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Below is the beginning of an article discussing Vinyl care on the Car Care Specialties website. A site well worth checking out. I have purchased products they recommend and found what they say about various products accurate. "Vinyl is the carefully prepared hide of virgin pampered Arctic Naugas. Many Naugas must die to furnish enough material for just one interior panel (Just kidding). The dash, door panels, seat backs and numerous other interior/exterior trim pieces are usually vinyl. Vinyl may be viewed as raw semi-liquid vinyls that are held in place by a solid vinyl "skin" (this description is for illustration only and not a Ph.D. chemical dissertation). The dash and other vinyl parts are constantly bombarded by UV that breaks down the molecules of the skin, allowing the raw vinyls to escape. This is referred to as "off-gassing". These vinyls may deposit themselves on the glass, forming a haze that is difficult to remove. If you have such a haze, it is probably your dash that had decided to pick up stakes and migrate. Most nationally advertised over the counter silicone oil based products do not usually contain UV protectants and the silicone oils may act as a magnifying glass, intensifying the UV degradation. Silicone oil may also dissolve the essential oils in the vinyl skin, hastening the premature formation of cracks in the vinyl skin. A quality cleaner/dressing product will contain a UV protectant and essential oils to replace lost oils from the vinyl. These protectants are very expensive, so the K-Mart specials may do more harm than good. Silicone oil also has a very strong electrostatic attraction which may be considered beneficial in that it will tend to stay where it is placed, but will also attract every dust particle in the surrounding three counties. Many nationally advertised Vinyl products also contain formaldehyde. As you can imagine, this is not particularly beneficial to the vinyl. © 1999 Car Care Specialties, Inc. All Rights Reserved." See their website for details and product recommendations. http://www.carcarespecialties.com/ You can buy from them, but you can check various local shops for them also. The only place in the Sacramento area that had even some of them is local speed shop more known for their catering to the racing/chrome crowd. When I run out, I'll but from them directly. Jeff '67 Sqbk -----Original Message----- >>After all is said and done now, what sort of product should I use to >> >>protect my dash? actually, mark's sort of right, you could use any of the regular armorall, or a vynall protector for your car, that or go to a local Upholstery shop and they can set you up with some stuff, heh if you give me a bit I'm heading home and I"ll go ask my old boss about the filler for cracked dashes (yeah you don't really have to replace it at all, I know this from doing Show car interiors) ------------------------------------------------------------------- List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list or mailto:help@vwtype3.org