I remember when the car first came out there were rumours Acura would offer a wood replacement for the center console area. Having seen a pic on an RL with wood there I think it'd look nice.

Anyone know if Acura plans to do this?

 

It looks good here, a nice improvment.

 

That interior color is gorgeous...I wish Acura would take more chances over here. I especially love the Amaretto interior on the new A6--it's gorgeous

 

Yeah that's the pic I saw. I want that for my RL.

 

I hope it will be. I love it on my TL.

 

I love that custom wood-work, Ken...looks really sharp. You have any closeups of the grain? What kind of wood did you say you installed? It kind of looks like the Vavona BMW put on their 740i/iL sport models for the last generation

 

How does the shift knob come off? Can I just twist it off? I have tried to but it is tight and I dont want to give it some muscle and have the thing get fugged up on me.

 

Rob L:
It twists off counterclockwise. Little scary at first but you will not fug things up, trust me.

Re the wood. Yeah, like it a lot, wish it had come standard, would pay (but not too much) for it. Actually, I wouldn't have minded a different color or wood for the control panel (button area). I think the silver is not as classy as ebony (I have ebony interior) or wood or even the darker "bronze?" of the other metal-look hardware in the RL. I definitely would have decreased the labels on the buttons ...keeping it simple... why have SEEK/SKIP Category and DISP_Mode when SEEK and Mode do just fine. Here's one place where four-letter-words have a place!

 

Thanks for the info legendguy. The knob mus be on there pretty tight because wiht my old IS300 the knob could be twisted a lot easier. I'll give it a go on the RL's shift knob maybe tomorrow.

I also agree about the labels and the silver finish of the center stack. It looks ok but could have been calssier looking. To me it just seems a bit weird with the silver around the grey buttons and inserts. A single (darker) colour I think would have looked better for the stack.

I sure do hope they offer a wood option for the center console.

 

I agree. I'm not an RL owner and this may annoy a few who are owners, but to me it seems like the designers wanted a techno-lux look, but they emphasized the techno much more when it came to the center stack. I never liked the all metal look on it. And I also agree that the metal is kind of on the bright side. It's OK in the TL, but in the RL the metal is thicker so it's more on the eyes.

Anyway, I'm bored and I have photoshop, so here's my stab at what I think would look better for the RL. I also extended the wood past the cupholder lid, cause in that other pic posted, the wood covered only to there and IMO it looked like an aftermarket thing. And I made the metal stacks a little darker and less contrasting.

 

Holy cow phile!!! That's whot ahm talkin' about man! Now for Acura to put that in would have cost a couple hundred for us more at the checkbook, but I wonder how much more for aftermarket? I seem to remember some aftermarket TSX or TL wood, will look into. The center stack piece may be tricky in wood since it has all the button cut-outs. One can only wish though . I got to get me that Photoshop CS. Nice work phile!

 

Here are the places listed in the TL forum:

Veneerz.com
Exoticwooddash.com
Woodtrim.com
Autoanything.com

Nothing for 2005 RL yet though.

 

Yeah man that looks tight with the wood for the center stack. I havent been a fan of previous cars with the center stack all done in wood but IMO it looks nice in that PS pic.

All I know is they should have gone with black or something for the middle.

 

Just wanted to let folks know that these sites (Veneerz.com, Exoticwooddash.com, Woodtrim.com, Autoanything.com) have a place where you can "contact" SALES. That is what I did, sent one an email about the desire for a wood trim kit for the center stack and shift console. It would be cool if everyone sent them emails to let them know you are interested. Just an idea.

 

STAY CLEAR of ExoticWood Dash as they were horrible to deal with ! Also they shipped the WRONG color product for my 2004 RL and made me pay to ship it back before they would ship the correct one and REFUSED to credit my card ! I also believe my CREDIT CARD number was taken by one of their LAME employees as I had FRAUDILENT charges on my credit card out of Arizona where they are located ! I WOULD AVOID THIS BUSINESS LIKE A BAD DEALERSHIP !
FARE WARNING !

 

Hmmm, well I heard back from Exoticwooddash and they already have the pieces for the vents, center stack, shift surround, cupholder, etc in the works (about 2 weeks they said in an email reply. Woodtrim.com also has the kit coming.

Fabsix, how did your dealing with Exoticwooddash eventually work out. Its seems like they could have reasonably wanted to charge your card to send the corrected one out until they received the mistaken order back. This has happened to me before (company wanted to either receive my defective phone back before they sent me a new one, or could charge out for the new one and issue refund once defective one received, my choice) so I guess I would want to know if issue was resolved fairly in the end. As to someone there stealing you credit card #, well there can always be a bad apple. I believe you are right to be guarded about this but would like more info good or bad to decide.

Anyway, this is probably heading to an offer for a group buy. Anyone done this before??

