Hello everyone, great forum

Could anyone let me know where can I get Custom Gauge Faces in black for my r56 mini ?

thanks

 

outmotoring.com used to offer some, but i believe they are no longer available. DuelAG makes a nice looking set, but they are way overpriced, just like the rest of their products. I think the reason you are having trouble finding them is that it is a major pain to replace the stock gauge faces and it requires more work than most people find worthwhile. from what i remember, you pretty much have to disassemble the entire dash to do the job.

 

Do you like the dark grey color that comes in the JCWs?

You do have to remove a lot to do the swap, but it's really not that bad. I just got done taking it all apart for something else and could now do it in 15-20 minutes.

 

I got my black gauge faces about 9 mo ago from outmotoring, and love them. Getting the gauges out is the easy part, but changing the faces is tricky. The hardest part was taking the needles off, which required a lot of force, had me worried about breaking. The other tricky thing is registering the needles correctly on reassembly. I ended up by accident correcting the standard MINI speed overestimation on the speedo, and that is quite welcome. The black faces are nice and fit so much better in style. The numbers look different than stock, and are a tad broader in font and a hint less sharp. The warning lights all work except one that does not have the shine through area (can't remember which, maybe the one for sport mode?), and all are dimmer than stock, which I actually appreciate, though the cruise ctrl one is so dim it's hard to see. The auto brightness adjust still works, so the light sensor receives enough input. Overall, for me this works and was well worth the effort.

 

Hello, thank you for the replies
cerenkov, do you have the dark grey ones for sale ot know where can I buy them ? I recentlly asked Vinyl Styles https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...uge-faces.html for black ones but they dont do them anymore :(

 

Outmotoring still does list them on their site for $130 in red, blue, black, grey, checker and white. I previous had asked them about a mixed order (black and blue) and they would do that for a higher price. One thing I like about their faces is that they look less cluttered.

 

Here are some pics of the outmotoring black gauge faces:
One shows the two tach faces next to one another, uninstalled.
The other two show the installed black faces.

 

The other change I did all in one go was to repaint the silver trim rings in the exterior Lightning Blue. These two pictures show the before and after. While I was at it I also painted the needle centers for both tach and speedo, and the glove compartment button. Just didn't like all the chrome and silver on the dash.
These before and after pictures just to whet your appetite for black gauge faces. I personally like them a lot more than the silver ones. The other thing I like better about the blacks, is that the control lights don't show when off, and so the faces on the whole appear less cluttered.

 

Here's a poor picture of the black tach and the JCW gauges, lit up. It's the only pic with lit gauges I have right now, will try to take some better ones. The black gauges obviously also work a lot better with the OEM JCW add-on gauges.
Found a better pic of lit gauges and added it.

 

I had the outmotoring gauge faces on my R53 and was really underwhelmed with the quality of them at night. There was light bleed in a number of areas and the various notification lights had mediocre clarity.

 

You can buy them new from the dealer or places like ECS Tuning or used from eBay or salvage yards. It would be the whole unit and not just the face though, more expensive but much easier to swap.

 

Sorry for resurrecting a dead thread, but do you know how to make a replacement tach sync up with my car? I found a JCW tach on eBay for $40usd but once installed I’m getting a bunch of warning lights telling me my automatic transmission (I have a 6mt) needs servicing