jginnane

It has been a while since people visited the subject of wood dash add-on kits for the TSX.

For my wife's new PWP, we were looking at the Acura OEM wood dash add-on kit (which is sold by handa-accessories.com and hondacuraworld.com for ~$280, significantly cheaper than your local dealer). This 9-piece kit looked pretty good so we ready to order.

THEN, last night, I ran across http://www.exoticwooddash.com and saw their wood kit for the TSX -- kit #WD518, $218 + shipping (makes it $230.50). Same price w/ or w/o navi -- they change a couple pieces.

But here's the catch: the complete kit from these people has 24 or 25 pieces. Like what's in the TSX, it's "real wood" (or plood, as an old thread here would call it). Includes the glove compartment, overhead console, some around the air vents, etc.

That's the "full kit" at the above price. If you've already had the Acura add-on installed, this company also has a "basic kit" which is everything (12/13 pieces) that isn't in the official OEM set.

So, now I'm ready to go this way (instead of OEM), but thought I'd ask first if anyone has installed a kit from this company? Is it equivalent to what you would get by paying more for official Acura merchandise? (They paid Yahoo for search engine placement.)

TIA,
John

id888

For the record, I have not added any more plood to my interior, but that's not going to stop me from replying.

When I first purchased the car, I looked into OEM and third party wood kits. With the Acura kit, you get a handful of pieces of plastic that have two-way tape on the back. Most importantly, these pieces of plastic exactly match the big piece of plastic that runs across the dash of the car.

The aftermarket kits vary in thickness, quality, and material. Many of them require you to irreversibly mar the finish of the OEM plastic in order to get the new stuff to stick with some special adhesive. There is no guarantee that the aftermarket kits will match that special orange color of the original plood that is so reviled on this board.

Dan Martin

I really don't like the look of a plood interior. I especially don't like the looks of the stick-on type that covers the OEM plastic. IMO, if you are going to put plood in a car it had better replace the OEM plastic. I can spot stick-on plood from a 100 paces.

TSXhopefull

the kits with a whole bunch of pieces look ghetto and tacky. If you did get the cheap one, I'd only put pieces where the OEM kit was supposed to go. Wood around the vents? Pretty tasteless.

crisco

I'm interested in the brushed aluminium kit they offer. But I have a few questions. What's the difference between a 'flat' dash kit and the 'molded' dash kit that these types of companies offer? Is the flat kit simply a set of stickers? and the molded ones are real pieces of plastic? They also offer an OEM match - how is this different from either the wood or aluminium that they also offer?

jginnane

Very helpful comments here.

After a lot of introspection, we wound up ordering a kit today. I mean -- yeah, it's tacky old plood, but if it's not too far off from the Acura original, we'll save a few bucks (and she thinks we ought to have "something".

But I don't intend to put it all on, and that's right, vent covers are one likely peel-n-stick that won't get done. The overhead console? Well... if it looks good, that's an actual advantage for this kit. And over by the glove compartment, hmm, I don't see any pressing need for "improvement" there, so maybe we'll have some extra plood to put on miscellaneous car parts under the hood.

Crisco's comment on flat vs molded is (I think) that the flat cheapo stuff is essential Contact paper, and the molded stuff has a little goop behind it. But none of this stuff is "real wood".

And finally, OEM match vs the finishes -- this is an area where if we wanted to try to be creative, we could get rosewood or oak (depending on preference). I don't think you want to ever mix wood-looks, but if you don't have any plood in your car to start with, you might get any interesting combination.

Put it this way -- my first job ever was as a soda jerk, and I got to try every possible combination of ice cream sundae. Titanium and dutch elm? Brushed nickel and green Home Depot pressure-treated pine? The possibilities are endless, and ghastly. But they don't seem to offer bamboo, so no one's going to tag you with a "rice" label just for plooding. :-)

jginnane

As mentioned, we ordered the plastic wood kit from http://www.exoticwooddash.com and it arrived today.

Wish I had good news to share. :-(

The flat shipping box was smashed in one one side. Clear plastic sealed the cardboard -- but you could see that there was a paper seal inside the plastic, and it had been broken. So I called up their 800 number to tell them.

The girl on the phone said "Open the box" and I did -- a few of the pieces had fallen off the backing, a few had minor but visible damage. She said she was shipping out a new set.

Then tonight, I asked my wife what she thought of it, and we took the kit down into the garage to match the finish of the installed plood. (This is the parchment interior, so you get the fake blond wood). And here's where the kit really lost out.

In daylight, the "plood" is not a bad match. But at night, under any sort of artificial light at all, the kit turns a dingy brown -- almost a chestnut/mud tone. The Acura plood keeps a warm fluorescence under household incandescent or halogen bulbs, or under sodium street lights. The "exotic wood dash" plood has a very different chemical composition -- maybe zinc oxide instead of titanium dioxide.

I'm sure we'll get our $230. back because they warrant this to be an OEM match, and it isn't even close. And I'm sure we'll wind up getting an "official Acura" kit now.

I would use this company, though, if I was trying to get a metallic finish (to go with the existing plood) or perhaps a plood finish to go with metal trim. They cut the pieces pretty well. And they could do with a better shipping container.

But if you're trying to get the same thing that's already in your car (and save a few bucks over the OEM kit), this isn't the way to do it.

Crazytree

Sounds like a great name for a new subforum!

jginnane

I'm really trying to be nice to them. For this stuff that they sell for about $2,000 a pound, there's not fifty cents' worth of difference to use the right materials in the first place. All the rest is marketing, packaging, marketing, and profit ... what do you think it costs Honda to make the official Acura kit, anyways?

hjd73

I had the wood trim added in the Parchment interior and ended up getting the dealer to pull it out and refund my money.

The "veneer" adds too much thickness and the buttons on the drivers side door did not work well. The door lock unlock was sticky as it scraped on the side of the overlay and the heated seat buttons scraped as well. The look was good, but the buttons did not feel nearly as good as they were recessed. I was surprised at how much I did not like the "feel" of it after installation. I ordered it expecting it to be a replacement of the plastic not an "add-on". I am much happier with the black now and the better feel of the switches and buttons.

They were able to get all the plastic off without any marks.

jginnane

hjd, that's really good for me to know. I'm showing my wife your comment, and it's very likely we'll think extra hard about trying it again -- $280 for 9 pieces of official Acura plood.

She has already expressed interest in getting a metallic trim look to complement or replace the existing plood, and I've told her that's a really tall order.

Why am I the least bothered by Acura plood? Because the way they do it, it looks like these _could_ be actual pieces of wood. Back in the days of my '78 Grand LeMans, plood was the flat template for the dashboard cutout. Detroit didn't even make a _bad_ attempt to hide the fakeness. And you'd drive down the street and there'd be a POS "Woodie" with the contact paper shards flapping in the breeze.

jginnane

hjd, that's really good for me to know. I'm showing my wife your comment, and it's very likely we'll think extra hard about trying it again -- $280 for 9 pieces of official Acura plood.

She has already expressed interest in getting a metallic trim look to complement or replace the existing plood, and I've told her that's a really tall order.

Why am I the least bothered by Acura plood? Because the way they do it, it looks like these _could_ be actual pieces of wood. Back in the days of my '78 Grand LeMans, plood was the flat template for the dashboard cutout. Detroit didn't even make a _bad_ attempt to hide the fakeness. And you'd drive down the street and there'd be a POS "Woodie" with the contact paper shards flapping in the breeze.