Having a 2015, I have the dreaded sticky plastic everywhere. So I decided to do an experiment: What is the best option for our sticky interiors?
1. Background: The stickiness of the plastic is a coating that was added on top of plastic parts to give them a premium feel. Over time it degrades and even can be scratched off. I suspect heat, cleaning chemicals, and UV accelerate the process. It is not actually plastic but some kind of coating on top of the plastic parts, at least at first. I believe that this coating will last 3-4 years before the outer layer becomes sticky. At that time, the outer layer can be removed by physical means, or one might even scratch through it to the base plastic
2. Experiment: I used various chemicals to see which would clean the sticky coating off. I used rags, Q-Tips, and old toothbrushes to test. Whatever you use to scrub will get dirty and need to be tossed. I used mostly old cotton shirts. Ranked from worst to best:
Worst: Jim Dunlop Formula 65 Fret Board Cleaner. This did basically nothing except lubricate the surface for the rag to remove coating easier. Better than dry scrubbing, though.
Ammonia/Windex. Worked poorly
Acetone. Didn't work poorly but didn't really do much of anything. Made my fingers pretty dry, should have used gloves.
Paint Thinner. Worked ok but oh lord did it smell.
Isopropyl Alcohol 70%. This was my first success, but still it took a lot of work just to remove the outermost sticky layer. The benefit though was that part of the coating remained where I didn't scrub hard. Where I scrubbed hard, it would eat through the soft layers and the plastic base would show.
Isopropyl Alcohol 100% Same as above, just more powerful.
Best: Ethanol 96%. This was the sweet spot. Its not so expensive, but probably 2-4 times faster than using Isopropyl Alcohol. Easy (relatively) to scrub through to the base plastic and remove all the coating.
Technically Best: Ethanol 100% Same as above, but a little more powerful, but expensive.

Warnings:
The black plastic under the coating is a different texture and color than the coating. It is black and glossy.
Several of the above chemicals can stain leather and adjoining plastics. They can also be dangerous to your health and only used in a ventilated area. Ethanol evaporates fast so keep your bottles closed and a small cup nearby to continue to wet your rag.
My steering wheel leather ended up bleached a little because I didn't disassemble it and therefore the next time I took apart my door to individually clean each sticky part.
For the buttons I used technique 1 below because I was afraid of removing the white decals. If someone has spare buttons, I would love to see what they would look like without any coating and see if the white remains!.

Technique 1: You can choose to remove just the outer layer of coating and keep the remaining coating if the surface is not scratched down to the base plastic. Use a small cloth soaked in Ethanol. Scrub lightly until the sticky coating layer is removed. It wont take long. To finish it off, with another clean cloth soaked in ethanol, wipe the part and immediately dry with another clean dry cloth to remove residual surface goo. The part should be good for another 3-4 years until it becomes sticky again.
Technique 2: You can remove all the coating, especially if it is scratched or you tried technique 1 and you ended up scrubbing through to the base plastic. ​​​​​​​Use a small cloth soaked in Ethanol. Scrub hard. It will take a while, especially the silver coating. Use a toothbrush wrapped in a cloth to get hard to reach spots. Keep the part and the rag wet until the sticky coating layer is removed entirely and shiny black plastic is showing. Even when it is showing, coating is remaining on the surface which makes it look a little bad so keep going. At some point, you will have to decide that the level of finish on the base plastic is acceptable. So to finish it off, with another clean cloth soaked in ethanol, wipe the part and immediately dry with another clean dry cloth to remove residual surface goo.

Here are some pics of what I did for my passenger side door:
https://imgur.com/a/aGlGNCd

​​​​​​​BTW This is not a guide on how to disassemble your parts - only how to clean them.

 

Curious where you're buying ethanol. I mean, it's drinking alcohol, so is likely controlled as such and won't be available at Home Depot, etc. Or, do you just go into a liquor store and buy a small bottle of really strong "stuff?" No kidding, serious question. I see that you're in Italy, so maybe it's easier to buy there.

 

Just go to a package store and get a bottle 190 proof Everclear

 

Denatured alcohol (ethanol made unfit for human consumption) is no longer available in my state due to VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) restrictions. I haven't checked chemical supply houses but it must still be available for laboratory use. I remember using it in the lab in Organic Chemistry. The highest concentration available by normal distillation is just under 96%. To get anhydrous (no water) ethanol other chemicals like benzene need to be added, along with extra processing, hence the extra cost: probably not worth it. I can only remember using it in lab a couple of times, where even a small amount of water would interfere with the reaction.

Even the isopropyl alcohol I can get is more dilute than the Old Days. The small stash of denatured alcohol I have I'm saving for cases where it's really the only thing that will do, like thinning shellac.

In some states it's (I think) still possible to buy Everclear in liquor stores. I think it's 95% but the highest available here is 75.5%.

