Morning All,

I’ve just bought my son his first car, a mk 6 Fiesta 1.2, which while mechanically well maintained the interior leaves a lot to be desired. The dash, centre console and door cards are grubby and look quite tired which accepting it is an 11 year old car I’d like to give it a good clean up inside and make it nicer for him.
So what are my options for cleaning and restoring (?) the colour/finish of the dash, cards and console? Have read in places about using Cherry Blossom shoe polish to repaint black plastic bumpers on the outside but don’t know if this can be used on the inside. Would something like Armor All Protectorant be a good shout however have read it can cause cracks. I’d like to leave the inside with a non glossy finish if possible.
Ideally something I could get from my local Halfords or Eurocarparts so I can get a jump on it this weekend would be great as its his birthday in a couple of weeks and my free time is pretty limited due to work atm.

Two things I’ve used successfully on faded plastic are a bit of gentle heat from a heat gun. Need to be careful not to over do it. Works well on bumpers. Not tried it on interiors. The other is a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and thinners. Much easier to apply and less to go wrong but it doesn’t last as long as the heat method. It’ll easily last a few years though which should be enough

Autoglym and Meguiars both have selection of interior and exterior detailing products in their ranges.
I like Meguiars.

I’ve just spent a bunch of time cleaning my Mk2 Golf GTi which has quite a lot of plastic trim in a slightly obsessive sort of way.

The best stuff I’ve found for exterior plastics, especially the slightly waxy stuff used for the bumpers and wheel arch trim is Forever Black, which comes complete with a pre-clean solution (or possibly use Autoglym Fast Glass) to remove previous products and silicone in particular. My experience is that it pretty much permanently re-dyes exterior plastics, particularly if you give it two coats and lasts for a couple of years, though it will eventually fade. Just repeat at that point.

For matt black interior trim, Sonax Xtreme Cockpit Cleaner Matt Effect is brilliant. Cleans nicely and doesn’t leave that horrible shiny finish you get with a lot of stuff. I’ve used loads of other stuff, the Poorboys Natural Look cleaner is decent, but the Sonax gives a nicer matt finish.

I’m not sure you’ll find either at Halfords I’m afraid, but they both work really well ime. If you have any leather in there – I suspect not, but just in case – the Dodo Juice leather cleaner followed by their protective stuff is very good.

I’m very definitely not a detailing obsessive btw, but I figure if you’re going to spend time cleaning something, you might as well use the best options for the job. If you want accessible stuff, Autoglym products tend to be pretty good. Anything made by Bilt Hamber seems to work brilliantly too.

Clean with all purpose cleaner and elbow grease.

If, when damp, the plastic looks the colour you’d expect it to be, apply Gtechniq C4 trim restorer.