Soft-touch interior plastics were supposed to be a good thing. Instead of suffering hard plastic knobs and handles like schmucks, we would be coddled by luxurious, soft touchpoints that felt great in our hands. And yet, for many it has been a curse. As years pass, the soft-touch plastics turn to mush, and sticky mush at that. Interiors ruined, along with your clothes if the plastic goo really gets everywhere.
I suffered this very problem in my otherwise totally perfect E90 BMW 320D. I recently got it back on the road, and the crankshaft pulley has been holding up great. Less great: the (perfectly valid) complaints from the passenger seat. My girlfriend has never liked the Beemer due to the sticky passenger door handle. The door pull is overmolded with soft-touch plastic, and was undoubtedly pleasant to touch when new. By the time I bought the car, the overmold was dissolving into a sticky mess that made using the door a pretty icky proposition. Something had to be done.
The typical solution is to remove the door handle and replace it with a new aftermarket part. That’s all well and good, but it costs $50 and you have to wait for shipping. I only like spending $50 on fun things, like Lego trains and Lego train tracks. Also, you have to take off the door card to get to the bolts, and I fucking hate taking off door cards. Naturally, then, I spent six months ignoring this problem until fellow journalist Kyle Hyatt mentioned to me that he knew a much cheaper way to fix this. Within the hour I was in the car furiously working away with the energy of the possessed. Stick around for the satisfying removal of goop.
The Problem: Thermoplastic Elastomers
This problem all comes down to thermoplastic elastomers, or TPEs. Soft, rubbery-feeling, and easy to manufacture with, a layer of TPE can be applied over a hard plastic part to create a more premium-feeling experience for the end user. The problem is that TPEs are not very hardy out in the real world. UV exposure, heat, and oils can all degrade TPEs until they turn into a gloppy, sticky goop, and there’s no going back. They’re a widely-reviled part of many automotive interiors today, as they feel great in a new car but eventually turn horrible as the vehicle ages.
Basically, automakers took a material that eventually melts when subjected to heat and the oils produced by human skin, put that material all over the car-interior bits that you actually touch and are routinely heated by the sun. Bravo, gang, bravo.
The Solution: Isopropyl Alcohol
The E90 BMW is particularly well-known for suffering this problem on the interior door pulls. On my car, it’s primarily the front passenger door that has suffered this plague, as the driver’s side uses a different design that omits the soft-touch layer. While the typical solution is to replace the part, Kyle explained that there was a way to clean the offending material instead. This involved using a prodigious dose of isopropyl alcohol.
wait tell me more
does that leave bare plastic underneath?
i'd rather do that than pull the whole door card off.— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault) February 21, 2024
Basically, the isopropyl alcohol acts as a solvent and very rapidly breaks down the TPE. This allows it to be removed more easily and takes away any remaining sticky residue. I had a bottle of “99% strength” isopropyl sitting on my desk, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. “This will be great!” I exclaimed to nobody in particular. I had dreams of spraying on a light spritz of isopropyl and wiping off the TPE in short order, leaving a nice new door handle.
Such folly.
Okay, we're getting somewhere… pic.twitter.com/5xjlQHc13u
— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault) February 23, 2024
Kyle wasn’t wrong; isopropyl alcohol does ease removal. However, it doesn’t dissolve it into a liquid you can just wipe off. Instead, it just kind of softens it a bit. “Mechanical removal,” as is the industry term, is still required. For me, that meant digging away with a screwdriver, peeling off strip after strip of this horrible black gunk.
The area where the soft-touch had already turned goopy wasn’t so bad. I was able to wipe away with some isopropyl alcohol on paper towels and I got down to the hard plastic handle underneath without too much trouble. The bigger problem was the upper, lower, and back sections of the handle. These areas hadn’t degraded much, and still had a largely-intact soft touch coating on them. It was kind of an all or nothing situation, though. If I wanted to remove the sticky part, I had to remove all of it.
leaving it to soak helps a bit pic.twitter.com/44tWBw9GNi
— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault) February 23, 2024
I repeatedly doused the “good” parts of the handle in isopropyl until it too started to free up, then began painstakingly removing it chunk by chunk. Once I got most of the large parts off the front, I grabbed an old scrap of aluminum shower rail and used it like a scraper to remove large pieces from the back. Once the bulk of it was gone, I repeatedly wiped down the whole handle with a paper towel heavily soaked in isopropyl to remove as much sticky residue as possible.
