I think the 2008 997.1 have also hard plastic buttons. I drove the car of my boss and the buttons felt completly different - not so rubberish

 

I am surprised it took that long, this finish was used as early as 2001 by some manufactures, and the problem was noticed a few years later. The Touareg was switched over in 06 after two years. I hardly touch my HVAC system, I leave it on auto.

 

My 2004 Touareg has this problem throughout the interior of the vehicle. I touched it up with a Sharpie, but its still pretty crappy for a $50,000.00 vehicle to do this after only driving it 37,000 miles.

I hope this does not happen with my Carrera.

 

Mine temp **** got a very little chip off when I scratched it with my nails a bit accidentally. I can see how it works so I just applied some paint there to seal it and pay extra attention now.

I also was not quite successful when I tried to find where I can buy replacement buttons. Suncoast does not have them as it seems.

 

If you can find the part here are 2 articles from planet-9.com

With the help of these articles you should be able to access and replace the part yourself. You might need to join planet-9.com to view the articles?

Hope this info helps:

http://www.planet-9.com/reviews/show...oduct=92&cat=5

http://www.planet-9.com/reviews/show...duct=329&cat=3

 

Holy cow. You have to get a whole new unit? Thankfully I asked the dealership to replace my flaking unit before the warranty expired.

 

Sharpie

 

The oil causes it to flake. What a load of crap. The material chosen what just crap. Just way too fragile for to use on anything thats touched.

 

Porsche the manufacturer should take moral responsibility for this cheap quality material and recall to change better quality buttons at zero cost to effected 911’s .

 

I have seen this problem with many cars. The oils from one's hands and in particular hands that have residual hand cream, sun tan lotion, etc, will destroy painted surfaces. It is too bad that whoever designed the unit did not specify black plastic for the buttons rather than coated plastic.

 

Bought preowned my06 997s week later noticed problem with the climate control *****. Needless to say had to remove the flaking paint. Now they are down to bare white plastic.

 

Had the same problem but car is still under warranty so they replace them

 

It happened on my 07 within the first 1000 miles. So far, I haven't dealt with it (still under CPO). Oh, and I don't use hand lotion.

 

I had the same problem and quickly found out that the buttons are not replaceable. The whole unit has to be replaced. So, I taped everything off and spray painted the buttons with Plasti Dip http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip
fom Home Depot. It is a rubberized type paint and it worked very well. The only down side is that you will no longer have the fan graphic and white lettering on the buttons. But it looks a lot better than the chipped mess IMO.

 

You should be able to have it masked off and painted while in the car. Then have the lever pushed upward and the bottom could be painted and the reverse can be done for the top. I would do it since it would be unsightly for me.