X Type centre console upgrade ?

[Painless]

Hi ,

I am new so please excuse me if this is not the right place for this type of post.

I have an X Type 2.2D estate with a piano black and cream leather Interior. The centre console is grey plastic standard and I would like to either change the whole plastic facia for a piano black one or maybe even just change the ash tray and manual gear stick surround for something better. I have noticed that some models have wood finish ash trays and gear surrounds so I wondered if it is possible to buy these items in various finishes ?

Thanks, Mike.

[Jaguar Owners Club]

Hi Mike...and welcome to the club !

 

I have looked on eBay and there are several different replacement consoles being offered.

May be a bit of work to swap them over but I think the end result would justify the time and expense

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR10.TRC0.A0.Xjaguar+x+type+centre+console&_nkw=jaguar+x+type+centre+console&_sacat=0&_from=R40

 

regards,   Trevor

[Painless]

Thank you Trevor,

I see a black plastic or wood complete console is available no problem as is black plastic or wood finish for the ashtray and gear surround. I wonder if piano black was ever a standard finish for any of those parts ?

Thanks again for the time Trevor : )

Mike.

[Alheoh]

See the interior photos in this thread for an example, the ashtray lid and gear surround in his car are original factory piano black wood. The centre console is fitted with a B&I piano black trim kit.

 

I considered having my centre console done in piano black by using 3M piano black vinyl wrap (the sort they use to wrap car exteriors with, so it should last well). I even got a rather good offer of 50 € for the wrapping of the three pieces (hazard indicator surround, satnav surround and cassette player surround) but only if I were to deliver just the three fascia plates by themselves and without buttons, as that obviously makes the job far less time-consuming. They said that with the buttons attached, it would be "so expensive as to not be worth it". Well, with some patience and a careful attitude, I did find out that it's not very difficult to remove the fascia plates from the car. However, in the end I decided against going through with it, as my interior is mainly granite grey, dove grey and brown wood so adding a big spot of shiny black would've looked out of place in there.

 

I take it your car is a manual model, since they had plastic ashtray lids and gear surrounds? All auto-model had those bits in wood (or carbon fiber or aluminium if a more special interior) from the factory. As you can see in my signature photo, the auto-model pieces are compatible with the manual cars. The piano black interior bits are fairly difficult to find on eBay (as they were rare and generally only come up for sale when a car is crashed and a breaker takes it apart), so my suggestion would be to find the necessary wooden parts in whichever finish and either wrap them yourself or have them wrapped by a professional.

 

The nice thing about piano black is that since it's just shiny black, it's not very difficult to find matching parts unlike with natural wood grain. It took me almost a year to find my steering wheel, and I still haven't found an ashtray lid and a gear surround that match the rest of the wood in my car. The current ones are lighter in shade.