Understanding Ferrari's sticky interiors - a technical guide

Hello Folks,

So, a lot of people ask us about the famous sticky coatings Ferrari used and still uses on interior components such as trim, bezels, switches, HVAC panels and such.

That said, please allow me to explain the OEM process and coatings used:

The coatings we are talking about are called "Soft Touch" coatings. These are designed to give a soft, velvet like feel. They are low gloss in sheen to help reduce glare in the car. These coatings can also be found on computer mice, TV / Stereo remote controls, etc.

While these coatings are typically black in appearance, the coatings themselves are not always black. The OEM's (note, Ferrari does not make these parts, they are made by sub-contractors) use both black soft touch and clear soft touch.

Black Soft Touch: This is typically used over parts such as bezels, steering column surrounds, shifter trim, etc. When this fails, you get the black mess all over your fingers.

Clear Soft Touch: This is typically used over parts with illuminated graphics. The parts are first painted with a white, then a mid-gloss black, the graphics are laser etched and then the clear soft touch is applied to lower the sheen (considerably) and add the velvet feel.

In some cases (such as the headlight controls and mirror controls of a 599) the soft touch is black in color and the graphics are laser etched right though the black soft touch.

Graphics: The OEM's used 2 types of graphics: Silk screen (or pad printing) and laser etching. In most cases (but not all) silk screen was used for non-illuminated graphics while laser etching was used for all illuminated graphics. However, some of the seat controls of a 599 that don't illuminate were still laser etched.

Removing the sticky soft touch: While I'm not going to give away all of our secrets here, if you have sticky parts and it's becoming a burden, you can use rubbing alcohol to remove the coating. Please do this with caution. Silk screen graphics will be gone once you do this and depending on what % of alcohol you use, the base paint may come off also.

Please note, for parts like HVAC panels, window switches with graphics (that have a clear soft touch), it is possible to clean the clear soft touch off without damaging the base black below. Note, while this looks decent, the resulting finish will be a much higher gloss.

At Sticky RX, we fully refinish parts by stripping them down, sanding (preparing the metal or plastic), re-coat with our durable, mar-resistant (hard touch) coating and then laser etch all graphics - even the ones that where silk screened. This restoration is much more durable and will outlive silk screen printing or stick on decals which we don't use.

Here is one of our laser etch videos.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u9OS3-0hBs[/ame]

Please feel free to look us up if you have parts in need of refinishing.

Thank you very much

 

Not with our process as we use the proper low gloss coating and then those panels match the rest of the refinished interior as you can see in the video

 

Thank you guys, much appreciated.

So, above I mentioned the clear vs black soft touch coatings. Here is the head light / mirror control from a Ferrari 599. This part has black soft touch coatings and the graphics are lasered right though the soft touch. There is no way to clean off these parts and preserve the graphics - when you clean off the black soft touch, all the graphics will be gone.

No other way to refinish these parts other than using laser etching just as the OEM did.

That is exactly how we did it. Take a look at the before and after photos.

Thanks guys
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I don't personally think the bare platic looks very good at all. Here is a photo of a 512TR door handle we received this week with a panel that has our coating for comparison.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Hey Rick,

I can only speculate as I don't work for Ferrari. But, to your point, I believe they still use the stuff today, perhaps it's better? Time will tell.

We tested a soft touch out of Europe. It was very nice (I still have some sample material). I was promised all day long that it won't fail. But, I'm not ready to take the chance and I'm guessing my customers are not either.

 

Thank you, Sy

Turn around varies based on many factors such as shop backlog, size of the order, etc.

Please send me an email and we can discuss your specific needs

dave.lelonek@**********.com

Thank you and have a great day

 

Hello Folks,

So here is a video we did to help illustrate the different types of soft touch coatings being used.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm5CT9IEVAA[/ame]


In the video we talk about the white of our refinished parts being brighter than OEM cleaned parts. However, we did not capture that well, but in person, the difference can be seen.

PS - sorry, I talk with my hands and should not do that in videos

 

Folks - here is a video demonstration of our coatings chemical and mar resistance

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNpQ6mJXwZY&t=4s[/ame]

 

Here are a few photos of a 430 HVAC panel (before refinishing). We took these because this panel has a very high gloss base paint under the soft touch - much more than others.

This is a good illustration of what you may end up with if only cleaning the parts.

Also shown, is a refinished part (430 Scud) for comparison
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

We have photos of the Gen I on our website. We need to do some photos of the Gen II