Guys, Looking for help I screwed up and put a tarp over my boat while the carpet was wet and I think I have ruined my vinyl. The black mildew comes off but in alot of areas it has turned the vinyl a purple color. I have tried Mr. Clean magic eraser,Bon Ami cleaner,Starbrite vinyl cleaner, a mixture of bleach, water and amonia all to no avail. Does anyone have a cure that works? Do they make a white vinyl dye that I could try. Please any HELP would be appreciated.
I have some VHT white vinyl dye, but it is crap. It looks like spray paint. I was selling my BR boat and did the same thing. I even got hair dresser grade peroxide, bleach gel, acetone lightly with a cloth, etc. I ended up taking a few hundred off for the stains.
Through all that, I found that if the magic eraser doesn’t touch it, nothing else really did.
Try bleach and water. Mix it half and half. Be careful not to get it on the carpet and let it sit on the stained areas for 5-10 minutes before you scrub it and rinse it off. That gave me much better results than any other method.
Go to your car dealer and find who they use for vinyl and leather repair and get it dyed or go to an auto body supply shop and spray dye it yourself, not hard at all.
I would advise against using bleach. In my experience it deteriorates stitching in the seams. I have had good results with Star Brite brand mildew stain remover. I also used Star Brite vinyl cleaner but it does not work as well as their mildew stain remover. West Marine makes a similar product but I like Star Brite better.
The purple may be coming from the inside out. I had this happen to the coaming bolsters on my last boat. I have no solution. I ended up replacing them.
Mine did the same. Its actually the inside of the cushion. My vinyl has soft foam that was glued to the back of it so it was mildew in between the vinyl and this foam. I took the cushions apart and soaked them in bleach for hours. It did not fix them and they will need to be replaced.
I am told its cheap vinyl that is the problem…
Yamaha . . . I used to run a Vinyl plant in MS. What you might have is a problem called pink stain. Although the formulation for marine vinyls (usually) contain anti bacterial agents, a number of things can be wrong. 1) someone might have used an automotive grade vinyl (less costly) - most automotive grade vinyls contain very little if any anti microbial chemicals . . .
2) The anti microbial agent in vinyl will “migrate” over time from the vinyl - ever wonder where that “haze” comes from on the inside of your car windows? That haze are some of the chemicals in the vinyl or plastic in your car migrating to the inside of your windows - ewwwww!
Unfortunately, if you are not successful in removing the stains you only have a few options: 1) close your eyes (ignore the problem); 2) cover them up with a beach towel(s); 3) Duct tape (I have used this for a lonnnnnng time on a charter boat I ran in Southern CA, 4) recover the surfaces with new marine - grade vinyl (ouch).
