Review: Sherwood Innovations dash kit

[themrfreeze]

I picked up my '09 Vibe back in February, and though it's has many positive features, the interior quality really isn't one of them. The wide expanse of silver painted plastic didn't really do much for me, so I started looking around for something that would spruce up the car's appearance. After looking at a number of dash kits from various manufacturers, I decided on the kit sold by Sherwood Innovations...it seemed to offer just the right amount of sprucing without overdoing it. I opted for the "lavishwood" faux wood kit...what can I say, I'm getting older. They offer the kit in a variety of finishes, including carbon fiber and brushed aluminum for folks who like that kind of look.In any case, the kit includes 10 pieces made of a fairly thin plastic:-center stack-shifter surround-left dash vent-cluster gauge-front door handle "stripe" (both sides)-front door electrical controls (both sides)-rear door window control (both sides) The kit was purchased from 'www.wooddash.com', and cost a shade under $300. Sherwood manufactures a number of real wood dash kits, but since our Vibes have large curved areas, our cars get "3D" molded plastic. The various pieces are held on by an industrial strength double-stick tape that's applied to the kit pieces at the factory. Installation is relatively straightforward. You first do a dry fit of the various pieces to ensure that they fit correctly, then you remove all dust from the dash areas, clean them with rubbing alcohol, apply the included "adhesion promoter" in areas where the tape will attach to the dash, peel off the protective film on the tape, then press the pieces into place.As I was doing the dry fit, I was really impressed with how well most of the pieces fit...they really are about as exact a match as one could possibly make. However, the center stack piece had some extraneous flashing on the back that kept turning on the very touchy hazard button. A few minutes with an X-Acto knife took care of that. Also, one of the rear window button pieces caused the button to hang up a bit, but sliding the X-Acto knife between the button and the kit corrected that. It also seemed to me that the front door handle "stripe" pieces stood a little too proud of the door, and might not adhere all that well, but there wasn't much I could do about it, so I put my faith that Sherwood knew what they were doing.Prepping the areas of the dash went well, but the included adhesion promoter is only a single foil packet with a 1" saturated square cloth in it, which is not nearly enough to do the entire kit. It was pretty obvious from the start, so I used it on the large curved pieces. The pad was dry by the time I got to the mostly flat rear door pieces, so I cleaned them as best I could with alcohol.Actually adhering each piece to the dash went pretty well. For pieces that are in any way tricky, the instructions specified exactly how to install the piece for best results. Eight pieces went well, but my concerns regarding those two front door stripe pieces were well-founded. They do stand a little too proud, so in the end, the area of the piece forward of the handle itself isn't well adhered on the driver's side, and came loose on the passenger side. I e-mailed Sherwood to ask them if they know of any fitment problems with these pieces, but they never replied. Take that as you will.Here are some pictures of the installed dash kit. It may appear as if there are gaps at edges with the silver showing, but that's just glare from the sun:Even with the somewhat poor fit of the front door stripe pieces (subsequent attempts to add more double stick tape haven't helped), I think installing the kit was a worthwhile endeavor. IMHO, the car looks much nicer, and the pieces fit so well that passengers thought it was a factory item, not aftermarket. It would be nice to have two small pieces for the steering wheel, but whether something like that might interfere with the airbag or not, I don't know. Also, those two stripe pieces could have fit better, the price is probably a little steep for faux wood, and Sherwood never replied to my e-mail. So on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating, I'll give this kit a 6.5.

[ou.grizzly]

Now you need a leather interior!

[themrfreeze]

My car's a GT, so I already have that.

[09vGT]

Nifty!

[vibenvy]

Not a fan of the faux wood look, but it looks like a really nice kit .

[Old Tele man]

...now, you need some of that silver back, a little thin accent break-line between the faux-wood and the plastic body panels!

[Kincaid]

It looks like it fits quite well - I like that it doesn't look like pieces of flat stock sitting on top of factory trim.Too bad they don't make a rear door upper piece to match the front.