If you are a Type B personality and/or do not have any form of OCD, God bless ya. This here is not going to impress you.

If you are a total Type A tightwad like myself, continue.

At some point, you've likely taken out your owner's guide during a project or repair with grease or grimey hands. It's totally understandable, as having my hands clean to look up the location of a fuse I just blew doesn't come to the top of my head in the middle of troubleshooting.

Naturally, I managed to get the nice white cover of my Owner's Guide smudged up. You might be tempted to grab a clorox wipe, hand soap or a magic eraser, but each of those methods comes with their own risks of further damaging the cover. Allow me to present an alternative which gently removed the grime, while leaving the cover unharmed.

There's a brand of silicone paste called "Cana Car Cream". I first learned about it watching a guy on YouTube restoring an old boom box; he used it to clean and shine the translucent plastics. This isn't sold in the US; in fact, I had to order it on eBay from Taiwan. I've been using this everywhere...faux leather (NOT genuine leather), vinyl, plastics...no idea how or why but this works amazing.

If you get your hands on a can, use a dab on the cover of your guide with a microfiber towel to gently remove the grime. You'll want to be careful in areas such as the raised logo and printed text at the top; you can damage these if you apply too much pressure. To be clear, it will never be "brand new" clean again. The color of the paper does degrade over time and the embossed creases in the cover (to provide that faux leather bound book look) will trap dirt which cannot be realistically removed. Nevertheless, you certainly can make it look better (looking below, you'll see I've cleaned the bottom half of the booklet, leaving grime above for comparison)

Also as many of us know, the OEM binder for these guides is notorious for having it's faux leather cover crumble away in tiny pieces. This makes a terrible mess (especially in your glove box) and doesn't reflect a proper Jaguar posture. As a replacement (and frankly better) binder, check these out; they are the perfect size and shape for our books. As a bonus, use your newly acquired car cream to polish the pleather and you've got yourself one heck of a nice place for all your documentation.

Remember, the big picture is made up of the smallest details.

 

If you want a replacement complete document set, individual handbook or document wallet direct from Jaguar's print supplier:
https://www.jaguarlandroverliterature.com/

Aimed at dealers but open to anyone.

Graham