JCtx

I absolutely love my interior, now that I bought clear mats (Lloyd's) specifically cut for the SC430, with one exception: the shift lever. The bird's eye maple wood trim is just awesome, but the shift lever doesn't have any of the bird's 'eyes', have a completely different wood grain (just parallel lines), and it's much darker than the rest of the wood, almost like a mustard color. I'm sure it's made of maple as well, probably from deeper into the tree in case it's a solid piece, but just doesn't blend in.

Am I the only one, or all the other cars are the same?

Thanks guys.

JC

tfischer

Yep. You are the only one.

All of ours match perfectly.

JCtx

>All of ours match perfectly.>

Having a bad day? This is an SC430 board, not a Honda Civic one. Your sarcasms might be welcome there. If you don't want to help, don't participate.

For the rest, a salesman friend of mine from the local dealer will notify me when an ecru car arrives, and will let me swap shifters if I want to, in case it's indeed different. At least he's being helpful. He also told me he'd pursue replacing the rear seat (leather creased due to passenger seat crushing rear one during transit) if I wanted to; I might do that, even though the front backrest is hiding that area. Will give it a few more weeks to see if it gets better.

Have a great weekend guys.

JC

natelam

don't have a sc430, but when i was shopping for the rx, I sat in the showroom sc430 which had birds eye and noticed right away the shifter had a different grain (parallel lines just like you mentioned). And this is in the showroom car. I don't think yours is a defect, it's definately unappealing since you'd think they would make it match on a 60+k car!! -Nate

AsianGirl007

iTrader: (1)

Hello, I don't think tfisher was being sarcastic. You asked a question and it was answered. Anyways, from my experience, none of the wood ever matches perfectly 100%. It is real wood and I would be more worried if it DID match. In any case, it's good that you have a good dealership that will let you swap shifters. That's what I would do if I was in your position: look at a few different shift ***** and select the one I like the best. Good luck.

RodF

I've checked mine, and the **** is darker as well. I suspect it has to be because the **** is probably made using a different process than the veneer.

I have the verticle lines as well, but do have some birds eyes on it.

Gojirra99

Mine's darker as well, and I believe there was a thread about this a long time ago, & that this is common with the Ecru/maple combination.

V. Miller

Assuming that the shift **** is solid wood, then there is no way that it could ever match the veneer used for the rest of the dash components. A clear, vertical grain selection would be the best chooice for the ****, and that is what is used. There are several ways to create a veneer, with each producing a different appearance from the same block of wood. Most veneers create a flat grain sample rather than a vertical grain. If you want to see the "birds eye" then you need a flat grain veneer.

JCtx

Thanks guys. I really don't care about the grain difference, but the different color looks odd. It's not ugly by a long shot. I much rather have a solid wood shifter than the leather/wood combo on the GS and other models, even if the color doesn't match. Now I know all others are similar, and am okay with it.

As always, thanks a lot for your help.

JC

Roofless

This was discussed over a year ago in this enlightening thread:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=57520

The key post in that thread stated:

Posted by dserban

I am in the furniture business and I deal with this kind of thing a lot. The wheel and the **** are made of solid wood. The rest is veneer. Even though they use the exact same formula, you can not obtain the exact same color on solid and veneer.

Also you don't have all the wood trim on the same level and therefore the light has something to do with the way you see the shades of color. I hope this helps.
________________________________________
Note to JC and newer members: Please don't be afraid to use the VALUABLE SEARCH ENGINE. Many owners here have had their cars for more than a year, and some two. They have not only brought up these questions long ago, but know now how these changes or observations have affected them over time and have posted their thoughts in some cases. (tfischer is one of these longtime owners.) Their insights are valuable especially when you consider that these are the folks that had the cajones to take a chance on these cars before a lot of these questions were raised and had to look long and hard to get answers at the time. So please consider the search engine once in awhile for a little research. I think tfischer might agree, although I don't think you'll be hearing from him again, JC.

Not meant to offend or admonish. Just a friendly tip, nothing more.

JCtx

Last post on the 'searched' link was over a year ago, before even the '03s were out; we have '04s now. I don't consider this repetitive; otherwise it'd be hardly any traffic on this board by now. This just shows nothing has changed since the car's inception.

To close the subject, all ecru owners who have participated here and on the link don't have matching gear ***** (confirms tfischer sarcasm that' ALL OURS match perfectly', and no, I don't need to hear from him again with that attitude, Roofless). My steering wheel matches the dash perfectly in color, and it's very close in grain. The fact than the solid wood in the wheel looks so different than the **** is interesting; or is it veneer? Apparently the walnut trim has both the steering wheel and **** in darker hue.
I'm 'kewl' with this, really. I initially expected, just as others, to have uniform wood on a $60K car, but that's not possible with real wood. I just saw a new MDX just like the one I'll get for my wife next week, and it has fake wood (yikes!). Perfectly uniform in grain and color, of course. I rather have my wood all day long gentlemen. American fake wood is much crappier than Acura's, but compared to the real thing...it's disgusting, and unexcusable on a $40K+ vehicle IMHO. I'm enjoying my real wood more than ever

Good day.