I don't know if what's happening to your buttons is what happened to my whole center console bezel but it looked like the surface had bubbled up in places. My car was originally a California car and then Arizona so I presumed it was from the heat. There was a post several months ago from someone who said they had removed it and had repainted the plastic underneath so last week I finally got around to trying it myself. (BTW, there are some excellent posts on Prime about how to remove the console and it actually went fairly easily except for the absence of any instructions on how to remove the cell phone controls where the coin tray otherwise is)
Speaking from experience, I discovered that the main console bezel is (as previously reported) made of plastic. It has a fairly thick metallic foil bonded to it which has that dark grey color on one side. I can't tell if the color was painted on or whether it is somehow part of the foil.
Before removing the foil, I tried a heat gun on it to see if I could get it to flatten out so I wouldn't have to remove it. This seemed to temporarily remove some of the bubbled look but it wouldn't stay flat so I resolved myself to the work of removing it all.
After poking away at the bubbled parts with an exacto knife and lifting small sections, it appeared to not have any glue backing so I started pulling it off like wallpaper. To make a long story short, some of it came off easily but most was a bitch, especially the compound curves in the recessed area under the parking brake.
I had the most luck by cutting through the foil layer and into the plastic but doing it on either the side edges or from the back where you wouldn't see the cut. Then using the knife blade, you can pick away at the foil edge along a cut line until you can get a large piece to separate so you can peel it back and toward one of the openings where you'll eventually be able to tear it off.
On the compound curves, I resorted to a finely sharpened u-shaped wood carving tool .. I don't know how else I would have done it. I never went back to trying the heat gun to see if that would help but I don't think it would because there doesn't seem to be any glue residual anywhere .. it must have been pressure formed although there may have been heat as well because there looks to be areas along the edge where the plastic has been fused to the foil.
So I just wanted to go on record with some details of what it took to do this because it wasn't mentioned anywhere else to my knowledge. It took me about 3-4 hours and although there are a couple of small areas that I'll probably go over with fine sandpaper, the majority of it is very smooth and likely ready for paint. I have contacted a local company who reportedly has experience in painting interior auto trim so I'm hoping that they'll recoqnize the type of plastic and hopefully it will be easily paintable.
I forgot to mention that rather than trying to also peel the foil off the ashtray, I just removed it and left it as is in the hopes that they'll be able to paint over the foil.
The only thing I'm worrying about is that if Acura felt it was necessary to go with the metallic foil approach, I presume that was for durability and scratch resistance which I won't get by just painting it unless it's some kind of super-hard enamel or something. Anybody done this? I will post another update once I get everything painted and back in the car.
