Dash Melt Down

I have 2 2006's Outbacks in the family fleet. Their build tags are within a few months of each other. The 2.5i has a normal dash. The XT is sticky and cracked in a few places.

 

Oddly enough the XT spent most of it's life garaged and the other has mostly been carport or street parked.

 

 

That's interesting. There is a 2.5i in my neighborhood that is parked pretty much in the sun all day. Dash looks perfectly fine.

Odd - mine is kept out of the sun most of the time too and yet when the sun hits it, within minutes it's starting to get glossy and tacky.

Odd - mine is kept out of the sun most of the time too and yet when the sun hits it, within minutes it's starting to get glossy and tacky.

 

ditto here, even noticed it at the bank the other day, there was a shadow line that the A pillar was throwing on the dash for about 10 min while waiting in line. The shadow area stayed matte and by the time I pulled forward the area around it that was in direct sun was shiny

 

Its basically like the chemicals and bonding agents that Subaru used in these dashes tend to breathe and change their state depending on temperature variants. That experience was in my '08 daily. My '05 GT wagon track car is totally different. Its stickier and gets way more, almost hazy and chalky, than my '08. As I mentioned before, low sheen interior cleaner does bring it back but its still way shinier than I want for use on track and it lasts for only a month or so before hazing over again. A smart man, much less vain than me would say, hey dumbass its a track car not a garage queen, why don't you just leave it hazy. Then you won't have to deal with the shine on track!"

From what I noticed though, the issue is more prevalent in humid states. I moved to a very dry state and I don't really suffer from it anymore. However, both of my dashes are cracked now

PNW type humidity here.

 

I wish I knew a good upholsterer - rather than replacing it with one that's been sitting in a warehouse for 10+ years it'd be nice to do a nice stitched Alcantara finish on it.

If I was confident enough to do it I'd like to try flocking my dash. Sadly I'm not...

There are plastic/interior specific paints on the market.

 

**DISCLAIMER**The next statement is just a guess DO NOT take this as an invitation to do this to your car's dash.

If you wanted to refinish your dash you would need to remove the surface coating with acetone, or goo-gone. Prep the surface with an adhesion promoter, and finally the color coat.

If you have a trashed dash lying around this might be a good experiment to try. Worst case scenario you cover it up with some flocking, that hides most surface defects ok.

Eastwood has some interior paints from SEM worth looking at.

Well, I am going to end up with two 'trashed' dashes soon since these are cracked now. I may try something.

+1 on SEM, used SEM on my 1971 Alfa Romeo GTV dash, it came out beautiful, had to use many different products to repair some small cracks and try and get the texture to match.

 

My 05 GT has been in the high desert it's whole life (16yrs) garaged, my dash seems to be fine, I use 303 on it, sometimes spots get a light chalk film after a month or so but I've not seen the sticky dash issue.

+1 on SEM, used SEM on my 1971 Alfa Romeo GTV dash, it came out beautiful, had to use many different products to repair some small cracks and try and get the texture to match.

 

 

Picture?

Just noticed a post on Facebook with someone selling a non sticky, non cracking dash in Erie for $275. It's from a 2005 Outback XT and has the cubby/clock display setup. Not sure if he/she is willing to ship, though. I can share it if wanted.

Picture?

 

 

I've also had a good experience with SEM (post). Unfortunately, the donor dash I used had deeper cracking issues beneath the surface that emerged later.

It's funny cause I thanked that post 2.5 years ago

 

 

Do you have a recent pic of it? I am guessing the cracking issues you are describing are probably the same as I have. They are in fact pretty deep.

The Lexus community has a bad sticky dash problem too, here is one fix.

I would personally not do this in the car, but if you can get past that part it seems like a good process from what I have seen so far.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4GL5Sv_CNY

Well, I am going to end up with two 'trashed' dashes soon since these are cracked now. I may try something.

 

Best I have at the moment, all the car parts are in the attic.

Looks pretty good.

Apologies all, I forgot I also used Polyvance too for the cracks, how too video below.My cracks were not that bad!

 

 

Products used, I also learned how to plastic/vinyl weld, not tough to do takes a little practice.

 

Some of this product can be a bit expensive, if someone decides to try and repair their dash, hit me up and I'll let it go for very little $.

Edited April 14, 2021 by JJr
cause

I guess I lucked out. My old dash never got sticky, but over the last year or so of it mostly being off the road it has started getting a little "hazy". Back in January I brought the car in for the 2nd Takata recall and while they were at it the techs put a few nice screwdriver marks in my otherwise perfect dashboard where they tried to pry the center vents/ pocket out. They agreed to replace my dash because despite being an older car they couldn't argue that it was in immaculate shape and old car or not my dash wasn't all effed up before I brought it to them for recall work so yeah why is this even a question just replace the damn thing. New dash finally came in and it's time to replace, just dropped it off about 4 hours ago. Well wouldn't you know, as I was going over it today to make sure I knew what everything looked like so they couldn't get away with damaging something else, I noticed two small cracks starting to form... So it looks like I at least bought myself another 16 years lol

It was a new dash from Subaru and it is already cracking??

Cracks are not the typical failure mode. Sounds like the effed up/forced something during the install.

No no, these asshats know not to use excessive force and mess the thing up, that's how I got a free dash in the first place. Somehow between January (when they messed up my pristine dash and agreed to fix it on their dime) and now two small cracks started to form. Only reason I even noticed is because I was inspecting everything very closely before I dropped it off to make sure I would be able to spot any new damage that might occur when I leave it in their care again. But it's all good because I got a new dash being put in for free as we speak . And I'm sure they know to be extra careful this time, I'm willing to bet someone got their ass reamed pretty good for wasting all that time and money just by being careless

 

Guess I kinda dodged a bullet

Edited April 15, 2021 by RecklessWOT

Well throwing my hat into the sticky dash ring on my 07 LGT with ~100k miles. Got the air bag recall done (twice). 2nd time I noticed a white film in one area of the dash. Sat in the garage for a month and noticed whole dash was white. Wiped down with a damp cloth. Went to deal with SMOG (don't get my started on that) and while sitting in the sun a few minutes my wife commented on the sheen and stickiness. :mad:

Yep, this sucks!

The dash in the Legacy was so shiny this weekend at the track, the glare was messing with the camera on my phone using Harry’s Lap Timer attached to the windshield I’m really tempted to source some Alcantara and maybe bond a piece of it to the dash. Not going to pull the dash out for a full recover as I’m pretty confident I’d screw something up. My main concern would be not getting the alcantara to stick because whatever seems to be leaching out of the dash might affect whatever glue I’m using ?