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Lots of options it seems. Thanks for all opinions and guidance. I'm leaning towards a stock replacement since I'm a stock kinda guy. But we shall see. Cheers.
Well, painted and leather were both offered as STOCK factory options. Your dilemma is now solved.
I upgraded to the painted console for my 997 TT earlier this year. It is a fantastic upgrade and the installation is easy. Eric at BumperPlugs made the process easy.
Lots of options it seems. Thanks for all opinions and guidance. I'm leaning towards a stock replacement since I'm a stock kinda guy. But we shall see. Cheers.
Over time and especially in hotter climates, the stock finish will soften with age, making the soft touch finish Porsche uses easy to scratch. You really have to treat it with kid gloves to keep it looking new. If you're going to go through the trouble of swapping out your center console, I'd also suggest swapping for something more durable.
As LexVan pointed out, painted, leather and carbon are all factory options. I wanted to keep my car OEM as well and went with an OEM factory leather center console. I added some carbon bits while I was at it too. The OEM leather is very pricey, but worth every penny to me. (Although I did buy mine several years ago, prices for OEM leather are a lot higher now days for whatever reason.)
I just did a repaint with Eric at Bumper plugs...easy process and the end result was perfect! Price is less than half of the dealer version and the install is very straight forward. Took me about 3 hours...it was the first time I have removed the center console. If you go slow and take out the parts that are in the way on the radio console it goes really smoothly. In my case painting to match the car (speed yellow) looks really sharp. The process with Bumper plugs is easy...you order and they send you the paint part, you remove yours and send it back to them...so your car is only down for the time to do the install.
Over time and especially in hotter climates, the stock finish will soften with age, making the soft touch finish Porsche uses easy to scratch. You really have to treat it with kid gloves to keep it looking new. If you're going to go through the trouble of swapping out your center console, I'd also suggest swapping for something more durable. As LexVan pointed out, painted, leather and carbon are all factory options. I wanted to keep my car OEM as well and went with an OEM factory leather center console. I added some carbon bits while I was at it too. The OEM leather is very pricey, but worth every penny to me. (Although I did buy mine several years ago, prices for OEM leather are a lot higher now days for whatever reason.)
Wow the leather looks great. I have full leather on my c4 so maybe I bite the bullet and go leather for center console too. Yours looks amazing. Really nice.
Mspeedster your leather looks fantastic. I've got full leather in my c4 and now you've got me thinking of doing center console in leather too. Who did the work for you?!
Console removal/installation is very easy. The most difficult part is really just about know how to remove the center stack side cover. After the screws are removed you must pull straight back towards the rear of the vehicle like you are sliding an album out of its cover. If you rock it or don't pull it straight out on the same plane you will break a tab or two. A lot of dealers damage these parts we removing.
Mspeedster your leather looks fantastic. I've got full leather in my c4 and now you've got me thinking of doing center console in leather too. Who did the work for you?!
My console was ordered from suncoast several years ago and it's Porsche factory OEM. My local dealer did the install. There are aftermarket leather outfits that can cover your console in leather and it's the cheaper route for sure. ExclusiveOption does nice work. A painted console is also very popular. But for me, I wanted factory OEM leather.
The deluxe solution from the posts I've seen is to use the repaint service at bumper plugs.com. Our consoles are shown at this link here.
On my current 997.2 the dealer had someone do a fairly decent refinish so I've left it alone. On my prior 997.1 the ashtray coating was pretty scuffed up. I got it looking pretty much perfect by removing the rest of the coating. You couldn't really tell the difference in the coated console and non-coated ashtray unless you looked closely with a flashlight, and even then the ashtray was the better looking of the two.
I did this by removing the ashtray lid, soaking it in hot water, and then rubbing with my thumbs vigorously (repeat several times since it keeps cooling). The coating came out without a lot of difficulty. Here is an "after" photo I took at the time. You can see all of the coating in the sink. I guess you could do the whole console too, but I wasn't brave enough to try.
Brilliant. Did this today on my 997.2 ashtray lid - turned out great. Would never have thought of it. Thank you.
Respraying the center console was my first project when I got my 997. Took about 6hrs on a Saturday morning and the results were amazing. Super easy project to DIY and 1 year later it still looks perfect. The trick is to sand all the soft touch off down to bare plastic. Prior to that I had it "professionally" resprayed when I bought the car and it only lasted 3 months. The guy just painted over the soft touch.
The best way to get the soft touch off is use a sanding wheel on your drill. I found out the hard way that krylon paint prep spray will also remove it but it creates a gummy mess.
10-09-2015, 06:40 AM
