Well I disagree. Even if I did drive my Maverick every day, I wouldn't hesitate to put an original pad on it if I had one. It's not that difficult, and like I stated earlier, if you maintain it, it will not crack. Using a sunshield on hot summer days when parked outside will also do a lot to prolong the life of the dash pad. Heat and dryness is what destroys them. It is just a part of the car that most people tend to neglect...
My experiance with Armor All, is if you start using it, use it often and never stop using it. Infrequent use will do more damage than good. My
To help take the heat off of TL... (however it got there... ) I use Maquires spray on leather cleaner on ALL surfaces. It has aloe and other stuff, and it hits the plastic surfaces GREAT! It beats the HEck out of Armor All, and holds a gloss much longer. I found this out on accident when I was treating my leather seats, and got lazy and used the same rag to clean the dash and months later, still had a shiny wet look to it.
Shhhh! :evilsmile I still maintain that the dash cap is a better, easier, quicker option that requires less maintainance then a real dash pad. Period. Hope you have all the fun in the world trying to keep your 30 year old dash pad from cracking... BTW, I hate Armor All. It stinks, is sticky and attracts dust quicker, and I hate shiney dashes that glare.
Alex, give me your email address and I'll send you my article. It will tell you all you need to know. I'd post it here but it's in Word format so I'm not able to.
That's like saying you should just throw some seat covers from Walmart on your seats instead of having the upholstery redone. The point of a dash-cap is if yours is damaged and you cannot find (or afford) an original replacement for it. Yeah, they're pretty cool, but hardly preferable to the real thing. "Less maintainence"? You think that thing can't crack too? Well it can. It's just plastic. Oh, and it would have to be awful dang shiney to have a "glare". 'Haven't seen a Maverick dash pad yet that was that shiney. One would have to be pretty dang lazy to consider wiping a little pledge (or other moisturizer) on there once every two or three months to be burdensome...
I say just restore your old dashpad . Thats what I'm going to do on my 76. I am in the process of taking the high spots out of it, from where it cracked, and them take some polyester fabric and strech it over the dash pad and staple it to the underneath side. After that just put a couple of coats of fiberglass resin over it and then sand it smooth. Then you have a good paintable dash pad. The thought of even putting some gauge pods on before I put the polyester down has crossed my mind. That would give a smooth custom look to the gauges and you could drill holes in the bottom of the dash pad for the wires to go through. Just a thought and BTW I call dibs on the idea.
How can you compare it to a cheap Wal Mart seat cover? Dash caps are a specially made item designed to cover the factory pad and be as indetectable as possible. Wal-Mart seat covers are made to go in farmer Bob's old pickup to cover the duct tape on the seat. It will not crack if it is not glued down. Mine has not cracked and it is at least 13 years old and sat out in a field under direct sunlight for at least 10 years and still continues to sit out in the sun everyday.. It might be older then that, I'll have to ask the guy who bought it. Preferable to the real thing? Well, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. I have never had the displeasure of driving a Maverick with Armor All on the dash. I have driven other cars, such as a '95 Mustang with it on the dash. The sun reflects off of it and creates an annoying glare on the windsheild. I'd much rather prefer a clean dash over one smeared with sticky, nasty Armor All, weather it's the real thing or a cap. Lazy? I'm busy keeping my car mechanically maintained and working on other parts of it. Cleaning my interior consists of wipeing down the dash with a damp cloth and vacumeing when ever I have the time. An original dash pad is perfectly fine for a garaged show car. But for a daily driver (or drag car as has also been the case), a dash cap is a perfectly fine and exceptable substitute that IS cheap (some of us ARE busy putting money into more important parts of our car), virtually undetectable unless someone tells you it's a cap, and I believe will hold up better under harsher conditions. Judgeing by the rather large number of caps that recently sold on here, I'm not the only one who thinks they are a great alternative. I'm done. :deadhorse
Yea, better than the soaps i've seen lately... T.L.<> JM IMO, I see both sides here...but I also see that someone started it
Race cars don't need no stinkin dash pad or cap :evilsmile There is a solution for everybody in that statement.