I'm sure someone here who actually *finished* their Chemistry degree program will come along to correct me on some of these details

 

I am a chemist and apparently you can buy denatured ethanol off Amazon. You can also buy it through lab supply houses with various types of denaturing agents (but there is a lot of paperwork involved). You can also buy pure absolute ethanol (200 proof) from a chemical supply house but that involves even more paperwork and it is taxed as if it were drinking alcohol (you also have to keep detailed records on how it is used too). Drying of 190 proof ethanol to 200 proof is possible with the use of various chemical drying agents like anhydrous magnesium sulfate. You can also dry it over molecular sieves (beads that have pores just big enough to trap water). Azeotropic distillation using benzine (and other solvents) can also be used to dry ethanol

Two funny stories about pure absolute alcohol in labs. One is where the alcohol was kept in a locked cage and only authorized people could access it for use in experiments. I was an authorized person and went to the cage to get some and found a person passed out in the cage. Apparently they climbed over the top of the cage started drinking the EtOH and got so drunk they couldn't climb back out and eventually passed out. The other was at college where there was a 55 gallon drum of pure absolute alcohol for lab use. The grad students used to routinely break into the alcohol cage and steal the alcohol to make jungle juice. The head organic chemistry professor got wind of the practice and dosed the alcohol with the active ingredient in ExLax. The next day it was easy for him to figure out who took and drank the alcohol.

 

My company used to have a license to buy 100% ethanol without paying liquor taxes - it was used extensively for electronics cleaning. Think we use isopropyl nowadays for that.

 

You are correct that a waiver is possible but that required very detailed usage records and access controls (theoretically at least). I am not certain but I seem to remember a bond had to be posted too. I currently run a lab facility that uses denatured ethanol by the drum.

 

I need a drink after reading the two posts 4 & 5, above! <<HIC>>



I've had good luck with the 90% isopropanol that is widely available. (NOT the 70% stuff)

As mentioned, it softens the sticky coating and makes it easy to rub off. The toothbrush does a good job on the edges. It's almost an after-summer rite of passage...

 

I'm not in California but you can get DNA in hardware stores in CT. I use it to make my own shellac for woodworking.

pat

 

It's surprising that acetone isn't effective. I've used it a number of times and it really does a number on most things, and yeah, it goes into the skin.

 

In Italy, I was able to buy 96% in the bottle shop, fit for human consumption. The 100% Alcohols I was able to obtain from a friend who is a scientist and stocks them in their lab.

 

You reminded me of an old story from my father, who told about a similar disappearance of ethanol when he was a lab assistant to the Chemistry department chair at Syracuse. They conspired to add phenolphthalein and the next day, the results were obvious. That was back in the mid-30's, and I doubt you'd get away with such tactics today. (Dad's the one that got me hooked on Jag's in the first place - starting with a Black 1961 XKE at the Rolls/Jag dealer in Richmond, VA. Mom was not amused. It was a 5 hour drive from home and that wasn't the car they came for.)

 

Yup phenolphthalein is what was used. Didn't want to name it because a little knowledge is dangerous for some. Very common in chemistry labs because it is used as a pH indicator. Turns red in base.
Until it was linked to cancer it was a common pranksters tool.

 

When I took Organic Chem. in school, the undergrads were hitting the 55gal jugs too much. Cutting into the grad students supply. They pulled the same stunt on us. Fortunately I had a grad. student friend who tipped me off. Some of my friends did not listen. Very evident who.

 

I am surprised you found any alcohol to be effective? I tried a number different chemicals and this list convinced me to try the Neutrogena makeup wipes and they worked.
Still a good bit of manual labor and there are a number of surfaces that this effects too. So plan to spend so time on it!
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Unless you are getting black stuff off in a significant amount, you are just moisturizing your car with those wipes. There's hardly any solvent in them.

 

I had very good results using Simple Green cleaning solution on a previous Maserati GT. Most of the parts I would soak for a few hours, then wipe and rinse.

 

As a side note - I've never understood how Jaguar could put that crap in the cars in the first place. I first noticed it when they started using it in the XF facelift in 2011 or 2012 which was a downgrade both looks and material wise from the pre-facelift. At that time it must have been known since at least a decade that this kind of surface coating would deteriorate and get sticky over time.

Also interesting to see how different cars are affected. When I traded in my MY14 XF it was over 7 years old and this stuff had only begun to get a little sticky whereas others seem to get totally messed up much earlier.

 

The same finish on the switches was used in many cars during the last decade or so - and all had the same issues with degradation of the finish with heat and sun. This is not a "Jaguar issue" .My2015 car shows not even a sign of this problem - but it is not left to bake in the sun.

 

You don't want any black to come off. If it is you will also loose the labels. But try the makeup remover! It does work and I did not believe it at first either. I tried different alcohols, goo gone and other adhesive removers with little to no progress. The sticky stuff when it starts to come off is a clear sludge that will start to ball up and then you must push that around with a plastic stick of some kind until you can get the sticky bits picked up with a towel. Takes a number of cycles over the same area to finally get it all off. I worked on it 2 or 3 times before I was satisfied. Kept finding more sticky buttons!

Dang steering wheel buttons I think are the hardest to get clean.

The cracks between the buttons also trap those little sticky bits. I use a very thin metal blade to remove those slivers. A nit picky job over all.
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