Damn dude that blows. I'm thinking just getting a new one and keeping it covered is the best bet I guess

 

It took about 11 years for mine to start cracking. I figure the new oem replacement should last at least another 10 years.

 

x1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!!!!

 

I just don't get it...Why bitch about something that you might have to replace once or twice the whole life of the car? Big ******* deal...

And as for the guy who said wrapping it isn't a option cause you live in Florida, you can't be serious...Do it RIGHT, and you have nothing to worry about. I live in southern Louisiana and haven't had not one problem with my suede wrapped panels...

 

A: Because it $200 dollars that I could spends elsewhere on the car and I don't have money shooting out of my ***.

B: GM produced the same dash for how many years and didn't correct the problem? As a designer I have a problem with that.

If you'd like to buy me a dash pad or 2 Squee, that'd be sweet. You know, since it's no big deal

 

The only time I've seen a cracked dash panel is when there's a clear origination point of the crack. Like, from somebody hitting it or throwing something on it. Hell, my LS1 donor car HIT A TREE AND ROLLED OVER and the dash pad was still in one piece. I actually sold it to some guy who had a shattered dash pad, who didn't care about the mild scratches on the passenger side.

 

Someone on here fiberglassed their dash and painted it.

 

Wow...what a tool. Your right though, it isn't a big deal...To me, for my car...If it cracks, I won't really care, it would just be an excuse for me to wrap it. You won't find me on here bitching about GM being cheap on these cars like everybody else, you'll find me fixing it and wrapping it in suede. Perhaps you should do the same instead of bitching over a couple hundred dollars. That ain't **** anymore. $200 gets you what, less than 3 tanks of gas?

Thank you! I figured I was the only one who realized plastic doesn't just break. You have to do SOMETHING to it...It isn't gonna just crack all on its own.

 

i'm not the first owner of my car, so i won't say that something didn't happen to it to start the crack, but what about the thousands of people that have the famous cracked door panels? wrapping the dash in suede sounds pretty good.. i will have to look into that.

 

What about them? The source of the cracking has been clearly identified and the preventative fixes are clearly posted. My Firebird doesn't even have that problem since it came with the base speaker/1LE Firebird door panels, which don't have the cracking problem to begin with. However NOBODY can (or wants to) explain 100% accurately how their dashboards cracked. The cracked door panels are pretty easy to explain.

 

there are enough cracked up pads out there to say it is a problem with the material or design... now if only one or two people came on here with a picture of what i posted, you guys would be like>>>"WTF man!!!??" Its a common enough problem that I dont believe the owner should be the sole blame of the crack. Its a **** design (though I done believe GM intended it to be removed as many times as many of us have) and its made out of **** material (probably for the reason above).... Granted, now that we know they are ****, we should take precaution to prevent them from crumbling up. I covered mine with a fitted carpet

 

Actually mine lasted about 125k miles till it cracked and I didn't do anything to make it crack. I never used armor all, never hit it with anything and I hit a curb pretty hard after getting tboned and it didn't crack but one day I was going to get my corbeaus with my friend (duvalsoldier904) and we heard a giant snap, it cracked all the way down the passenger side. It was hot that day and I had the ac going so that could have been it.

But with these replacement covers... What would it look like if you just used it instead of placing over the existing broken one?

 

they will fall down inside the dash, none of the lines will line up, and there are not mounting tabs either so you would have to use velcro or fab your own.. either way, the lines dont jive

 

You can usually find a perfect one from a part out for 100$. It's oem but it would be cheaper the 300$ just to reinforce it.

Fwiw my car has been garage kept for most of its life. I bought it and the dash was perfect.. Nobody rides in my car, there have maybe been 7 people in the 2+ years I have owned it. First couple months I bought it the car was not garage kept however nobody had rode in it either.. The pad cracked while I was in work one day and kept spreading. How do I know? Because it was dead center by the dash.. my car stays spotless and it was literally the first thing I noticed when I got in. It was in the high 80s, low 90s that day.

Gf bought her one owner garage kept car, parked in a parking garage if he drove it to work, and It cracked six days after she bought it. It was parked outside all day I'm direct sun while she worked, it was high 90s the day this happened.

Call Bs or not.. I'm telling you the way it is.

I will be wrapping mine since its just one small crack.. I will do it the same time I do my seats and door panels. I had a perfect one I let go in a trade for 100$ because I don't have a problem fixing mine. I'm sure It would never happen again since the car Is usually only drove at night or nice days for a couple hours at a time. In weeks like It has been, 95+ there is no way I would replace it with oem if I didnt have a DD.

 

If you actually read my posts you'd see I'm not bitching about it breaking or even about the price until you came in this thread that was going in a productive direction, questioning everybodies reasons for wanting a better solution then "hey just thow a new one in there and hope for the best". I'm just trying to improve the part so that it doesn't happen again. You know progression...innovation. Any of these words making sense to you. Sure I'm frustrated that it broke, but where did I say anything negative about GM. Just because you may be fine with shelling out $200 for something that is definetly going to break for no reason doesn't mean that you can bash others and belittle there attempts to improve our cars. I'm not going to call you any names or stoop to your level, as that happens too often here on tech already.

And here in south Florida, you'd be hard pressed to find an f-body rollin around that doesn't have a cracked or replaced dash pad and I don't think we're all running around with hammer smashing our own dash pads. It regularly reaches 95+ degrees in the summers. Mine had ZERO cracks when I parked it one night and the next morning it was in 4 pieces. Unless you think someone broke into my car and cracked it for me while I slept...

 

I just explained in detail how mine and the gfs broke.. Nobody was even in the car.

It is a design/material flaw.. Just like the door panel.

Now.... Ashtray lid, console lid... Blame it on the owner or previous owner.

 

Guess a bunch of people are lucky and a bunch of others are unlucky. I'm glad to be the one of the lucky ones. For two years I parked it daily in an open parking lot in the sun with interior cabin temperatures measured at 121*F at noon, and 116*F at 5:30PM. This is using a sun shade in the windshield covering the dash pad 95% of the time. For one year I lived in the high desert of CA. Harsh UV and extreme seasonal temperature changes.

 

02ta has it...

Some jack *** group of ricers and mustang owners are going around to all the nice cars and cracking their dashes.
Maybe that explains why not all the dashes are cracked....?

 

I call BS! There's no way it could just crack by itself

 

Ok, how the hell do you guys crack your dash pads lol, I had two Camaro's and never even slightly split once, ya'll have 400 pound women sitting on them or something lol.