Not Sure if this belongs here - Apologies if not

[cputnam]

I just don't know a better place to ask.....

My neighbors are having their house painted by a guy I like and respect a lot - especially when he's working in 100+ degree temps that we are having now. Well, they coated their garage door with ArmorAll and didn't tell him. Both the paint and the primer are peeling.

A quick google says that AmorAll has silicone & other surfactants in it. OK, so

What is the best recovery? He will probably sand and then coat with a shellac based primer. Door is aluminum.

[fredhargis]

This will be interesting to see what others have to say. My thoughts: there will have to be a cleaning after the removal of the old finish, something strong enough to reduce the contamination....maybe a complete stripping. Then the shellac based primer should solve the adhesion problem, but I'm not sure it's durable enough for outdoor use (never worked very well for me like that). So, I'm not sure what the proper steps would be, maybe an oil based primer (scratch that, your in CA.). Left out of this, of course, is why in the world would someone put ArmorAll on a garage door, but that's probably a different post. You might also try this question down in Home Improvement for some more opinions.

[Snipe Hunter]

I have to deal with this quite a bit painting cars. All these newer "easy to apply" car waxes and tire shine are silicone based. These products have no business being on a painted surface, Armorall eventually degrades the plastic that it's supposed to protect because it's full of solvents which keep the silicon liquid. I'm surprised the paint adhered at all.

It's probably cheaper to replace the doors.

They will have to be stripped. Then the remaining silicon needs to be removed with either lacquer thinner or a milder solvent based grease remover. I use 3M Inspection spray. It's really a repackaged silicon remover designed to get around low VOC laws here in Md. It's legal if you use it to simulate a clear coat over a test spot in your paint but not legal to use as a grease remover. Put it in a spray bottle and use it like you would 409. You can also try the yellow lemon ammonia sold as a cleaner at Home Depot. My counterparts in Ca us it to remove silicone where they can't buy the 3M stuff. I've used it and it works surprisingly well and is dirt cheap. Mix about 25% with water. There is also a product called polycracker that works very well.

[JR1]

After a bad experience with one of our fie trucks we found that LILs recommendations are good. We also found accidentally that exposure to high heat (enough to blister paint) does the job as well.
PS we did not know about polycracker ad so did not try it. Dilute HCL doesn't do the job although dilute sulfuric acid does—either will damage Al though.

[Cooler]

A long time ago (close to 40 years) I represented a company that made stamping and machining oils. Some of their oil got contaminated with silicone. It was shipped to Chrysler.
Chrysler cars of that era had hoods, trunk decks and roofs on which the paint peeled badly. Chrysler paid to re-paint these but they tended to peel again.
Washing off silicone just moves it around on the surface. It is particularly tenacious. I doubt that anything short of sanding down the the bare wood will resolve this as a long term solution.
Spraying a surface with silicone (or a compound of it) brings the act to my definition of malicious mischief—a hanging offense.)
(If you have a beef with a neighbor and he gets in a fender-bender just spray the damage area with silicone spray when no one is watching. In all likelihood both the paint and the Bondo will fail.)