Pinto Car Club of America

I have never seen a dash cap in person. My dash has just a few small cracks. This bugs me as I keep my car pristine. Does a dash cap look obvious, or does it fool the eye? Is it soft or stiff?
Thanks for your comments
Bill

You yourself will always know that it's a cap and not truly original. I have black dash caps on both my 73 station wagon and my 78 sedan and I honestly love the look! Install them right and no one else will ever know the difference! The caps even have the same pattern on it like a leather print or whatever it is.

Sometimes they will arrive damaged in the corners though, I received the first one for my 78 Sedan and it had a crack in the driver side corner and had to send it back for replacement.

Prepping the original pad is key. If you trim it right and evenly, the cap will fit nice and snug and none of the original dash will show around the edges. When I do my station wagon's again, I will be using a beat up dash that I have in storage, and will remove ALL of the original vinyl from it, which can be 2mm of material, which would ultimately cover more of the original dash padding and give it even more of a stock appearance.

Last but not least, it is made of a durable heat withstanding plastic. Therefore, it is not soft like the original pad is and touching it will be like touching the dash of my 2007 Saturn Ion, hard and smooth.

If you go this route like I have, invest in a set of good sun shades to keep the cap from warping due to extensive exposure to the sun's heat. With each install I also purchased a set of jumbo sized foldaway sunshades from Walmart. They are black on one side and silver on the other (I put the silver outwards to reflect the light and heat). They are only $6 - $8 and they are super easy and quick to put up and take down. Investing in these will help to prolong the life of the cap.

I use Meguiar's Vinyl and Rubber Protectant, which is now called Natural Shine Protectant. It's about $7.00 a bottle and gives the entire interior a nice sheen that isn't greasy feeling or wet looking, but more "new car" looking and feeling.

http://www.meguiarsdirect.com/product_detail.do?q=MEG+G4116

Bill,
I agree with Dave... the caps are well worth the money and they are certainly an upgrade compared to looking at a cracked dashpad.  The average person will never notice the difference unless they touch it.  As Dave mentioned, they are hard to the touch rather than soft like the original.  While the sunshade is probably a good idea, I installed one of these dash caps in my old Ford pickup about seven years ago and it still looks as good as the day it was installed.  It has been outside the entire time with no particular efforts made to preserve it.  For the record, I dyed mine (blue) with SEM vinyl dye prior to installation and that still looks terrific as well.
Dwayne :smile: