V2Rocket

what happens is that due to heat and sunlight, a chemical in the vinyl that makes it pliable and soft essentially evaporates, which makes the vinyl non-flexible and brittle.

i like the idea of keeping it slightly 'moist' but sun protection (cheap set of reflective sun visors) will work nicely. not to mention keep your car noticeably cooler

944Ross

The sun's probably pretty rough on them in Zanzibar, eh?!

Yep, the plasticizers are what evaporates. If you buy a brand new car, it takes about a year before the plasticizers quit hazing the inside of the windshield.

hamlin

15 years in the garage... I let her out for fun only.

Cyberpunky

I haven't had my car long but always use a sunshade, as I read here about all the dashes being cracked, and mine isn't, so figured I would take some preventative action to avoid it becoming cracked.

peace

Voith

+1

Get a quality sunshade for windshield and use it if you let your car outside.

Another thing is age. Older dashes crack, newer do not(imo). Porsche obviously changed to better quality material I think in year 1987. (I had more than few dashes trough my hands and all cracked were older than 87)

andys-944

My 87 has a cracked dash but it was a Florida car. The PO had fitted plastic cover to cover them, works well available for roughly $100 from pelican I think, looks pretty good but the fit around the vents could be better. Personally I like the leather route.

sca037

We had our '85.5 for 20 years and the dash didn't crack.
The key was that the car was always garaged at home, and a windshield shade was always used when not at home.
A third thing we did (and many my scoff at this) is that we used Lemon Pledge on the vinyl and rubber bits.
Yes, that furniture polish in the spray can
It worked great on the tires, rubber bumpers and the rear spoiler still looked like new after over 100K miles.

Brian

JohnKoaWood

FWIW, prolonging the onset of cracks is not rocket science... however it is prevention of the onset, not avoiding the cracks that is being done.

The origional dash covers were not vinyl, but PVC (polyvinyl cloride) and over time becomes brittle. this is not an if, but a when.

http://www.frwilk.com/the944/dash.htm

As they age, they WILL become more brittle, the only way to prevent or prolong this is to treat them with chamicals to restore the chemicals that are evaporating as they age, or have the dash recovered in modern materials.

Giantviper

My 1988 N/A has no dash cracks. I Keep it garaged all year round and whenI take it out I put a refleckive sun visor in when parking the car outside. I also use a car cover if it is going to sit outside for a long period of time (more then one overnight).

I Also gice the dash a good cleaingin with armeral at least a few times a year.

whalebird

Pledge and other like polishes are almost 100% silicon.

racer

My '87 has no cracks.. I too think its been garaged much of its life.. plus it only has 42K miles.

I likely should source a good shade or two for those times I do have to leave it out in the sun.

wanta944

I have a few cracks at the defroster vent openings, but it's very minimal. Doesn't bother me at all. The dash still feels kinda spongy and it's not greasy or anything, so I can only assume that the POs didn't use much of anything on there. I've only had it for 7 months now, and I just wipe it down with warm water.

hevquip

Does anyone here apply anything to the rubber bumper stoppers or spoiler to keep the rubber from drying or fading? They don't seem to fall apart like our dashes, but I'm interested in keeping them shiny and a nice black instead of faded in color.

sca037

Not kidding!

Brian

stogie25

http://www.amazon.com/Prima-Nourish-.../dp/B002CSBP9I

It works well on the rubber stuff on the exterior, and on the leather interior.