Will Corvette C7 leather wrapped dashboards bubble up and peel like their counterparts in the C6 generation?

One of less known to the outside world but quite infamous among the Corvette owners issues is the truly massive problem with the so called premium interior in the sixth generation of Corvette.  The premium interior, introduced in 2009 to supposedly add "world class" to the bland but functional Corvette interior in essence consisted of leather wrapped dashboard and door panels, using decorative stitching.  The trim levels consisted of 4LT for base car and 3LZ and 3ZR for Z06 and ZR1 cars, respectively.  This option was quite expensive, about $8k over the lowest trim level.

The leather wrapped dashboard was ironically done by none other than German company, Draexlmeyer, the same company responsible for supplying luxury interiors for brands like Mercedes Benz, among many others.

Since the leather wrap look very good and certainly added a touch of class to the Corvette, this option was very popular, especially among ZR1 and Z06 buyers.

After about a couple of years of ownership, all of the sudden, the buyers of the premium interior optioned cars started to find out a rather disturbing problem: their dashboards started to show signs of leather bubbling up and eventually lifting off on all exposed edges.

The problem continues to haunt C6 owners until this very day and it will continue forever.  To +General Motors credit, many of these dashboards have been replaced even with warranty expired on the affected cars, most often with a rather symbolic copayment but... in a few years, the replacement dashboards will go through exactly the same failure, this is unavoidable.

What is the problem here?  The problem is rather simple and relates directly to GM, not the leather wrapped dashboard suppliers.  The way the dashboards were wrapped with leather amounted to original vinyl dashboard pad getting a layer of adhesive and leather wrap stuck to it.  This is not exactly how real leather dashboards are constructed but GM would never allow for a separate dashboard design to accommodate the leather covering. 

Usually, as ghetto this solution is, it tends to work but typically only as long as the adhesive holds up.  Even though the adhesive used on Corvette dashboards is a very good one, it started failing and very prematurely so.  Why?  The problem lies with the original vacuum formed vinyl dashboard pad used as a core for the leather wrap.  Anyone owning sixth generation of Corvette has to deal with white hazy substance spontaneously appearing on top of all vinyl surfaces all over the interior.  Annoying but easily corrected problem, requiring a periodic wiping of the surfaces. 

The cause of this haze had to do with volatile organic compounds migrating to the surface and forming a thin white film, apparently the vinyl formulation GM used promoted this process much more than other formulations.  Of course GM never corrected the problem because it was supposedly a minor inconvenience.

However, when this process took place on the dashboards covered with leather, this led to the massive failures in adhesion between the leather and the vinyl base.  Needless to say, there is no effective solution to this problem, as long as the GM supplied vinyl pads are being used, the adhesive will always fail and bubble up the leather.

Fast forward to the latest Corvette.  Surprise surprise, the vinyl used on the Stingrays shows exact same signs of hazing, this is very apparent with cars that sit at the dealerships for a while and dealer forgets to wipe the haze off.  Here is another surprise, the latest generation of Corvette uses the exact same process of so called leather wrapping on the dashboard, with the leather being glued to the vinyl covered surface.  What does this mean?  The chances are very good that in a few months, the owners of the cars equipped with the leather wrapped dashboards will start experiencing the exact same problems as the previous generation. 

Considering the premium this option costs and the strong possibility of replacement dashboards not fitting correctly or other parts being damaged during the rather lengthy replacement process (using the flawed replacement parts), owners of these cars are in for a truly aggravating experience, to further compound their frustrations resulting from other parts of the newest Corvette breaking down.

By now, it is already well documented that the defrost vents  are warping in large numbers, time to add this upcoming attraction for the happy owners to look forward.  Of course as aggravating this may be to the owners of these cars, they cannot be complaining about not being forewarned.