I selected and paid for a dash kit from wesellcarparts.com a few days ago. (Mustard bird's eye maple for my XK6, if anyone's interested.) Very poor communication from them, and I am wondering if I'll ever see a kit from them or not. Anyone have experience with them?

Thanks,

Caris

 

My cousin has the same but he has never faced such problem.

 

I have a similar kit on my 92 XJS, see the pics in my gallery :

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/a...hp?albumid=309

I ordered it from http://www.godspeednet.com

They were good with communications (email when order placed. Follow up emails when shipped, with tracking number, etc)

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the kit. My original wood was typical of a 17 year old convertible car thats lived in FL then CA its whole life, ie destroyed, so even relaquering wasn't an option.

For the dash and console pieces I left the original wood on and just stuck the new pieces on top. I elected to leave the old wood on because on the XJS when you open the glovebox you see the side of the wood on the dash panels (and you can see it's real wood, ie has grains, etc) so I didn't want to loose this.

For the door trims I removed the original wood, made up some new backing pieces from thick cardboard (yes, cardboard!) covered in thick duct tape and then stuck the new door trim pieces to these. I did this because the original wood had quite a high profile in relation to the door trim so I didn't want the new trim to stick out even further. With this technique I have the wood trim almost exactly the same height as the door trim, which looks pretty good.

 

My friend purchased the same jaguar parts on-line but did not experience any problem as well. Hmm, if they're not making the first move to reach you, better do it. Try to contact them every now and then so you would know if they still can give the kit and if not, ask when and how could you possibly get your money back.

 

Well, I got the kit finally, but am returning it - look at the difference in the "sample" chip that's online, and what the kit turned out to be. My XJ6 is penrose yellow and I was trying to go with that theme, but the kit turned out to be darker than the original wood, which is also birds eye maple. Oh well. I think I'm going to refinish the original wood instead. Anyone torn apart the dash to take the wood out?

Caris

 

Hello,

Original wood is Walnut, either "burr" or figured depending on trim level. They yellow dramatically over the years, a large part of this is the polyester finish turning colour. You probably made the right choice as new wood can still be had through Jaguar (or re-veneered) for the S3 XJ6, and those stick on overlays are, in my opinion, a temporary cheaper fix. They never seem to look like the real thing to me. Good ol' Chinese manufacture most of it. The XJ dash wood is screwed to a metal sub panel, and is pretty straighforward, if a bit time consuming the first time you do it. Main anchor points are near the LH/RH air con vents, a few bolts under the black dash top, and 2 small nuts behind the coin tray (trip computer on later cars). Start taking off all the black trim (and steering wheel) and it will be pretty much explain itself as you go along.

 

Hey, thanks so much for the tips on taking the dash out! The original wood is in great shape under its finish - the finish is weirdly wrinkled, maybe from heat? (the car has lived its life in Texas). We have dash kits in three of our other non-Jag cars, and they look very nice, but besides the color being so totally wrong, the puffy, plastic look on top of what is a flat, elegant, analog dash setup just looked ... fake. Just as well the color didn't suit, so I got out from under this possibility. Now, just have to make the time to have it out of action for a couple of weeks - hate to not be driving it. Thanks again.