This took about an hour in total, just to do one door handle. At the end, I was left with an okay-looking hard plastic door handle with some scuff marks from my judicious screwdriver use. A plastic scraper might have been a better idea but, you know, whatever. The final look is a bit glossy but mostly looks like it’s meant to be there.
The final result has some scuff marks from the screwdriver and the isopropyl alcohol left a light haze. Note the divot in the handle—that’s intentional from BMW, to help the soft-touch overmolding grab on to the hard plastic part. Ultimately, it’s an improvement, though not as good as a brand-new replacement part, and it probably would have taken a similar amount of time to swap in a new door pull.
If I went through this again, I’d probably just spend the $50 and yank the door card and get it over with. But for parts that are harder to replace, isopropyl alcohol can be a very useful tool.
In any case, I can now invite my girlfriend and other potential passengers into my car without fear that they’ll complain about the gross sticky door handle. That’s a win. Oh, and my crankshaft pulley bolts are still fine. Thanks for asking!
Image credits: Lewin Day
Even though the end result is kinda ugly, it was the right call. The new part would eventually fail the same way, the best place for TPE is in hell.
Wrap that on some nice material, or even craft a new one out of wood, the only way now is up!
So those sticky buttons on used BMW’s wasn’t from being blasted with Axe body spray? Color me surprised!
A few years ago I pulled some old high school letter jackets out of the closet and that fake leather vinyl stuff was almost liquifying. Guessing that’s the same thing going on with the car interiors.
I think there are specialists who can remedy these sorts of problem. No idea of the cost. I damaged some of the TPE on an Audi and the dealer had someone come out and made it totally disappear.
Speaking of Audi’s, some of the their door cards are insanely easy to remove (C5 A6). Like remove two screws, lift and disconnect the controls. That’s it. The whole thing is free. It blew my mind the first time. No plastic Christmas trees broken. No banging to re-install it. No wedges, spudgers or forks. Amazing!
I just looked up a video to see what you were talking about. You’re absolutely right – the door card in a C5 A6 is insanely easy to remove!
My friend’s E46 has a pretty goopy interior. Lots of good ideas here and in the comments. Will forward.
I have a simpler solution— not owning any BMW made after like 1999. The E34, E36, E38, and E39 didn’t have any of this nasty soft-touch stuff anywhere. My E34 interior is almost 30 years old and yet the door cards look perfect along with the headliner. The dash is a little warped (from living in the southwest its whole life) but not cracked, overall a great interior from an era when quality was the only metric that mattered.
We have the same issue in the Lexus IS300 2001-2005 (or is200/rs200/altezza elsewhere).
The common theme was they got sticky due to sunlight or heat or oxidation or whatever. People cleaned off the surfaces with alcohol and then reupholstered them w/ alcantara or flocked them.
Either way, unless they got the first generation dash available in 2001s, they were all eventually going to suffer the same fate!
See, this is why I do not have any issues with my Dubya-era GM with interior pieces sourced from the Playskool Company.
After Putie nukes us, only three things will remain:
I have a Dubya-era GM product that has done this on its door pulls and a-pillars. SAAB 9-3. I guess that counts as GM. Has lots of interchangeable parts with a Vauxhall Vectra. Hell, even the engine cover has a Cadillac part number on it.
Ah, but those are “euro luxury”, you need “Muncie luxury” to get the playskool interior.
They’ll just get brittle and crack instead
So far at 21 years old, this has not happened. You could whack the door cards with a hammer, or scratch them with a screwdriver, and there’d be no damage.
Goo gone, one application usually does the job.
Ah, but is it available in backwards-toilet-flush land?
Goo gone is just diluted xylene. Widely available at any paint store.
Xylene was recommended to me for removing the waxy potting in Mopar electronic ignition boxes when they eventually leak in the engine bay.
