Help! Vinyl Stain Cleaning
 

Hi All,
So, just bought a 2000 Mariah Shabah 182 this past week (already love it and happy to be part of the club!), but I think I screwed up! The interior has been reupholstered and looks great, but I’ve unintentionally left a stain on the sun pad!!! Ours doesn’t have a locking mechanism to keep it down so I need to throw a strap over it when we travel so it doesn’t pop up. Today we came off the river, and the pad and my strap were wet….and now I have a strip of safety green (the color of the strap) that transferred from my strap to the white vinyl :( I assume a combination of being wet and friction while traveling caused it to transfer.

It is only about a foot long, and at the location the strap curved over the pad when tightened, but it’s there and it kills me. I’ve attempted to clean it with CLR, a magic eraser, and a vinyl cleaning product I have. I think I’ve lightened it up, but it is still very apparent.

Any secret tips, tricks, etc out there that will help me get rid of this darn stain so I can sleep at night?

Thanks in advance.
Josh

Re: Help! Vinyl Stain Cleaning
 

Josh,

I've had amazing results using lemon juice and a magic eraser. Does wonders on mildew, but not sure if it will work on your stain. Worth a try, I suppose.

Re: Help! Vinyl Stain Cleaning
 

Ugh that does sound bad. I'd say what has happened is the dye from the strap leached onto the vinyl. You can try Mothers VLR and a drill brush to mechanicaly try buffing it out but you will be dangerously close to removing the top layer of the vinyl. I have a couple spots I gave up on my original vinyl as I know I'll def do more harm than good. Just be careful and hopefully the sun will bleach it out over time if you can't get it.