Saturday my wife drove my 99 Saab 9.3 and getting out of it spilled chicken soup. The temps have been brutally cold, (won?t get above freezing for 10 days +), and she immediately cleaned it up. Or so I thought. This morning the key only goes half way into the ignition,(which is on the center console between the front seats). Now I have to figure out how to clean up this mess. My only thought is to use a space heater to warm up the interior and a straw taped to the end of a shop vac to suck out the soup, and then try to flush it out with a cleaner, sucking up the cleaner with a shop vac. For the cleaning flushing what should I use, (de-icer, WD-40, electronics cleaner, etc)? Should I then flush it with a lubricant, (WD-40? Silicon spray? Graphite Spray?). I am hoping that because of the position of the ignition, that Saab designed it to take some abuse.
Does anyone have a better idea? Do I need to pull the ignition, (and how)?
Gummed up ignition switches have been a way of life for SAABs at times since everything in the world gets spilled in there and many have been towed in because of spilled liquids, cookie crumbs, and whatnot…
Some of them can be a bit of a pain in the neck to disassemble so before going this route I would advise taking an old towel and wrapping it around the switch opening to shield seats, console, carpeting, etc.
Try spraying some non-oily carb cleaner into the switch opening, insert the key, and repeat the process several times.
Use a carb cleaner such as Chemtool or even the WalMart brand. Some brands such as Gumout seem to leave a bit of oily residue.
I have used carb cleaner many times on interior parts and have never seen anything harmed by the cleaner but a towel should be used anyway, just in case.
Sounds like the chicken soup froze but even thawed it will become sticky. The carb cleaner should eliminate this. Hope that helps and good luck.
I would use a hair dryer to concentrate heat at ignition,flush with de-icer,keep dryer on it to dry it out.Once you have it dry then spray lube with a dry lubricant.Hopefully your wife did’nt break a key off in that ignition !GOOD LUCK!!
If those suggestions don’t work, use a power washer.
Maybe next time your wife will eat/drink the soup while NOT driving.
Thanks for your suggestions… I got impatient with the space heater and used a hair dryer, hit it with some compressed air, and followed up with some de-icer and more compressed air, (sheilding with paper towels). BTW, she wasn’t eating in the car, it spilled when she was getting out, (the top of the tupperware came loose and their was a hole in the bottom of the grocery bag).
One of them thar computer air sprayers can blow dry the lock after the soup is heated. It is so cold…Letterman said that baseball players are getting injected with hot soup. Not football players; they just claim that the cold works in their favor.