White Vinyl Stains

[pato1993]

Does anyone have any tricks to get stains out of white Vinyl. I have attached two photos of the stains that I am unable to get out. I have used cleaning products from marine store, but they don't seem to work

Edited December 3, 2022 by pato1993

[tryhard]

Hi Pato1993,

Hard to tell the nature of the stain from a photo but looks like spray tan stain !

You could try using a 'magic sponge'

We have found them to be very effective on vinyl and fibreglass.

Sellys mould remover can also work as that is a bleach based product.....might be ok on vinyl.

Good luck

[noelm]

That's very common, and near impossible to clean! It's actually some kind of reaction to the products used to make the vinyl, something called "phenolic" or similar, you might bleach it out....maybe.

[noelm]

Here you go, a copy and paste from one of dozens of google searches on pink vinyl.

Pinking, on the other hand, is a discoloration caused by the “overoxidation of phenolic compounds commonly used as antioxidants.”

According to Barrett, you can’t clean pink stain, because it has been absorbed into the vinyl. Better, he says, is to think about prevention. To prevent the growth of Streptoverticillium reticulum you can apply a biocide such as arsenic (not recommended for reasons of safety) or organic compounds such as iodine and zinc. Zinc pyrithione (ZPT) is an effective treatment, which brings us to weird fact #2. “ZPT,” writes Barrett, “has been used for over 50 years to effectively treat dandruff and has become the most common material for that purpose, e.g., Head & Shoulders shampoo.”

 

 

[campr]

Just an outside of the box suggestion.  If all else fails you could try one of those paint on type white shoe cleaners to cover the stain?  Ron 

[Berleyguts]

Try a bit of Jif cream cleaner. Use microfibre cloths first but you might need a soft scourer or nail brush. It worked to a point on the roof lining of my 1975 VW Kombi.

[noelm]

The problem is hard to fix, google it, there is lots of explanations, it's not a "stain" it can't be cleaned properly, the vinyl has actually changed composition. You may get a bit of improvement with bleach.....maybe, but the fact is, there's nothing to "clean off" the material has changed colour, permanently.