mlevinedc

Has anyone purchased any of the aftermarket wood dash flat kits? If you have, I am wondering which one did you get, what do you think of the quality, does it reallllly match the original trim? how easy did the installation go? How has it held up over time?

Mark
2001 RX300 Indigo/Ivory Nav, Chrome yadayada yada

TN3

I just ordered a 23 wood dash kit (factory match or so they say) for $228. I'll keep you posted when it arrives, but if you want to look at it installed go to www.autoaccessories.com (where i got mine) then click on wood trim, click on flat, and click on view installed kits.

malhokc

mlevinedc

I've used these flat wood kits in my other cars, and they look pretty good. However, the RX's come these wood kits which are molded, not are the not adhesive type. Applying these flat kits with the already existing molded wood will look awkward (my opionion). Unfortunatly they don't make the molded kits for the RX 300 yet. Most of the kits that are being sold contain all the pieces that already come molded from the factory. So when they say 20 piece, only 1/2 of these are usable.

Hope that helps.

salimshah

I noticed a bit of graying around the frequently used button on the stereo [Volume, next track and next disc]. It turns out that the black paint is fading.

So now I have a NEED to dress it up.

Has any one found a wood kit with silk screened lettering as opposed to cut outs.

Pointer?


Salim

subal

I just put one from Joshua Tree, http://www.woodtrim.com/catalog_detail.cfm?prod=2573 ,in my 2001 S Type Jag. It went in easy - don't rush it, and matches very well. Do it when it is warm and use a hair dryer to make the parts pliable.

Allan

salimshah

Last time I checked with Joshua Tree, the kits did not have silk screened text. I will check again.

Thanks

Salim

malhokc

Ebay is also selling these wood kits for approx $125-150.

salimshah

I looked at the pics and they had slots for the text.

The search continues.

Salim

billyboy

I purchased my kit from Exotic Wood Dash. At first I put all of the pieces on and then ended up removing a few, seemed like overkill. Great match in wood color, best looking on left/right vents and especially the two center vents above the existing wood. They offer two kits one with more pieces. Easy to apply and boy do they stick. Only disappointing piece is the one on the radio because of the right and left tapered edges on the unit, they couldn't quite fit that properly.

parula

Salim, my '99 had the same problem adjacent to the volume control where I suspect the grease/acid from my finger was etching the plastic coating. At first I thought it was dirt but the more I tried to carefully remove it the plastic coating next to the **** on the raadio faceplate was peeling! Surprising Lexus would not have foreseen this and used a tougher coating. I am trying to be careful with my '03 to keep that area clean.

I am going to try some pieces from Joshua Tree on my '03. I won't use the pieces near the radio or face of the shifter area or instrument panel as I believe that is too much. Lexus left nicely recessed areas at the vents and may use the console pieces. Others will be for sale if anyone wants them.

The box of the first shipment was creased by the shipper presumably and half the pieces were cracked so they need to be replaced! Lexus gave me very bright reddish door arm wood and the wood Joshua sent is much darker so I am hoping they can send me lighter dash pieces.

I must add the Joshua Tree stuff looks really fabulous, I would recommend it, uniform color (just much darker than my cars OEM) most pieces fit nicely although a couple are cut too thin revealing the plastic beneath even in the recessed areas of the dash vents. The piece for the ignition, which I am not sure I want to use has a hole that is much too large for the igntion and looks bad so I need to get them to change that.

Lexmexico

I also ordered Joshua Tree for my 99. That ignition piece was badly made, not sure what they were thinking, so I left that and the piece on the left side of the wheel off. In addition, left the radio piece off. Looks exactly like overkill. The overhead pieces, where the sunglasses go, looks awesome as do the vents. The wood itself is somewhat darker than the OEM, and the vertical black lines in the wood do not completely match the OEM. However, still a good fit. Unfortunately, neither Joshua Tree nor any other company has a good wood piece to run around the little TV screen area. They do have one for those who have the navigation system. I ended up having to repaint that area.

cmstahl

I purchased a wood kit for my RX330 from a www.discountdash.com. The quality of the kit is very good, in my opinion (of course, I haven't seen many wood kits as comparison, but it blends in very well with the factory wood in my interior). The kit is actually made by Sherwood Dash, and in fact came direct-shipped from them. I don't recall the price, but I do remember thinking it was reasonable. I had several questions concerning the kit and installation, and the guy at discountdash was very helpful. I don't know if their kits for the 300 are made by the same mfr, but their website is worth a look. Their kit was actually more complete (45 pieces for the 330) than other kits I was able to locate on the web. I would recommend a look at the website.

Based on my experience installing the kit, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Check to see what you'll need for installation and get it ahead of time. The instructions for my dash indicated that a particular 3M cleaner and adhesive promoter would be required. A very small sponge comes with the kit, but you'd be lucky to get 3 pieces on with it and the sponge is very hard to work with (once the adhesive promoter gets on your fingers, your fingers stick to everything). If you can't find these yourself, inquire if they can be purchased from where you buy the kit. I believe that discountdash has the instructions available online, so you might be able to see what you need either there or on the Sherwood Dash site.

With regards to installation, make sure you clean the surfaces very carefully. Also, take your time and work slowly. Take the time to dry fit the pieces and get visual reference points before you get ready to stick them on. Once the pieces stick, even just a small area or corner, they're very hard to pull off and reposition because of the adhesive promoter.

The pieces and the interior of the car need to be warm. I simply laid a few pieces on my dash, and left the car parked in the sun for a while. As the kit pieces warm up, they become more flexible, making them easier to contour around curved trim, etc.

Hope this is helpful.

Lexmexico

cmstahl,

I had a specialist down here install my wood kit from Joshua Tree.. We did not have to use the promoter. Rather, we cleaned down the areas with rubbing alcohol very gently, then placed my RX in the sun for about 30 minutes, then applied. Parts are stuck on real hard. I eventually took off the two pieces that go left and right of the central panel, as they did not quite match the wood below making it look tacky. It took some work to get those pieces off as they were stuck on very hard. When we finally got them off there was NO DAMAGE to the dash.

cmstahl

Lexmexico --

I used the alcohol also. As a matter of fact, when I spoke with the guy from discountdash (*very* helpful), he told me that since my car was brand new, I could skip the step with the 3M cleaner specified in the instructions, and I could just use the alcohol.

He also told me that, depending on the kit I was shipped, I might not need the promoter, as the manufacturer was using two different types of adhesive backing for the kit parts, one that needed the promoter and one that didn't, so some kits required it and some didn't. He specified that if my kit had the red plastic protective backing (which it did), I'd need to use the promoter. Apparently, the ones that don't need the promoter had backing of a different color (purple, I think(?)).

I'd never done anything like that before, so I wanted to make sure that I followed the instructions pretty closely. I certainly didn't want to a) have to pay for another kit because I screwed something up, or worse b) damage the interior of the car.

Lexmexico

Mine had the red backing and I did not use the promoter. It was a 'female dog' to get the two pieces I was referring to off, so the specialist must have known what he was doing without using the promoter. I have the tan interior RX300 and some of the parts still look a little tacky. However, I at least know they can come off without hurting the interior if necessary.