[M2OG]

Originally Posted by bimmermasterpieces

Dear Natek,
In response to your claim that attaching leather or Alcantara directly on the existing dashboard with glue would be cheaper and easier, consider the following:

1. You would need really strong, heat resistant glue that would prevent the alcantara / leather from releasing or rippling in the summer heat.
2. Most guys would want to be able to sell their car in an original state. The method you suggest would not allow one to do this, resulting in a lower resell value. Removing the leather / Alcantara would result in irreparable damage to the dashboard.
3. For a very good result (OEM-Level) it would be necessary to use a special heat resistant flexible foam between the leather / Alcantara and the dashboard to prevent the stitching from rising up way too much in comparison to the rest of the surface. Which would look nasty.
4. To apply the leather / Alcantara perfectly using glue and apply it evenly, ensuring that the stitching is still super tight and neat, it needs to be done on a workbench. Doing this inside the car, with the windscreen still there is not feasible. Or do you suggest to remove the windscreen entirely.
5. To suggest that the method you propose would be cheaper kinda baffles us. Our experience is that a automotive upholstery workshop needs significant time to prepare the template in leather / Alcantara.
6. How would you ensure a neat and tight fitting at the bottom of the leather / Alcantara. Our hood the leather is folded and glued on the inside (of our mould). This ensures a 100% alignment to the dashboard.
7. Placing our dashboard hood takes no more that 10 minutes. Our upholstery department estimates your method would take as much as 5 hours, notwithstanding the appalling result.
8. Finding the exact yarn colour is an expert task. BMW does not provide any cooperation and definitely will not provide any yarns to third parties. Which is why we have ours produced for us exclusively to match the BMW yarn exactly.

All the best,
Angela

Thanks for this, I meant that it would be cheaper to wrap only the cluster vs the entire dash. I wasn't trying to say that it's cheap and easy. It's neither.