Cleaning yellowed tank bag plastic

I just added this as a reply to Dave D's tank bag writeup in Product Reviews, and thought it might be helpful to others who haven't seen it and are experiencing similar issues. I think I found a fix to the problem of the clear plastic that tends to yellow on the BMW tank bags. Not sure how long it will last, but going on 6 months now and no discernable loss of clearness.

>>>> Nice write up Dave.

Re the yellowing of the clear plastic on top of the BMW tank bags, that started to happen to my 2.5 year old BMW GS tank bag. While cleaning the bike one day, on a whim, I used some Armor All Interior Wipes on both sides of the clear plastic and, Voila!, the yellow was gone and it was like new! I wish I had done a before and after for comparison. Suggest anyone that has that issue give it a try to see if it also works for you. I passed this on to the parts manager at the BMW dealership, and he had not heard of anyone trying that before.

Interestingly, I've had an 11 year old Held Tourano tank bag that I now use on my K1600 that has never yellowed. If BMW OEM products are supposed to be made with premium components, not sure why they continue to yellow.

http://armorall.com/products/wipes/interior-detailer-wipes

Randy

Design flaw !

Never heard of that.

Sunlight and heat are murder on plastics. You can send your item up to Rainy Pass Repair and have the map case vinyl replaced. They're actually a BMW warranty repair facility, among other things.

Never heard of that.

 

Sunlight and heat are murder on plastics. You can send your item up to Rainy Pass Repair and have the map case vinyl replaced. They're actually a BMW warranty repair facility, among other things.

WOW who knew! That is a keeper for sure.

I had not seen a '-5 to '13 RT tank bag that was not yellowed.

I do have one that's yellowed and hope to try Randy's solution this week. Thanks for the tip, Randy!

Great info! I will give it a try also.

I had good results with a heavy application of Pledge.

Sorting and tidying up the garage yesterday and came across some old Armor All wipes. BINGO! Bye bye yellow map plastic.

Thanks Randy!

Good. I'm glad it worked for you too. Now we'll see how long it lasts.