Dashboard Vinyl Damage

Jaywalker · Post by **Jaywalker** » 14 May 2009, 06:31

I've just started looking at '90 - '95 Volvos and noticed that everything I've seen so far has cracked vinyl dashboards. I don't see that mentioned in the online ads, so is it just understood that that's the case, or am I just finding the ones that have been parked outside in the southern US sunshine?

If I do find one that isn't cracked, what treatment should I use to keep in un-cracked?

Steven242 · Post by **Steven242** » 15 May 2009, 09:13

It is a whole lot cheaper to get a good running good condition car and buy a dash cap for it than to spend time worrying about finding one without a cracked dash.

My 242 had a cracked dash and I got a cap for it for $68 shipped to my front door, I just cleaned up the old one real good and glued the new one on top following directions. It looks like a brand new dash.

peffley · Post by **peffley** » 15 May 2009, 09:25

Whatever you do.. don't use ArmorAll / silicones.
Way back (80s), I had an Audi Fox with small dash cracks. I Armorall-ed it which helped - for a while. But when the silicone dried up / went away, the cracks became twice the size that they were in the beginning.
My theory is that the silicone swells up the corpusles in the material so when it dries up it shrinks even more.
There may be newer, more advanced products now that swell the material (hence making the cracks smaller) and don't dry up, but I dunno.
-Peff
(How DO you spell corpusles?)

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 15 May 2009, 09:36

peffley wrote: (How DO you spell corpusles?)

Corpuscles

Jaywalker · Post by **Jaywalker** » 15 May 2009, 17:23

Thanks. Sounds like good advice. What's a "dash cap?" How do you glue it up? Link, maybe?

I didn't want to mention Armorall, hoping someone would bring it up. I had an Audi dash repaired once and the guy told me not to let Armorall get onto the repair, but I'd never heard anything more about it until now, but it kind of stuck with me.

Steven242 · Post by **Steven242** » 16 May 2009, 15:21

http://www.1aauto.com/1A/Dash_Pad_Cover/Volvo

Go to this link, you will find all the dash pad covers/dash caps, for the volvo's they cover. They are pretty inexpensive for what they are.

Mine came with a high strength silicone adhesive. The bad thing is that with the way my dash is, I didn't have much to work with on weighing it down while it dried. But if you have some weights from a bench at home, those 10lbs'ers will work great. All I had were books.

Jaywalker · Post by **Jaywalker** » 18 May 2009, 06:24

Thanks. It's a big to me that caps are available and I don't have to rule out otherwise good models, just because of the dash.