 

I'm a customer service fanatic. I rate them with caution.
Product was B+, because of my unpleasant experience and the nice guy I am, I just kept it and said "oh well"........I'm just warning you ! I am a very easy going person, but know excellent, good and bad ! Those folks are

 

they are designing wood trim for the vents? Hmm, that seems like overkill since there is a big slab of wood going past the vents in the first place. Also, the blackish blue trim around the vents is cool. It has sparklies in it

I look forward to seeing an RL with this kit on the center console and also center stack.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I've always found aftermarket wood kits on luxury cars as really rediculous...then again, I've always been more of the stock kind of guy. If it's done right, it can look good (like Ken's wood kit). But with wood, especially, only the manufacturer can make it look really good. I think Acura needs to make an accessory for the RL that adds more wood.

But style is a very personal thing, so all the power to you if you want to put aftermarket wood in your car...it adds variety.

 

Yeah I agree. I have found aftermarket kits to look cheesy so I want to see what this kit will look like on the RL and have hopes it'll look nice.

Also Agree Acura should have a wood trim accessory kit.

 

Ditto here.

The vents that are wood-trimmed would be the round ones located in the plastic part of the dash. Agree that trimming the ones in the wood part would not make sense, not even sure if trimming the round ones would make sense.

The nice thing about these wood trim kits is they supply you with an excess of trimmed parts but you can pick and choose how many to apply. Personally, I would probably be happy to do the center stack and just the (fake) aluminum surrounding the shift knob. The rest I would keep as is. I am just bugged by these two areas of bright aluminum in an otherwise subdued interior. And of course this is just one opinion and probably anal at that.

I would hope that a sample could be had to compare the wood to ours. The curly maple is just about the perfect wood for this car IMHO and I would not want to add something that detracted.

 

I would like to see the addition of another wood trim, for the beige interior and for the taupe.

Here's Birch in the new A6


And maybe Grey Birch for the Taupe interior, like this A8


Or even Birch on Ebony, like this A8, as well...

 

whoa, that A8 is a forest on wheels! Nice colors though. I would be happy with just a little more curly maple for the Ebony interior.

 

Here is the actual image of our RL (in ebony) with the kit that Exoticwood sent me.



Like I said, you can choose not to add all the pieces they send you if you don't want to (obviously). I think it is novel that they made a piece for the shift gate too. I would like to see what this would (no pun ) look like with the Acura wood knob.

 

To clarify, that is the IMAGE sent to me from exoticwood, not picture of MY car.

 

hmm, I don't see an image loading up for me. Is it my browser or did you not post it correctly?

Oh and I also dont like the plate around the shift gate. It looks cheap.

 

Yeah, no image.

 

Let me try again. I saved the email attachment to My Pictures, loaded it to imagestation.com, then copied the address from Properties, and attached as an "insert image" here. Looked fine in the Preview Post.




There, see it now?

 

All I see is a red x...though I shouldn't be complaining...my pictures on my last post seem to have expired and feature no color anymore--thanks alot, Audi configurator

 

Jeez, it was really there when I went and looked at it 5 and 10 minutes later! Then when I went back after an hour, it...was...gone?! Not sure what I am doing wrong. Actually the pic looked a lot like Philes photochop except that the lighter flip-cover is not done in wood veneer. Otherwise you can look at Philes photo for the same view essentially.

 

Wait...now the color is back to my pictures...this is some funky shtuff...the internet sure is a strange and weird place, full of mystery and illusion...

 

I see the image of the RL with the kit. Not feeling the center stack wood...I liked the photoshopped image posted earlier better.

The lighter cover should have wood and I think I'd also not want to change the shift plate with wood trim. I'd rather get it in black or something. I find wood around the gate to give the center an overload of wood.

 

Perhaps just the center stack and shiftgate in wood then. I think that would look good with the surrounding console left as-is in the beige, taupe, or black.

A question for anyone with experience with these trim pieces. Do you simply stick them on or do you take off some trim first and replace with the kit piece? Seems like a stick-on would have to be pretty thin not to stick out beyond some already almost-flush buttons.

 

I was at the exoticdash website and they just stick on top of the existing plastic.

Too bad they don't make actual pieces that you have to install rather than what basically is a micro thin wood sticker.

 

Agreed RobL... this is why an OEM kit would be preferred. Too bad with all the optional equipment they didn't come up with this idea (yet). I would prefer a wood kit over a spoiler personally.

Still, I will check out the aftermarket kit when it comes out. If they can send a sample piece and it is thin but still looks good (and is a match), I will do it.

 

Found a website for the company that makes some of the wood dash kits:
B&I Trim Products
Thre is also a larger view of the wood dash kit:
Ebony Interior with Wood Dash Kit

I don't seem to see a price listed and no answer on the phone today (Saturday). Maybe somebody can call next week to get details ... Perhapz even inquire about a group buy discount.