Replacing "Flaking" Interior Door Pocket Lids
 

Got very lucky to find a 2001 Boxster in outstanding condition. The only significant cosmetic flaw are the interior door pocket lids. The plastic/rubbery coating is peeling off. It's unsightly and I'd like to reaplce. Three questions:

1) How common is this peeling problem?
2) Did they upgrade in later models and would OEM equipment I buy now be of better quality?
3) Has anyone replaced these door pocket lids themselves, if so, level of difficulty (1-2?) ... want to know if there are any surprises?

Many Thanks!

I also have a 2001, and didn't notice flaking. Mine are flat back and have a few scratches. Maybe my previous owner pealed off the stuff. I put some mcguires detail spray stuff on them and it seemed to hide most of them. If its real bad you might just try getting the rest off.

Those door pocket lids peel easily when you get sunscreen on them, as there is an agent in the sunscreen that strips the thin layer on the lid. I was tired of it happening so I had the lids painted to match the exterior of my car and then clearcoated. The lids are easy to remove.. all you have to do is lift them to the up position, and then you'll see two hinges. Use a hole punch or large paper cliip to push the plastic pin thru the hinge and then pull them out with a needle nose plier. The rear hinge has a spring so be careful to remove that spring first before pulling off the lid completely.

If you want to strip the old thin plastic layer off prior to painting the lid or recovering in leather, just run them through the dishwasher, and the film will come right off.

http://i31.tinypic.com/2cf8x9w.jpg

Many Thanks, That's terrific information. I can buy new part for $42 per lid -- I might just do that as I suspect I won't be happy with my paint job.

BTW, I noticed your floor mats -- was thinking about getting the same ones. Have you been happy with the quality? It's between those and the OEMs.

I purchased some high quality black leather and covered mine, even though they were in perfect condition (car has 15k miles). Scuff up the surface with sand paper and glue with 3M spray adhesive (I used the heavy duty stuff). Wrap underneath and glue, then trim off the excess...looks like they came from the factory this way (and should have).

Otherwise, paint is a good option, in any color you desire.

No prob. Just so you know, the new ones will still end up peeling... I know because I had the dealer replace them when I was still on warranty, and they ended up peeling again rather quickly once my wife put her arm (with sunscreen on it) on the lid. The only true long term cure is to either paint it or cover in leather like Jmatta did. You can give your lids to a local body shop to spray them if you're not confident in doing it yourself.

The mats you see in my pic are Lloyds mats with red piping on the perimeter of the mats, and they are fine. I actually switch between those and the ones below which are the OEM mats with Momo aluminum floor plates screwed into them. I know some will think it's ricey, but I like em.

http://i28.tinypic.com/1pv42o.jpg

Dealer replaced door pocket lids on my '01 Boxster twice under warranty. No sunscreen used. After they flaked the second time, my friendly dealer service writer replaced them with the leather covered ones and I haven't had any problems since.

Most of the rest of my interior was replaced at one point or another under warranty, due to the "soft touch" finish flaking off of everything. Most of the replacements have held up reasonably well, but I'm starting to see the beginning of flaking/peeling again, this time from wear and tear.

As jmatta said below, if you're so inclined you could try this solution. I had the same peeling problem and followed a couple of other folks' suggestions to cover them. I didn't use leather, since I couldn't find any that was close enough to the grain match. But a local fabric store had some high quality vinyl that matched perfectly. And I decided to put a layer of padding under it just to give it a little softer feel. I used a quilt batting which seemed to be just the right thickness.

It's really a pretty simple procedure and the results are excellent. Anyway, here's a few pics of what I used and the final results.

Oh.....I found (the hard way) that the contact cement melts the factory finish on the pockets! So...you need to first remove that finish either by sanding or with a solvent before the contact cement will hold. Its not pretty when it melts and it scared the heck out of me at first. But it seems to not affect the underlying pocket cover, only the finish, so all was well...in the end. Other people have successfully used a spray-on 3M product, whose name escapes me at the moment, but I tried it and, at least for me, it didn't hold very well.

Bob

This is great -- I'll give it a try today. Nothing to lose. So, I'm off to Jo-Ann Fabrics -- now there's a phrase I never thought I would utter!

I'm wondering if the 3M adhesive did not work because of the porous soft quilt material? Might work better on direct vinyl-to-plastic. I'll try to take pictures as well.

I used the 3M on the vinyl, before I decided to use a padding. It didn't hold, so I tore it off and did it again with what I described above. Technique? Amount of glue used? I don't know, but the contact cement worked fine. Just be careful with it..lots and lots of fumes and I suspect they're not the best thing to be breathing in the morning.

Bob

I just refinished all the trim in my 02 boxster and 00 Jetta. I used interior spray paint maid by "Color Coat", color is called Landau Black. It maches factory black soft touch perfectly, but doesn't peel so easily. $10 at local auto paint store and can be aplied to little pieces that cant be recovered. just my .02

Bob O...looks like a nice job with the vinyl. Here is a shot of the leather covered door pocket on mine...I used the 3M spray adhesive, which stuck to the leather backing without issue. I didn't pad mine, however.

