For those of you who have the bubbled/rippled finish on the 'painted' area of your center console or door panels and have wondered what it would take to fix it, here's my 'do-it-yourself' experience with correcting it I just wanted to go on record with some details of what it took to do this because it wasn't mentioned anywhere else to my knowledge. I originally posted some of this as a reply to a question in the General discussion section but it really belongs here. I've also added some comments now that it has been painted and put back in the car.
Having gone through the whole repair experience, I'm still not sure what causes the bubbling in the first place. My car was originally a California car and then Arizona so I presume it was from the heat. There was a post several months ago from someone who said they had removed it and had repainted the plastic underneath so last week I finally got around to trying it myself.
BTW, there are some excellent posts on Prime about how to remove the console and it actually went fairly easily except for the absence of any instructions on how to remove the cell phone controls where the coin tray otherwise is. The upper section has four plastic posts which are pressed into the lower section and you can force them back one at a time until the two sections separate.
Speaking from experience, I discovered that the main console bezel is (as previously reported) made of plastic. It has a fairly thick metallic foil bonded to it which has that dark grey color on one side. I can't tell if the color was painted on or whether it is somehow part of the foil but once it's bubbled, you can't re-paint it anyway.
Before removing the foil, I tried a heat gun on it to see if I could get it to flatten out so I wouldn't have to remove it. This seemed to temporarily remove some of the bubbled look but it wouldn't stay flat so I resolved myself to the work of removing it all.
After poking away at the bubbled parts with an exacto knife and lifting small sections, it appeared to not have any glue backing so I started pulling it off like wallpaper. To make a long story short, some of it came off easily but most was a bitch, especially the compound curves in the recessed area under the parking brake.
I had the most luck by cutting through the foil layer and into the plastic but doing it on either the side edges or from the back where you wouldn't see the cut. Then using the knife blade, you can pick away at the foil edge along a cut line until you can get a large piece to separate so you can peel it back and toward one of the openings where you'll eventually be able to tear it off.
On the compound curves, I resorted to a finely sharpened u-shaped wood carving tool .. I don't know how else I would have done it. I never went back to trying the heat gun to see if that would help but I don't think it would because they don't seem to have used glue anywhere .. it must have been pressure formed although there may have been heat as well because there looks to be areas along the edge where the plastic has been fused to the foil.
It took me about 3-4 hours and although there are a couple of small areas that I later went over with fine sandpaper, the majority of it is very smooth and ready for paint. I forgot to mention that rather than trying to also peel the foil off the ashtray, I just removed the cover and left it as is.
I contacted the local licensee of what I think is an international company, Fibrenew (www.fibrenew.com), who specializes in painting interior auto trim. After seeing it, he said that the console is mostly ABS plastic and wouldn't be a problem to paint (some newer plastics are polypropelene which can cause problems in the heat with some of the oils coming out of the plastic). Anyway, they have the ability to color match and the color (which he said is more of a dye than paint) is airbrushed on. I think most of their business is with touching up or re-doing interiors and they seemed extremely knowledgable so I'm expecting the repair to be more permanent/durable that if I had just experimented with some spray paint.
The only thing I'm worrying about is that if Acura felt it was necessary to go with the metallic foil approach, I presume that was for durability and scratch resistance which you don't get by just painting .. especially since it wasn't some kind of super-hard enamel or something .. although since it's plastic, you need something that will flex a little without cracking.
Total cost - $40 Cdn (about $28US). Sorry .. no photos because I don't have a digital camera. While the console was being painted, I also had time to clear the little climate control sensor to the lower right of the ashtray. The good news is that even when this little gizmo is disconnected, the air conditioner still pumps out cold air.
Having gone through the whole repair experience, I'm still not sure what causes the bubbling in the first place. My car was originally a California car and then Arizona so I presume it was from the heat. There was a post several months ago from someone who said they had removed it and had repainted the plastic underneath so last week I finally got around to trying it myself.
BTW, there are some excellent posts on Prime about how to remove the console and it actually went fairly easily except for the absence of any instructions on how to remove the cell phone controls where the coin tray otherwise is. The upper section has four plastic posts which are pressed into the lower section and you can force them back one at a time until the two sections separate.
Speaking from experience, I discovered that the main console bezel is (as previously reported) made of plastic. It has a fairly thick metallic foil bonded to it which has that dark grey color on one side. I can't tell if the color was painted on or whether it is somehow part of the foil but once it's bubbled, you can't re-paint it anyway.
Before removing the foil, I tried a heat gun on it to see if I could get it to flatten out so I wouldn't have to remove it. This seemed to temporarily remove some of the bubbled look but it wouldn't stay flat so I resolved myself to the work of removing it all.
After poking away at the bubbled parts with an exacto knife and lifting small sections, it appeared to not have any glue backing so I started pulling it off like wallpaper. To make a long story short, some of it came off easily but most was a bitch, especially the compound curves in the recessed area under the parking brake.
I had the most luck by cutting through the foil layer and into the plastic but doing it on either the side edges or from the back where you wouldn't see the cut. Then using the knife blade, you can pick away at the foil edge along a cut line until you can get a large piece to separate so you can peel it back and toward one of the openings where you'll eventually be able to tear it off.
On the compound curves, I resorted to a finely sharpened u-shaped wood carving tool .. I don't know how else I would have done it. I never went back to trying the heat gun to see if that would help but I don't think it would because they don't seem to have used glue anywhere .. it must have been pressure formed although there may have been heat as well because there looks to be areas along the edge where the plastic has been fused to the foil.
It took me about 3-4 hours and although there are a couple of small areas that I later went over with fine sandpaper, the majority of it is very smooth and ready for paint. I forgot to mention that rather than trying to also peel the foil off the ashtray, I just removed the cover and left it as is.
I contacted the local licensee of what I think is an international company, Fibrenew (www.fibrenew.com), who specializes in painting interior auto trim. After seeing it, he said that the console is mostly ABS plastic and wouldn't be a problem to paint (some newer plastics are polypropelene which can cause problems in the heat with some of the oils coming out of the plastic). Anyway, they have the ability to color match and the color (which he said is more of a dye than paint) is airbrushed on. I think most of their business is with touching up or re-doing interiors and they seemed extremely knowledgable so I'm expecting the repair to be more permanent/durable that if I had just experimented with some spray paint.
The only thing I'm worrying about is that if Acura felt it was necessary to go with the metallic foil approach, I presume that was for durability and scratch resistance which you don't get by just painting .. especially since it wasn't some kind of super-hard enamel or something .. although since it's plastic, you need something that will flex a little without cracking.
Total cost - $40 Cdn (about $28US). Sorry .. no photos because I don't have a digital camera. While the console was being painted, I also had time to clear the little climate control sensor to the lower right of the ashtray. The good news is that even when this little gizmo is disconnected, the air conditioner still pumps out cold air.
