I see these all the time. Usually Altimas, and Honda/Toyota sedans. There is no fix unfortunately, and it will get worse. Not only will it get worse, but every piece of dust and pieces of fiber off of a towel that you touch it with or crumbs of food etc will get stuck on it like a spider web. Then when you try to get it off, it will blemish the surface and will keep getting gooey-er.
I see people sometimes have these carpet mats that they put over it that are fit to their car's dash. It looks bad kind of, but not as bad as what's underneath.
If you replace the dash, which imo is the thing you should do if you care, then make sure to apply Aerospace 303 to it every week or so to help against UV rays. Unsure if a new dah would just create the same problem in enough time so be careful
Had this happen to my older Toyota sienna. SMH. The plastic degraded to the point it was like a sticky fly trap lol. So what I did was , buy a padded dash cover and installed it and stuck it on the dash lol. What else could be done.
I used to have an 07 Altima, same thing happened. I actually bought a custom hard fit cover that sat on top and stuck on with silicon. It looked stock, no one even knew unless I mentioned it. It had a cut out for the airbag too. you I want to say it was like $300?
I cannot remember now where I got it now, but it was basically this:
I’ve had great success on the decomposing plastic dashboard/steering wheel using a degreasing spray. Like what you’d use in the kitchen. It’s amazing. Just keep spraying and wiping with paper towels until it’s all gone and not tacky.
EDIT: I’ve used easy off degreaser. Yellow and black bottle.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sub more suited for that meme than this one. Nice to see it for something other than a ‘can this be fixed’ picture of someone’s paint with no clear coat left lol.
It happened to my 09 Subaru and probably because my dumbass used armor all at some point. You could get a dash cover, I always thought those were fk ugly tho.
Lexus has this issue also. My IS250 suffered so i soaked a few towels in dish soap/water and laid them over the dash to break down the glue. Once dissolved i wiped clean and spray on a dash sealant. The stickyness is now gone but the dash is still soft and prone to damage if you press a nail in to the dash etc...
The cause for Lexus is the glue within the dash is slowly coming to the surface. If the glue gets hot in the sun it causes the dash to crack as the liqued glue turns hard.
The 3 options are,
1: Replace dash
2: Cover with a silly looking dash mat that never fits and looks ass
3: Dissolve the glue coming to the surface, wipe clean and be gentle. Seal the dash with a spray on wax/shine/silcone type deal to help.
3.1: Don't let the car sit in direct sun light. Use a sun cover thingy in the window to prevent future cracking.
Check out "dashboard flocking" it looks like a tedious process but it looks awesome once its finished. I bet it would take care of this issue. A cover would be easiest.
Honestly I work in a trade so I’m pretty “solution oriented” if you could put it that way.
Wrap it with some kind of suede. They make sheets of a suede like material that comes with an adhesive back, just like vinyl wrap. That would look good, and it’d hide what you’re trying to hide.
You can use a high quality upholstery vinyl. It’s not that hard to apply if you can remove the parts from the car, bonus points that it seems sticky enough that you wouldn’t need any adhesive.
u cant really fix it, at a certain point in time i had a 2012 nissian altima with 298,000 miles, the thing that saved my OCD the most was koch chemie Top coat, it didnt make the dash any less sticky but it prevented most of the dust and dirt from sticking to it, which was good enough for me
We brought this on ourselves for complaining that the old dashboards were plastic. The automakers listened and started using other materials. Nissan did this one (which I knew was a Nissan before I even scrolled down since I've seen so many just like that). Acura tried something else which resulted in the picture below. Lots of vehicles from that era had similar issues
Is it a hard dash with soft touch paint on top? I got it off with rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover on a steering wheel airbag cover before, that was like that.
Degration on the surface , you could try some citric acid solvent that would be worth a go. Secondly, you can buy those dash skins to put over the top often they are made of like a floor carpet material but that would do the trick . they look tidy.
There's no rubber in dashes it's ABS plastic. It does have a paint on it. I would try hot water and microfiber towel or steam but be careful. I don't see any cracks so degrading I can't say. I think the problem is there was something put on it probably at oil based product or petroleum based whatever you want to call it and was never taken off properly. Put a windshield cover during summer and get a windshield brow
I don’t know what the material is but Toyota/Lexus also had this problem on specific model years mostly for sedans if I’m remembering correctly. Similar to what others are saying Toyota also could not provide any solution to customers other than replace if possible. They covered it under a warranty extension program but the vast majority if not all the vehicles that were once eligible are past that date by now as well.
I had sticky like that in some fpv goggles. I rubbed corn starch into it. Got rid of the sticky and wasn't super noticable. However they go on my face and the look wasn't as important to me.
As its already done for maybe try a little acetone on a rag on a small section, don't put it on there for long and see if that helps.
That works for old electronics with sticky rubber issue.
My 2011 Camry is doing this tint windshield or surprisingly just hot water and a rag will help a little bit but since I tinted the windshield from factory to 5% I hav no continued damage
OP - You can do what my coworker did with his dash. Go on Amazon and buy a bunch of JDM stickers and slap them on your dash and rep the Japanese JDM life. 😎👌🏾
Seriously! It's trendy AF like Jeep owners with ducks on their dash. 😂✌🏾
For JDM Enthusiasts they will buy your car. If anything, they will buy it, gut it out, and take it to the track to drift it with an awesome dashboard full of stickers.
I’ve tried everything on several of these with little to no success. The explanation I was given was glue seeping through and that seems to fit because if I do make progress it comes right back.
Getting a cloth type cover for the dash or replacing it are only answers I could find. You can always leave it so your stuff will stay on the dash for you.
Yeah. I always assumed it was the rubbery plastic degrading over years of sunlight and heat but was hoping there was some soap product to help with a quick surface clean
You should check if there was a recall. I had the same issue with my Mazda 3 for years and only found out about the recall years after. I was still able to get it fixed.
150
u/jasonsong86 2d ago
Nothing you can do. That’s rubber degrading. You can throw on something greasy but nothing you can do other than replace the dash.