2008 XKR Leather separating from the dash and I am wondering if anyone has experienced that and come up with a fix other than having Jaguar replace it as they are very expensive. I found an upholstery shop in LA which has experience recovering the dash and they are looking for about a grand to do the repair. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Ron

 

There are multiple threads on the issue. Use the search box in the upper right corner and you will find them. There are solutions to the problems in the threads.

 

Found it thank you! Does not seem to be a real easy answer. But, in the big scheme of things it is a problem that I can deal with and it is just a matter of what it will cost. Thanks again, Ron

 

You will have to get the dash taken out which takes an hour or two but I managed to convince the upholster shop to re-glue the existing leather on my '10 XKR once the dashboard had been taken out and I am very pleased with the result.

They were intending to replace it with vinyl which I think would have always bugged me even though the sample looked OK. The quality of the finish and stitching was also an unknown quantity.

 

Thank you so much for your input! Best regards, Ron

 

Ronald,
If it has just started separating and is not completely shriveled, have the dash removed and you can take it to any upholsterer (furniture or automotive), and they will be able to restretch very quickly. When I bought my car seven years ago, mine had started to separate as well as develop some air pockets on each side of the center speaker. And the panel over the air bag was completely loose. I had found an automotive upholstery shop that would do the job for $1300 which was a bargain compared to the $4800 the dealer wanted. So when I was having some custom body work done at the independent shop that does all of my mechanic and body work on all of my cars, I had him remove the dash for me so that I could take it over to the automotive upholsterer and have it worked on at the same time. Once the dash was out, it was so obvious what had happened an how to correct it that I took it straight to my personal furniture upholsterer and asked him to repair it. Jaguar took a short cut and hoped that adhesive alone would hold the leather in place which is nearly impossible. My upholsterer had it repaired in a couple of hours and refused to charge me. (I tipped him generously anyway). Whoever does the repair, you need to insist that they STAPLE the leather to the front lip of the frame against the windshield as well as completely around the center speaker. And they need to use a high temperature adhesive for the rest of the dash. It has been nearly seven years since I had it done, my car is not garaged, I live in the San Fernando Valley part of L.A. which typically has over 100*F daytime temperatures from June through October, and it still looks like the day it was done. The only thing is the staples will show on the front lip, so I glued a small black leather strip over the stapes which matches the black (warm charcoal) dash, so that you can't tell. If you don't have it stapled, it will happen all over again down the road. Unfortunately, Jaguar trimmed the leather so close there isn't enough to wrap around the back of the frame so it has to be stapled from the front. But this is a permanent, very easy fix using your existing leather.

 

I had mine repaired by removing the windshield, stretching and gluing with high temp glue as well as staples as tberg has recommended. It’s been about a year for me and it still looks great. Cost about $450.00

 

Thank you for your experience and I think that I will try that first. Regards, Ron

 

I did mine last summer. Upholstery shop charged me $100 BUT I had to find another shop to remove the windshield. Most shops don't want to touch it because there is a chance it can break. My solution was to call a MOBILE independent glass guy who came to the upholstery shop on the day of the repair. Cost me $125 to remove and reinstall the glass .
The leather didn't need stretching thats why it was cheap to just glue it back.

Glass off, dash being worked on

 

Malawi,
Hopefully, your upholsterer stapled as well as glued the leather, otherwise, I can assure you, it will happen again.

 

I see you also live in "516" country. ..my dash leather is starting to separate at the speaker grille, so will prob give these folks a call.
Ironically, person I bought the car from lives ≈half-a-mile from this shop...

 

I've just done this same fix on my XKR.








It absolutely MUST be stapled, glue alone won't cut it.

 

Thanks for all the pics. The "before" was awful! But it looks brand new now. Good job!

 

I successfully did this without removing the dash or windshield by injecting glue into the stitching and also
by gluing the back portion back in the original condition.

It should be noted that the leather had just begun separating so stretching was not required,
just lots of leather conditioner.

 

The problem with this approach is that it will happen again. Adhesive is simply not strong enough to anchor the leather's tendency to shrink up in the heat. But, as a temporary measure than can probably be repeated, it's a novel idea.

 

I keep it well lathered in leather conditioner now days!

 

If the leather conditioner has penetrated the polyurethane coating it will eventually penetrate the entire thickness of the leather and cause the adhesive to fail. It's just a matter of time.

 

I also had the repair done. Windshield removed, leather re-stretched, glued & stapled and windshield replaced.

One thing to be aware of is that the plastic dash vents become very brittle over time. When the shop doing my repair tried to remove them, they fell apart into many little pieces, beyond the point of repair. I was lucky that I was able to secure a replacement set of vents.

Best of luck.

Ken

 

Brilliant solution.

 

You’ve got my attention now
Where did you source the vents from ?