So I looked at a 2007 xk for sale. The dash didn't look bad, however when I felt the dash it seemed like there were spots where the leather was stretched tight, with an air pocket under, suspended over a valley like between the dash, and the hood over the gauges. Does this mean it will get worse? I don't suppose it came like that from the factory? Does this happen to all of these jags or just a certain percent? Thanks for any info.

 

There have been hundreds of posts on this subject and it happens with the leather dash option, and has affected thousands of XKs and XFs.

When I bought my 2010 XKR several months ago I had the same situation you describe.

The panel over the airbag was completely unattached and the panels that come down on each side of the center speaker had air pockets.

I had found an auto upholstery shop that would re-upholster the dash with new leather for $1300 which was very reasonable considering Jaguar dealers want $4800 for a replacement.

However, I had my mechanic/body shop pull the dash out for me and it became readily apparent that if you stapled the front edge of the leather to the side edge of the dash underboard and reglued all of the leather with high temperature resistent automotive adhesive my personal upholsterer or anyone else with an air stapler could repair it in a couple of hours.

My upholsterer did it for free. I had some foldover leather welting made to match perfectly to cover the staples and re-installed the dash. It is now perfect.

The one problem you will have is the defroster plastic vent covers are extremely fragile and will break when taking them out.

You can (as we did) glue them back together but it's not too effective. However, unless you are standing outside the car, you can't see it.

I could not have lived with my car and all of the bubbles if I wasn't able to have it repaired at a reasonable cost.

 

And as I previously posted, anyone who does the repair as described and needs some of the leather welting, I have enough left over to do 5 or 6 more cars. I will send it free of charge to anyone who needs it.

 

tberg,

I'm going to have my dash assessed soon to see if it can be fixed the way you describe. I'm glad to hear that someone found a way to do it without going through Jag or having the entire dash re-upholstered. I'm assuming that all XKRs have the same color dash (black). Mine is the '09 Portfolio, which still black, but with cranberry stitching - I don't think that would affect my taking the same approach to fix mine as you did. It would be great to have any leftover welting to cover the repair staples, if you still have some available. If so I can PM and/or email you.

Thanks for the great solution!

 

It would be my pleasure. Just send me your info and I will get it right out to you. When you remove your dash and then reglue and staple on the edge, this will glue to the front edge over the staples. As it comes to the passenger door, you may want to trim the height slightly as the dash tapers a bit. Just make sure to line up the top edge of the trim with the dash. The color and texture of the trim is so close as to appear identical. In fact, you don't even see it (only from outside). The one problem will be the defroster vent covers, they will most likely crack when removing as they are very fragile. We glued them together with special epoxy, but they still broke when re-installing. But, you really can't see them either, and they don't affect airflow.

Let me know if you need anything else.
Ted

 

Everest29:

Be sure to join our 2009 XKR Portfolio Edition Registry. We are building a list of 2009 XKR PE owners here on the forum. We would like to have you kisted, if you haven't signed up already.

 

I would move on if the car has dash issues unless price is too low to walk away from. There's enough XK's out there that have perfect dashes and no excuses.

You'll still have to deal with AC condenser issue on top of that.

 

That is the telltale sign that the dash leather is already pulling away. Soon, the leading edge of the dash will pull away as well.

 

"The leather was stretched tight with an air pocket underneath" ....and still some people reject the idea that the damage is caused in the first place by heat and sun, causing the leather to dry and then to shrink, pulling at the adhesive, then loosening at the edges...

If the dash is protected from sun when not in use, and if a good (non-silicone) leather conditioner is used regularly, the incidence of this damage will be considerably lessened.

It should be noted that this damage happens principally in cars used in high ambient heat areas. And it is not a "Jaguar issue" -

it is a leather issue and it happens in other makes as well - Aston Martin is one, Maserati is another.

It does not happen in the cars that have a vinyl dash cover (and the 2007 and 08 XK that does NOT have the "Luxury" all-leather (doors, dash top and front, console, seats all over, etc) interior uses a vinyl dash top - stitched exactly as the leather top is, but with a different grain.

How to tell?

the *non-Luxury* seats are leather on the seating surface only, and they have a different design: there is a vertical trim piece that runs down the centre of the seat.

The Luxury interior all-leather seats have only horizontal stitching - and these are the seats used on the cars with a leather dash.

See the photo).

 

Is that true? I bet the number of 2007 XKs with perfect dashes is diminishing by the day.

 

I know of one '07 XK with perfect dash and AC fix for sale with 30k miles, no paint work, fully loaded... :-)

 

Do the '08 XK have the same issue with leather dashes?
If so when does the problem get solved at the design level?

 

I think the dash can be an issue on any Jaguar, not MY specific.

It is the exposure to direct sun through the windows and lack of care to the dash that can aid in the destruction.

Use a sunshade, try not to leave the car outside continuously, and use a product like Lexol to keep the leather soft and pliable.

These minor car care suggestions will help allot.

 

Is there a better picture showing the two types of seats? Or something else that would indicate in pictures a leather vs vinyl dashboard?

 

The standard interior (in which only the seating surfaces are leather, in contrast to the Luxury interior option in which everything is leather, everywhere) has an easily recognizable band of leather running vertically down the centre of the seat back and seat bottom. The all leather interior has no vertical pieces, only horizontal pleats, as in the photo of my Caramel interior. But most of the XKs have the all-leather interior.
The dash on the standard interior is covered in high quality vinyl and apart from having a more pronounced grain, it looks identical to the leather dash. The vinyl does not suffer as much from the effects of sun and heat.
A leather dash regularly conditioned, and kept as much as possible out of the sun, will not suffer from shrinkage and pulling. The dash on my 07 is perfect but the car is never left in the sun, or almost never, and if it is in the sun I use sun shades to shield it.

 

These are the seats that are not full leather (and the dash is not leather).




These are the full leather seats (and the dash will be leather too).

 

What glue did you end up using? Upholstery Friend of mind recommend vinyl top glue.

Also, is there a procedure/graphics available to remove dash?

 

My upholsterer used what he said was a high temperature resistant automotive adhesive. However, I can tell when I condition the dash that there are areas where the adhesive is not fully holding the leather BUT it doesn't matter because the visual is that it looks perfect because it has been anchored by stapling to the edge and completely around the center speaker. It's the staples that keep the leather from shriveling up. Jaguar chose to cut corners by simply wrapping the leather over the edge of the dash up against the windshield and around the edge of the dash below the center speaker and hoped that an adhesive would do the trick. They did not even leave enough leather to get to the underside of the dash where it might have stood a chance, it only wrapped to the edges. No adhesive known to mankind could be expected to do this without anchoring with staples. It won't happen after the edges are stapled. In my case we removed the dash. However, I am fairly certain it can be repaired and stapled if the windshield is removed, which would be a far simpler and less expensive process. Safelite charges about $250 including the windshield glass itself, so I can't imagine it costing more than about $150 to remove and then install an existing windshield.

 

Hi Gents,
My 2009 XK-R has a serious case of dash de-lamination. The Jag dealer has quoted $5,600 to replace the dashboard. I would like to fix it so that it looks like new, with the cranberry stitching. There is an auto upholsterer in SF who should be able to do it, but he isn't aware of the solutions discussed on this forum. Can you offer suggestions on what to tell him? Thank you.

 

There are 12 pages of posts regarding this. See "leather on dash pulling" in the search box. I had this corrected for only the cost of pulling the dash out and stapling and regluing the leather. You can read about how I had it done starting around page 9.