One more photo. I had to leave my laptop for 6 months while I was away. As I said, the rubber coating is all sticky, it's impossible to clean it. So the sweat of the hands stay there.

Guess what happens if you leave that for 6 months in tropical weather?

That's right, covered with mold. A disaster. This rubber coating was the worst idea ever... If you live in a hot country, stay away from this kind of material.

Any local computer shop can replace the palmrest.

Part references here:

https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=category&id=143&subid=927&refine=palmrest

Thanks, I didn't know this site. Unfortunately, the only palmrest for the Dell XPS 9360 is... out of stock. Actually all of the palmrests listed on the page you mentioned are out of stock.

Use the part numbers to search elsewhere.

I managed to find the part and I will change it myself, I suppose. Knowing the keyword "palmrest" was indeed the key for this issue. Thanks @ejn63 !

Comical! Regardless of time, it is not warrantable, it is product abuse, neglect at best. Appears to be a communal gaming device and thus, the ruined A and S keys are telling. This has nothing to do with climate as the amount of soil and grime is indicative of a lack of proper care and maintenance. Regardless, of any chemicals on the hands, i.e., moisturizer, etc., the ruined keys, and extreme wear and tear on the device is indicative of neglect.  Whomever is going to foot the expense of repairing the damage, consider a skin. This will mitigate further damage from communal neglect.

When I lived in Hawaii and had no A/C, I had the same problem on a large scale with rubber-coated surfaces. The plastic on dead blow hammers would totally disintegrate after 10+ years in storage.

I had a brand-new, vintage Toshiba RD-XS54 made in 2006, still in the box, which I could have sold for $400-1000+ on Ebay if it wasn't for the rubber coated surfaces that turned tacky. I ended up tossing the machine out.

I found that if I used 70-100% alcohol solution you could rub out the tackiness with coarse cloth but it required a lot of elbow grease, and you had to go over the surfaces several times.But you can't get into the cracks and crevices and corners.

Manufacturers need to use a type of rubber material that is not subject to UV and age degradation in a humid environment.

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@Clevor wrote:

When I lived in Hawaii and had no A/C, I had the same problem on a large scale with rubber-coated surfaces. The plastic on dead blow hammers would totally disintegrate after 10+ years in storage.

[...]

Manufacturers need to use a type of rubber material that is not subject to UV and age degradation in a humid environment.

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Completely agree on that. Especially for a high-end device. I had this issue with an old Nokia mobile phone as well. I'm 100% sure that engineers who work with these materials are aware of the problem. So why does Dell sell a high-end laptop with this rubbery material, in a tropical country like Singapore? Either they don't care, or they don't even know about the problem. In both case, it tells me the same thing: avoid Dell products in the future.

It's also telling that everywhere I've been looking for spare parts, the palmrest was out of stock for this model, while other parts of the chassis were still available. I'm not the only person who had to replace it.

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Comical indeed.