My '96 Explorer has a tan colored dashboard. While carting some supplies, I managed to get it scuffed in a few places on the air bag panel above the glove box, resulting in what appears to be a greyish vinyl background showing through. There are no gouges to speak of -- it looks like just some paint was scraped off and it's on the passenger-side air bag panel only.. It appears to me that, as this panel is a separate piece with a groove all around it, it could be masked off and spray-painted. Can someone please advise on the proper repair procedure, and what spray paint type and color to use? Thanks. Len
Check with a genuine automotive paint store for spray cans of "dashboard paint", don't just use stuff from the hardware store. You may not be able to get something that completely matches other then completely re-spraying the whole dash. You could also check with the dealer to see if they have it. It's been a long time since I messed with replacing soft dash parts but the deal when I did was that after the first year or two you could not necessarily get the parts in the original color anymore and the replacement parts were whatever color was still available, could be black, blue, red, etc. You had to get the vinyl spray paint and paint them. Back then there were no airbags and the soft dash was usually all one piece so you always had to paint it all. If you are seeing a grayish vinyl background under the scratch I would suspect (if you bought the vehicle used) that it's been in an accident and the airbag went off and they got a "wrong color" replacement part and painted it, just like you now need to do. The painted stuff scratches much much easier then the factory new parts that have the color thruout the whole upper layer of vinyl. I had a red 76 blazer that I put a new dash in and could only get a blue one, which I sprayed red. It looked great after I sprayed it but it did suffer a couple of small scratches that showed the underlying blue color.
Thanks.I think you're correct. No luck with dealer or usual sources of automotive touch up paint. Dealer referred me to a specialty repair shop -- haven't seen them yet. Was hoping this would be a DYI project, but think that off-the-shelf color match won't be possible.
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