I know that many of us with older mercedes suffer from dash cracks. My car has only small ones but they are growing. I also know that there are overlays that can be purchased which, apparently, are fairly decent..... but that seems unfair to my almost pristine car.

My question is how expensive (and possible)is it to buy an actual replacement dash and how difficult/expensive is it to have one installed. I haven't called the Mercedes dealer yet (afraid to) and thought I'd check here first.

Are there aftermarket dashes out there? Is there a company that can recondition my dash if I send it to them?

I suppose used is an option but that seems problematic.

Any adivce is welcome.

Thanks,

Nic
'85 300CD @ 141k miles

I had a cracked dash in my '79 300CD. I tried to repair it with some vinyl repair stuff, but it looked awful. then I spent about $100 on a dash cover which looked okay, but wasn't that happy with it. The colors didn't match up as well due to the fading of my vinyl. I ended up buying a used one from adsit (I don't know if partsshop has them), and installed it myself. It looked much better and wasn't that hard to do. (well it did take me half a day to get the old one out, and half a day to get the new one in, but this was before the days of the shopforum, so I had no help or advice. The dash itself was blue from '83 and cost $250. It looked almost perfect. I would recommend going to a couple of salvage yards and telling them what you want, and picking the dash that is in best condition. A salvage yard would charge much less since most are interested only in the body and mechanical parts. An upholstery shop can also resurface it, but that was too expensive for me. Actually I totalled the car last year, so if you need a blue one in great shape I can tell you which salvage yard to call!

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Hemant

'57 190SL
'86 560SEC AMG