Thanks. Excellent job on your part too. Nice colors too! :cheers: I'm so jealous.... I wish I could have found some leather that was the right grain. Yeah, I think the 3M stuff must work better with leather than with vinyl, or I just can't read directions, one or the other. lol.

Hey.. do you know if the aluminum bar, or whatever its called, just above the lid in your car, is available as a replacement? I love that look.

Thanks

Bob

Geoff below notes that he got some OEM leather-cover covers as replacements. Anyone know where you can get those? I can't find them anywhere on the Interweb.

Bob, I noticed your color combo, as well! The door pulls (for lack of better description) are quite expensive, but since you are a DIY guy, I would recommend painting them (base + clear coat) if you like the look.

Though mine came that way, I found a link with the color code:

"Aluma Look" is ALU 03 Effect Du Pont stock code X1070

Here's another shot...d18mike...now you have lots of options!

Thanks. I'll look into the paint option. It shouldnt' be too difficult, assuming one can get the silly thing off the car without disassemblying the entire door. If that works, I see more aluma look parts in my future....like the door pull and door latch surround, maybe the instrument bezels. Need a parking brake handle too, and a new shift boot, and, and, and............need??? want maybe


Bob

You can easily get thes pocket lids off without disassembling the door. Actually disassembling the door wouldn't buy you anything. Look at the hunges of the pocket lid. Use a small nail punch or even a thick paper clip and push the little hinge rods through. Then you just have to unhook the spring latch. Easy peezy.

Take your peeling door pocket lids and pop them in the dish washer and wash them on hot without drying. Run it for about five or ten minutes with hot water and this will start to break down the rubber coating that's peeling off. Pull them out while still hot and you can rub that stuff right off with a little elbow grease :cheers:

I painted mine and they still look great. Got the paint from expresspaint.com. You can type in your year and model or color code (which you can get on the inside of the front hood) They can give you your color match in spray cans. Get two cans of that so you have extra, a can of primer, tack cloth, and clear coat. Be patient.

Tim: Thanks, but we sorta diverged from the original post. I wasn't talking about the pocket lids...see my post above for what I did to those. I was asking about the pull bar. I just looked at Pelican and from their diagram it appears like there are only two screws holding it on....so, off to the paint store for some alumna look paint.

Oh.. and jmatta.. you're right about those things being expensive. Holy cow! $200-$600 on Pelican, EACH! you gotta be kidding. New paint is in my future


Bob

Here is the info I picked up on the Aluma Look:

BUMPER PORSCHE 4W9 Alu 03 Effect O X1070 0 2003/10/1 14*:add

Go to the bottom of the last page on the list...

http://www.refinish.jp/dupont/color/news/0412/index14.pdf

can they be "restored"
 

I read with great interest all the solutions to the peeling door pocket covers that everyone suggested and that might be my future but in the interim...Has anyone found a product that can be applied to restore the covers to their original factory "soft" finish?

I too looked for something to restore the lids, rather than change the look, and came up empty. You might consider contacting salvage yards and seeing if they have used ones you can buy to replace yours. Other than buying new ones or doing something like what's in this thread, I'm not sure what else you could do.

Bob

Plasti-dip. Successful application heavily depends on surface preparation.

http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip

I started this thread last year ... I ultimately gave up an bought new ones.

Everything I tried seemed like compromise I wasn't happy with.

In the meantime, however, I think that if I had to do it again, I would take the lids to an upholstery shop and cover them with a textured leather matching the textured plastics in the car. I've seen it done well and it looks rich and OEM.

You canbuy factory leather lids from Porsche but they are tremendously expensive -- $300+ if I remember.

I recovered mine in Alcantara over the weekend. Looks sweet.

for those of you who did this via covering in some kind of leather - where did you find a good match for the factory leather? I have full leather interior... I could go to joanns and see what I could find - or go to an upholstery shop..

another question - teh plastic cover that goes over the door pulls..it snaps right on/off - can you cover THAT in leather too? or will it not go back on right?

on my car, the door lids are peelng a bit, and have deep scratches, and those covers up near the door pulls are also scuffed up.

i recently painted mmy center console and debated about doing the door pulls and covers in blue...but decided to leave them black. I just wanted the center console in blue...everythign else I want to keep black...

I found a perfect match at Joanns, but it wasn't leather. However, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the fake stuff and real leather. And since my interior isn't full leather anyway, it didn't matter to me as long as the grain matched. As for real leather, you might try an upholstery shop, auto or otherwise and see what they might have. Someone posted a while back about buying leather on line that was a match, but at the moment I can't find the thread. I'll see if I can find it and post later.

