When I picked up my R56 last Saturday, there were a couple of smudges on the tach face, which I wiped off with my sleeve at the time. I assume it was from whatever cleaning goo they were using on the interior.

Today is the first sunny day that we've had since then, and now I can see that there are terrible swirls (not unlike the ones you see on dark-colored cars that have been through auto-car-washes) on the tach face.

How can I get rid of these? It's nitpicky, I know, but it bugs me....

 

Don't know .. But it's definitely not nitpicky. You don't want to be reminded each day for the life of your car that you should have, when you bought the car, taken it back to the dealer to address the issue. Chances are the, "goo" had a solvent base that attacked the clear plastic face on the tach.

 

My speedo looked clean when I bought the car. Upon closer inspection it had a handful of swirl marks. I touched the face and was suprised to see how pliable the plastic cover is. I used a brand new microfiber cloth and the face came perfectly clean withouth scratches or marks. The microfiber cloth was a regular towel sized one, not one of the very fine ones that you would use for eyeglasses or camera lenses. Now that I think about it, I suppose I will use a camera type of microfiber cloth next time!


Paul

 

Novus polish is very good for getting scratches out of clear plastic. They have a cleaner, a fine scratch remover and a heavy scratch remover. If you visit the site, check out the video.
http://www.novuspolish.com/

 

Yep, plastic polish. Used it on mine, which had some light scratches and some schmutz that was likely caused by some cleaning product. Results were excellent.
When you polish it, use only back and forth strokes (preferably up and down vs. side/side), NOT circular - that's what causes swirls.

 

Thanks, everybody!

 

The previous owner of my car got some interior cleaner (Armor All?) on the plastic gauge face and it caused some staining/spotting. I used 3M Plastic Polish and it worked great!