too and would work on cloth, and Meguiars products are usually decent too. Plenty to look into if you’re so inclined!