I haven’t had cause to test that as we scraped the wax off and sandblasted the Charger’s engine bay during restoration so there was no concern for paint preservation.
I do not mean to sound harsh but, although you no longer have a sticky door handle, you now have a a crappy looking cheap looking one that sticks out like a sore thumb.
ヽ(´ー｀)┌
Replacing it entirely would of been the right thing to do to preserve the luxury car interior look . (IMHO)
Super easy to wrap that handle with something nice now that it’s clean.
The entire dash and center console of my 2002 Sportcross turned into a sticky mess. Supposedly Lexus did a recall, but I never got the notification.
Good job and thank you for the tip.
My initial idea was that once the soft touch layer was gone, this would make an excellent base for leather wrapping.
That, however, is a tedious craftsman process and not cheap. Though I do remember a previous Autopian article about recovering a leather wrapped steering wheel that shows the process nicely.
I only offer this idea for those who want to improve on the factory handle and you would need to remove the handle to do the wrap.
You could practice your craftsmanship with bicycle bar tape. Self sticking. As cheap as $6 a shot. It would let you assess whether or not you like the effect.
My mk4 gti is similarly afflicted, and I have had the same problem on luggage handles. Lucky for me none of the coatings appear anywhere near as thick as the door handle in the article. I had good luck with clorox disinfectant wipes and plenty of elbow grease. The elbow grease seems to be the real key here, no substitute for just mechanically rubbing the gunk off in the presence of some kind of solvent. I will try some of the other solvents mentioned in the comments though.
I don’t know what BMW was using cause similar era VW/Mercedes usually just bubble up and get hard/flake off. And it’s only the buttons. I’ve been in a few E9X cars and it’s sooo gross.
Thankfully my Mercedes have never had the issue, nor my Passats. The Touareg has a little bit, but only on a few of the roof console buttons that I never touch or look at, so I’m just pretending it isn’t happening. The console is discontinued and most used ones look worse than mine :/
I find that a judicious application of alcohol tends to make a lot of problems dissolve, if applied internally. I do not recommend isopropyl alcohol, though.
This is the entire dash on my daughter’s 2010 Mazda 3.
Same on my daughter’s 2010 Mazda 3. There was a TSB for this, and they extended coverage for 10 years/100K miles.
But, by the time we bought it used, this had expired with the old gentleman that owned it not getting it fixed.
The car is great and we got a great deal. My daughter just has to live with the carpeted dash cover……Ehhh, still nicer than my first car.
Same situation with me. I have no idea why the original owner didn’t take care of it, but we needed a hooptie during the crazy covid years and this was the best one we could find for what we could afford.
Ha! COVID era purchase here as well. 90K miles for $8K was about the best we could find. This was a private sell & a well kept 1 owner.
No way I was paying $12K+ for a Civic or Corolla with 150K miles.
Now wrap what’s left with hockey tape and it’ll look kind of like header wrap. Sporty and stylish.
The entire dash of my old ’09 Camry Hybrid went sticky. On sunny summer days here in Phoenix where it would get up to 150 inside if you left the car parked in the sun, you could literally leave your fingerprints in it. It was absolutely disgusting and just about the only complaint I had about that car.
There was a maaaassive recall for those, but it only lasted 10 years from DOFU.
Despite buying the car new and owning it for 15 years, and having it serviced at the dealership for at least 10 of those years, nobody told me jack sh!t about any recall.
Toyota is really good at “forgetting” to notify recall owners. Other automakers will send you recall notices for cars you haven’t owned in decades.
Literally, this has been my only issue on my 2014 RR Sport has this all over some buttons too (luckily just on buttons from what I can tell). Replaced some of them originally, but this should definitely help other spots that were not replaced originally. Thanks!
Be careful – literally same with my 2014 RR Sport. lol. I tried this on the window switches and suspension raise / lower / drive mode selector by the gear shift. It wore ALL the black plastic off to the point that it was just bare white. Had to spend $500 on new switches. TRAGIC.
Thanks, yeah I bought several new center console buttons, but still the window & steering wheel ones are melty. IDK, buttons with bare plastic may still be better than having to pay for more buttons!
