Seat back disintegration, finish is disintegrating Options

[earplay]

Hi, I'm glad I found this site. It will be a help to me as I live with my Elantra. I have a 2004 Elantra GT sedan with 55k miles and I want to keep it for a while. It has been in storage. I am in the process of cleaning it and performing general maintenance.

While looking over the interior, I found that the seat back of the passenger seat has what seems to be a painted finish and that paint is disintegrating. If I rub it with my hand it comes off as a fine powder and reveals the material beneath the paint.

Has anyone any experience with this issue?

Best wishes,
earplay

[ewang]

What color is the paint? Mine is grey. It may not be factory paint.

Can you take pictures?

[Vinnie]

Hey welcome to our community!!

Are you in a hot environment or anything?

It may be worth it to update your profile and to add some pictures to your garage in your profile.

[mlumz]

If you could post some pictures up that would help us in identifying the problem. Like someone said, it could have been painted by the previous owner and all you would need is some paint thinner to remove it, but there could also be damage underneath so it may require you to repaint it yourself..

[earplay]

Good questions!

I am the original owner. The interior color is grey. To my knowledge, the interior is factory original. I live in south Florida.

I can post some pictures later.

I can say this is very distressing. The interior is otherwise in decent shape. No rips or splits.

I did make a mistake in leaving one of those floppy, sticky, flat plastic cell phone "holders" on the dash. The chemicals leached out and bonded to the dash. A few words to the wise here.

I'll see what I can do with a camera.

Thanks for the replies.

Best wishes, earplay

This post has been edited by earplay: May 20 2011, 02:27 PM

[mlumz]

Also is it the actual leather seat back or the plastic piece with the netting?

I use to live in south west FL and I can tell you the heat is not car friendly especially in storage. If the storage was not air conditioned, then the heat in the car could have gotten over 100 degrees and over time with no wax (oil to rehydrate) then the plastic will deteriorate.