Dashboard restorations

[DeWitt Harrison]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:16:50 -0500
        "Louis-Alain Richard" <laraa at sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Anyone tried to restore a cracked dashboard with these guys ? this is
their
> USA operation, but they are from down under originally.
> http://www.dashboardrestorations.com/
> Their technique seems to be quite interesting. Now, the big question is
how
> much...
>
> Louis-Alain
> 1983 Quattro with a small crack on its 26 years old dashboard

I had an extended email correspondence with a/the owner, even
to the extent of sending him many photos of my 5000CS dash/console
and obtaining vinyl samples. In my case, this plan did not seem to make
enough sense to pursue. First of all, it's very expensive. The "dash,"
meaning
the main dashboard piece only, would be _many_ hundreds of dollars.
The glove box fascia would have been a _separate_ project but one
that would be required since it must match the main dash and
the available vinyl grain patterns were not all that close to the
original. Then, too, the center console pieces also ought to be
matching vinyl -- where to stop? Furthermore, the 5000CS dash
is an extremely complicated shape so there was much doubt in
my mind that it could be re-skinned perfectly, in which case, why
bother at all? My guess is that to do all the things required to
make the job look truly excellent, the price would run to
nearly $2k. Maybe the situation is different for a '83 Quattro.

My plan is to locate a really good dash repair service and
have them fill the cracks.

Cheers,

DeWitt Harrison
'88 5000CS