My Rock Band MIDI drum set adapter was covered in this shit and absolutely disgusting to the touch until I did the same thing
One thing I think bears repeating though is that haze it leaves behind on the plastic is substantial. If you have aesthetic concerns after dealing with the tactile ones, be ready to buff the part, which is dumb with plastic – the line between “polish” and “melt/reshape” is usually a very fine one.
Goo Gone also works similarly.
ETA: squirrelmaster breaks it down beautifully upthread
The stock part looks like it was made with overmolding process where the rigid base plastic part was molded then put into another injection mold tool and overmolded with the soft touch material. We used this process for handles at multiple places where I designed product. We typically used Sanoprene as the soft touch overmold material and I never saw it turn gooey even after 15+ years of use in applications that used alcohol based disinfectants regularly. I wonder what material BMW used because there are plenty of soft touch overmold materials that last a long time without damage.
I have dealt with this on several vehicles from the 2000s, and isopropyl alcohol works great on sticky buttons and things with a light coat, but as you note, less so on the thicker coatings. I had a little success in poking a hole in the top of the thick coated panel and pouring a little alcohol in to soften up the adhesion to the plastic. I also found that Goof Off adhesive remover also works, though it creates a gross goo that is sometimes harder to work with.
I had a dash bezel that had a thick coat on it, and once I stripped it the tooling marks and anchor points for the soft-touch texturing were visible and ugly. I fixed that by scuffing up the plastic a bit, filling the holes with some silicone, and then sprayed it with a can of spray-on rubberized bed liner (the ones meant for spot repairs on spray-in bed liners). I did a bunch of light, misting coats over the bezel, following good painting practice to spray past the edges of the plastic. Eventually, it covered the tooling marks and gained a texture similar to the fake leather texture the rest of the dash had, albeit in black instead of grey. I can’t say it looked as good as factory, but it didn’t look bad, and after the initial few days of smelling bad, nobody noticed it unless I pointed it out. Unlike the factory soft-touch coating, it also took hits and scrapes from things like backpacks and purses without scratching.
My dude, you have identified an organic solvent which can help, but it isn’t what you need for this. Here is how to approach the restoration:
1.) Get a bunch of cheap white washcloths. You may have some old ones lying around, or you can buy them for like 4-5 bucks at the local Target etc.
2.) Get some Howard Orange Oil wood polish. You can find this at Menards or order it online.
3.) Squirt the orange oil liberally on the area you with to clean, and use the gentle abrasion of the washcloth to remove the goop. This may take multiple applications, but as a solvent for the goo, it is much much better than any of the alcohols, isopropyl or even ethanol (pure grain alcohol from the liquor store works better than isopropyl anyway). Wipe off the excess oil after the goo is removed by using another clean, dry washcloth.
4.) Get some Armor All. This is at all hardware and automotive supply places. Get a bucket of hot water with a little bit of Dawn detergent in it, then squirt the area you cleaned with the oil, with some Armor All. Take a washcloth and get it wet in your bucket of water, wring it out a bit, and gently massage in the Armor All. If you do this a number of times, you will remove the excess oil, and the plasticizers in the Armor All will heal the plastic you are cleaning, and give it a refresh.
This still may help the situation on the one you have treated in this article. So give it a try and see what you get. Good luck.
+1 on anything with the citrus oil. My Porsche has a steering wheel hub that’s going gooey, and using some Goo Gone (like Squirrelmaster mentions) worked really well.
And the healing effects of a dressing as you cite is a great idea. I used a Meguiars analog, but it really did help afterward.
Never hear of this remedy, I’ll have to try this as well.
Thanks for sharing!
We should create an Autopian Wiki with these kinds of DIY stuff!
On the flip side Japanese imports – the Suzuki Sidetrack / GEO/Chevy Tracker for example had plastics that crumbled like cornflakes.
Whats with old BMWs being goopy? My old E38 and E39 had similar problems, but it was the notorious orange “foam” that lined the back of the door and A pillar trim. It would turn into a crumbly semi-liquid, start to separate and get everywhere. Somehow it wasn’t sticky enough to stay in place, but sticky enough to get all over your clothes.