Morning all,

One of the things in the interior of my car that bothered me was the steering column surround. The area by the ignition was all scratches due to what I'm assuming is attempts to insert the key in the dark that were a bit off target. From looking at other cars, it seems this is common. I was ready to buy a good condition used part before I did though, I wanted to try something.

Basically I removed the surround (2 screws and some clips between upper and lower) and used a heat gun on it. Held gun on high setting about 2" from plastic and kept it moving. End result...scratches are gone. This obviously won't work for deep gouges, but it certainly removed those annoying key scratches.

I didn't take a before pic, but this is what it looked like:



Now it looks essentially brand new

 

. . . and I thought I was ****!

 

ha. It honestly looks bad in what is a very good condition interior. Mine was even worse than the pic.