So, not being a smoker, I had never opened the little ashtray in the center console of my 540. I was sitting at a crosswalk today, though, as some dude with a walker made his way across, so I had plenty of time to daydream and while doing this I decided to pop it open.

Well, it was quite difficult to get open, especially after about halfway, and it made kind of a crackling noise. This seemed weird, so I looked closer and it appears to have a nice light coating of sticky orange stuff on the inside of it. So I'm thinking that the PO spilled some freakin' Fanta or something all over the console (side effect of our cupholders). :help

This likely also explains why the lock button on the console is kind of sticky, as well as the track for the little slide open compartment.

Anyway, my questions is does anyone have ideas on how to safely clean this up? I don't want to just use soapy water or whatever, especially around the lock button and cigarette lighter.

So, would something like that fast drying electrical contact cleaner work? Could I safely spray some of that around the edges of the lock button and just let it dissolve the sticky gunk?

Use warm water. Just spray some on there, and wipe it up... repeat until clean. Perhaps use a q-tip or something to get into the cracks. If it really is soda, and not something oil based, then warm water will do the trick.

Worked. Thanks. I guess I'm just a bit paranoid about water mixing with wiring.

Oh, and thanks a lot...I'm on a roll now and am cleaning every crack and crevice of my car with Q-tips and warm water :eyecrazy :D

UberWasser................... be careful.

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