I know you know what i'm talking about. fine little scratches on the face of the glovebox, little stuff here and there on the 'oven door', or shoe scuff marks on the door sills.

(the normal disclaimer: you assume the risk, it's your car, and it ain't my fault etc)

What you need:
Heat gun
Small swatch of leather (for texture)
Vaseline

Rub a thin coat of Vaseline over the leather swatch.

grab your heat gun, and working on a medium heat, go slowly over the scratches until the plastic returns to it's original color. take the leather swatch and press the scratched plastic back where it belongs.
The Vaseline keeps the leather from sticking to the hot plastic, and can easily be cleaned up after everything cools.

I did this over my glovebox, and it worked great.

If you get it too hot, you will know, because you will see the plastic become glossy. give it a second to cool down or you will end up with a bigger problem than fine scratches.

You don't have to use leather, but you want to find something that a) is heat-resistant and b) has a similar pattern to the area you are trying to fix.

For those of you who knew about this, or could have figured it out, I realize it's a no-brainer - just thought it might be helpful to someone.

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Wow! Awesome Tip!! Never even thought of that, and I have a couple slight scratches on the "oven door" that need some fixin'!!

 

nah man, I had no idea about this. great fix it stuff

 

Wow thank you so much for this, im going to do this tonight

 

cool. just go slowly and don't get too eager. if your scratch isn't warm enough, you'll have an opportunity to heat it up some more. if you get it too hot, you could be SOL.

couple of other things this technique is useful for: whitish stress marks in plastic from being bent, and cracks in heavier plastic. I had some tail lights that I had spent 3 or 4 days on, only to find that one of the lenses had developed a small crack. I heated it up enough to press the crack back together, and now it is unnoticeable.

 

Great timing. I was bringing a weight bench home the other day and put a few small scratches in the plastic behind the rear seat. I was pretty upset with myself.

 

yeah, that stuff seems to scratch pretty easily. the stuff on my glovebox was done by a backpack, of all things.

 

Did anyone else do this and have good luck? I can see how this works on normal plastic. However, I don't really see how this would work on smooth, hard plastic like the "oven" door. For fine scratches on that, I would think you would get something that takes scratches off plastic (like iPods). Mequires has a new product for taking out scratches on iPods and smooth plastic (which should work for the "oven" door).

On my 3000GT, one of the inner fender liners was ripped several inches (couldn't see it, but it kept the bolt from holding it securely in place), and we used a blow torch to melt the plastic and then push it back together. It worked great. Of course, it wouldn't look good if it was on a visible part of the car, but it functionally fixed the fender liners.