RE the door pull covers, yes they can be covered. Go to Pedro's page http://www.pedrosgarage.com/Site/DIY_Projects.html look under DIY projects and find the section on recovering interior pieces. He's got very good pics/instructions of the process. I didn't cover my door pull covers since they were in good shape, but did cover the door lids with great success. You can see some of the photos above or there's a separate thread on here, several actually since several people have posted pics on their projects.

Bob

Anyone cover them in fur? :D

I've been investigating plasti dip. Has anyone done this? Photos? How does it look compared to other untreated plastic parts in the car? How durable is it?

I'd like to do the center console and door pocket covers only, but don't want it to look completely out of place with the rest of the dash.

I like my painted version, thanks to @Boxtaboy and others here. I painted with a rattle can using proper prep, paint and polish techniques, it came out great.

Best thing is…sunscreen? No problem! Clean up is a breeze! I wax it when I wax my car and forget it the rest of the time. The silver is a LOT COOLER than the black used to be.

The hardest part was the prep work and getting the "coating" off the part. This took time and the curing of the paint took a week, so i combined it with dialing in a Short Shift Kit at the same time….end result? FANTASTIC!!! I plan to do more…after the IMS/RMS/Clutch.

Thanks for the idea!

Before….
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1360075646.jpg

During...
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1360075600.jpg

From the back…
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1360075779.jpg

^ Wow that's a great result.

I have the aluma look color on the center console from a popular online seller.
Got it used but unistalled on Ebay for about half the price. But recently I got a chip in the console just to the left of the shift knob. I might have to take a stab at filling the chip and trying to repaint myself. What brand of paint did you use?

Thanks for the advice!!! Those pins are easy to come off as long as you have a long thin rod to push it through.

Just ordered a replacement lid for the driver's side after 12 years of use...

Here is the bottom line on Porsche interiors.

All of the plastic parts are a dark-gray, injection-molded ABS plastic that has been painted. Period.

MOST, if not all, cleaning products will soften up the paint because it is crap paint, probably a lacquer, and definitely not a hardened or catalyzed (2k) paint.

Once the paint is soft, it will EASILY scratch-off and give the appearance of flaking, often revealing the gray, injection-molded ABS plastic underneath. Even a mild soapy water will soften the the paint.

If you can, the easiest way to fix these paint problems is to spray the part down with "409" cleaner and scratch off the old paint with your fingernail or something just slightly less hard as the ABS plastic under the paint...and then repaint them with a higher quality paint.

Nope. Earlier cars did not have that awful "soft-touch" interior coating.

The best way to fix the issue is to swap with earlier interior bits. ;)

Cover them in nice soft leather!http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1471479701.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1471479715.jpg

Speaking as someone who recently refinished most of the soft-touch finished interior pieces in my Boxster, you are not entirely off-base, because many interior pieces are indeed ABS. However, some are different plastics than ABS or plastic alloys, such as the interior door pocket lids being discussed in this thread, I'm fairly certain I recall being a polycarbonate alloy.

The finish actually strips off the the map pocket doors the easiest out of all the interior pieces in the car. Other interior items (especially the door sill trim pieces) have really difficult to remove soft-touch finish. 409 is not going to touch them. They are not all the same! The best soft-touch finish removal 'tip' I can offer is to get a bunch of those plastic razor blades and use them, along with a softening agent if it seems to be helping. You'll need different techniques for different pieces, but a sharp plastic razor blade won't harm any non-EPDM piece, and will speed finish removal by promoting a "peeling" action.

I had good cosmetic results (with a basically perfect color and texture match, after experimenting with many products) using SEM Color Coat 15243 Satin Black ( https://www.semproducts.com/refinish-flexible-coatings/color-coattm-aerosols ). That said, it's definitely not as durable as a 2-part finish, so it's still necessary need to use some care to not scratch afterwards. (especially on the door sill trim that get shoes scraping across them...).

I would not recommend Plasti-dip for anything except the radio knobs. The color won't match because is too light/gray. The rubbery texture is also only really a perfect match for the rubbery radio knobs (and maybe it would work well for the epdm ignition trim surround) but I believe it will not be a very close texture match for the rest of the interior pieces.

Grr.. ;). Wish I would have thought about this a few years back when I did mine, but I had the door panels off to redo speakers anyway, but good info to know if you did not. I disagree with "disassembling the door won't buy you anything" though, when I had the door apart, it was easy to remove the entire lid/hinge assembly.

Bottom line, if you have the door apart, go ahead and do the lids; if you want to just do the lids, I guess try the method listed above.

BTW.. I had my lids done by an upholsterer, I'd post pics, but they look just like those posted by njbray. Only point I would add is go with a padded option; as much as I find my elbow on the lid, the soft feeling is just wonderful.

Cotton batting from Michael's works well as a padding.

Where did you buy the Alcantara?

EBay has the easiest solutions....
 

....I found a leather cover that did the trick there.

Here is an example of what is out there:

Carbon Fiber Finish Door Armrest Pocket Lid Covers : fits Porsche Boxster 986 https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F13 2388794478