Cracked Dashboard: Repair It or Cover It?

A cracked dash isn’t just ugly. Once it starts, the sun keeps working on it every single day.

Sun and heat dry out the plastic in the dash pad. It hardens, shrinks and splits, usually along stress lines and vents. Dark dashes get hotter, so they crack sooner. It won’t heal, and it will keep spreading. For most cars, the best answer is to cover it.

Fix it yourself, or pay a shop?

Here are your real options, cheapest first.

1. Dash cover: custom-fit, hides the damage and blocks the sun. About $75 to $130. This is the one I’d buy.
2. Filler kit: fills small cracks for roughly $20 to $40, but you’ll usually still see them.
3. Dash cap: a molded overlay that fits over the whole dash. The part runs about $100 to $350, and a shop install brings it to roughly $300 to $700.
4. Shop crack repair: roughly $150 to $500, depending on how many cracks and how deep. Get two quotes.
5. Replace the dash: about $900 to $1,500 on older trucks and SUVs, and a lot more on newer cars with airbags and electronics. Mostly labor. Rarely worth it.

Fix it yourself when you’re going with a cover or a cap. Both go on in minutes. A cover hides the damage, it doesn’t repair it, and a buyer can lift the edge and see the cracks. If you’re selling soon, that’s worth knowing.

Pay a shop when you want a true repair or replacement, or when the cracks sit near the passenger airbag. Don’t glue, fill or cut anything over the airbag seam. Many dashes also have a sun sensor on top, so the cover has to be made for your model, with cutouts for it.

A repair may not make sense on a car worth less than the repair. A cover and a sunshade will usually carry you for years.

What I’d buy

Will it get worse if I wait?

Yes. The sun works on it every day, and cracks spread along the vents and the edge nearest the windshield. Put a sunshade in the car today, even before the cover shows up.

Keep it from happening again

Shade, a sunshade and a matte UV protectant a few times a year. If your dash isn’t cracked yet, here’s how to keep it that way.