Removing interior paint?

[Murf]

Hi I'm trying to repaint all my interior paint because a lot of it is peeling. I have already started and repainted the little hooks that are down on the driver and passenger floors. I started off by not stripping all the paint and just spraying over the old paint after a little light sanding. This just caused all the old stuff to flake underneath and it came out terrible. I also tried using some acetone to get the old stuff off but this was too harsh and was melting the plastic. I ended up just sanding all the old paint off but this takes a long time and before i start doing the rest of my interior i was wondering if anyone has come up with a better way to remove the old paint os has any ideas.

[jon102034050]

you should really try searching. There have been numerous threads on this topic and it never really ends up that great. If youve got an 02, youre going to have a shitty looking interior, unless you just shell out the money for new parts.

[Murf]

I have tried searching. found multiple threads on buying the parts or touching up the parts that have peeled but what i want to do is just remove all of the peeling paint that is on there now and repaint it.

[3.0 Rider]

Honestly I won't even bother.

I just say to myself that I have to options

Sell the car next year
or make it my winter beater and get the S5 or Q7 for work.

[Murf]

Bump any ideas? I'm just looking for ways to remove the interior paint besides sanding.

[JohnnyG]

i found a way kinda by accident. Brake clean. Not the potent yellow can but the
green can w/ LO VOC's written on the can. Best bet test it on an obscure item.
Well maybe u can try it on the melted part cause that has to be scrap now.
I just spray it for a couple seconds and watch the rubber paint curl and bubble.
then wipe the mess off doesn't seem to bother the plastic. works best on switches, a/c head.

[Capt. Obvious]

Brake cleaner. It will strip the color from the plastic, but if you're repainting it, it shouldn't matter anyway I suppose.

SEM makes a special paint designed for plastics that bonds to the plastic and becomes "one" with it that would work really well for this. It's super strong and chip-resistant as well. Don't remember what they call it though.

[dirtybrd]

Post pics when done please. I could see flat black paint coming out close.

[JohnnyG]

well the white you see under the rubber paint is the plastic, it is white so it will glow red w/ the led @ night. I never had the black plastic discolor....but I never soak 'em. I just spray, remove the rubber paint and wipe clean with a damp rag.

[Murf]

I finally got a chance to try brake cleaner and it worked okay for me. It still took a while to remove all the paint because i still had to scrape the paint off after i sprayed the piece with the brake cleaner. It didn't just come off like it did for JohnnyG but maybe i used a different type of brake cleaner. I used this paint to repaint the interior pieces:

Here are the results (i only painted part that holds the window switches, not the window switches themselves):


It didn't come out perfect because i missed a few spots when i was stripping the paint and i didn't have time to fix these spots before i needed my car. If you look closely you can see these spots but it still looks much better than it did.

[n7plus1]

looks pretty damn good man, great job. the only fix you have to fix the console, a new one from genuineaudiparts.com is like $105.

[dirtybrd]

It looks great, my only concern is how it'll wear. But then again that's what you're fixing anyway.

[n7plus1]

threadstater..do you have to remove the door panel to get that piece out? Mines really bad too.

[Maverick]

how do you take that thing off the door?

[Murf]

You need to remove the door panel to get that piece off. I used this DIY http://forums.audiworld.com/a4gen2/msgs/998613.phtml.

[Murf]

Oh and for the window switches i just sprayed some paint in a bottle cap and used a paint brush to touch them up. I'm sure you could remove all the paint and repaint them but i wanted to keep those little symbols there.

This does take a while to do because scraping all the paint off is a big pain in the ass. Like i said maybe i didn't use the right type of brake cleaner but if anyone does this and finds a better method to remove the paint please share because i still need to do this to the passenger side.