Took my car to get it washed on Saturday and as I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed a big hole on the driver side of the dash. I pulled back in to the wash, and as I walked up, one of the employees tried to kick something away from where he was standing. I picked it up, and sure enough, it was part of my missing vent that had since been crushed by another vehicle. Hoping someone might be able to point me in the direction of a replacement part, as I've spent hours searching and can't seem to find this particular part....

 

Sorry to tell you this, but it is sold as part of the dash assembly. The only way to buy that vent is thru a salvage dealer... Maybe I will look into making an overlay for those vents, like I did for the upper dash defrost vents...

 

That's what i was afraid of.... Had the car for less than 2 weeks. You wouldn't believe how unprofessional the car wash manager was about the whole thing. Let me know if you do decide to make one, I'm sure I'll be interested.

 

Well that just sucks, sorry for destruction to your beautiful car.

 

 

What do you think about something like this? As for mounting the only thing I can think of would be to glue it in place. This would be made out of aluminum like the upper defrost vent covers I had made, so you could paint or wrap them or as some have suggested leave as brushed aluminum. Give me some feedback on what you think? If you think this might be a solution for these vents I will have my machinists take a look at my mock up and see if it is something he can do for a reasonable cost...

 

Would be great if someone can print this . Once it is scanned anyone with a printer can build one using the SW.

 

That would be great as well, problem with that is someone would need both vents that are undamaged to copy. Then find someone to print them. It would be pretty risky for someone to pull theirs.

 

TexasTraveler, I was born and raised in Texas. My sister just moved to Rockwall, as a matter of fact. Clearly, she's in good company.

If the machinists can do it, I'm definitely interested in paying for both driver and passenger side vents!

Thanks for taking the time to work on this, I really appreciate it.

 

Your sister picked a great spot... Rockwall is a great place to live... I dropped off my mock-up to my guy at lunch he said he would let me know what he can do... So stay tuned...

 

Am I the only one wondering how, if they were washing the outside of the car, did they manage to break an internal fixing?

 

Not sure about across the pond, but in the US if you take your car to a full service car wash, they vacuum, wipe down the interior (dash,console,doors, ect.) They then drive the car into the wash and drive it out, then hand dry it along with cleaning the inside of the windows ... All while you sit comfortably inside the climate controlled building, looking out at all the cars getting washed... So there is plenty of opportunity for the workers who for the most part could careless about your vehicle, to break something...

 

Many car washes include a wipe down of the interior and an interior window clean, at least here where I live.

 

I'd not drive my car through any type of carwash no matter how 'paint safe' they say it is, don't think I've done so in 24yrs.

I take it to a place that handwashes the exterior only and they only open the doors and boot/trunk to dry the outside of the frames, then tyres are dressed and all for a princely £7/$9 and at no time do they drive my car....as I never want to have to put their insurance to the test (as am sure most don't have any)! Nor do I want someone just out of school or had lost his job due to a DUI behind my wheel

The interior I'll do myself, and now even more incentive to keep it that way.

Shame there's no part number on the plastic as at least you could google it...even if it only comes as part of the whole dash.

 

There is a number on it. 6W8304320-A and it does bring up the whole dash.

 

Is the vent actually bonded to the dash or a removable item?

Ask as there's a couple of complete RHD dashes (if that'ss the plural on UK ebay for less than £200, if detachable (and will fit a LHD) you could ask if they'd take one off for you?

No doubt they want the whole dash price though

 

I believe if you 3d scan one of the sides you can do a mirror image to produce the other side. Any 3d printer guys on the form. May be worth while for some to chip in and buy the dash then get all of the parts scanned.

 

In fact, this chain of car washes even has large aquariums in the waiting area in case you get bored looking at the cars. As to how they managed to rip the vent out of the dash while wiping it down without even noticing is beyond me. I intend to discuss that point with the CEO of their company later this week.

 

Update: My machinist text me this morning and said he has everything loaded into his computer as a cut file, he was finishing up some other jobs he has going and thought that he would have a couple cut sometime mid week for us to check fitting. I will post pics and get some pricing info for members and post to my Defrost Solutions thread at that time.

Aaron

 

I know it sounds antiquated, but I enjoy the lines of my car so much, I much prefer to wash it myself.

Much easier since it's been paint sealed