Project Car Diaries: Fixing Annoying LCD Scratches by Fabricating a New Part

Many cars on the road today, especially models from the '00s decade, have little LCD displays to indicate content like the time or a radio station. I'm already nostalgic for that near-past era of car cockpit design, so my eye's always drawn to the LCD screen in my 2006 Honda Civic. It was all scratched up and I was afraid I'd further damage it trying to clean it, so I decided to just replace it. But first I had to fabricate the new part.

I understand that most people driving older cars would probably rather swap in a modern smartphone-style head unit than update or repair a dated factory radio.

But some of us tragically obsessed car nerds are not "most people." This is how I ended up reverse-engineering a simple piece of a factory Honda part, and then having my own creation custom-fabricated to replicate it. All to save a few hundred bucks and keep the radio of my old Civic looking stock.

I don't want to distract you with a hot take here, but I don't like modern display screens in cars. Getting a non-navigation radio was a big requirement for me when I was shopping for an eighth-gen Civic. I love the clean and simple look of this car's stock radio—it's so much easier to engage with the joy of driving when you don't have the distractions of the internet and a bombardment of notifications on your dashboard.

Saving a Stock Stereo Screen

Unfortunately, at some point in my Civic's life, somebody used an ill-advised interior cleaning technique, scuffing the hell out of the radio's LCD screen and leaving weird spots on the plastic. It was probably a using cleaner that had ammonia and a harsh paper towel—always, at a minimum, only use car-interior-specific products to clean car interiors. Many interior elements are sensitive and can be uglified by the wrong cleaners.

My options from there were: Ignore it (most popular), try to clean and buff the screen, replace the whole radio head unit with a used one (which might also be damaged), or replace the radio with a brand-new one (expensive, if even possible to find).

Meanwhile, the radio's backlighting died, which was the motivation I needed to actually take it apart. I learned that these Civic radios don't have easily replaceable bulbs for button backlighting, but rather LEDs on a circuit board that would need soldering to reconnect. Somebody uploaded a tutorial to YouTube, but it doesn't actually show the repair very clearly so I wasn't confident in my ability to replicate it.

"I'll just grab another radio then," I figured. After a week or two trawling listings (Si-specific radios, with red lighting, are a little tougher to find than the standard blue-lit ones) I had an allegedly working unit to try.

The LCD on my new-used radio was definitely nicer than my outgoing one, but it still had a few pretty deep scratches that I wasn't stoked about. As I was fiddling with the old radio, now out of the car, I realized that the heavily scratched clear screen was its own piece, not a fused part of the lit LCD display itself as I'd previously assumed. It was a mild eureka moment; I instantly determined I should just replace the clear plastic with a fresh, unmarred piece.

My first thought was to find the part number and just see if any of my usual parts suppliers could get me one. But it turned out it didn't have its own number—the clear slit was simply considered a part of a part, namely the radio faceplate which lists at a hefty $550. That didn't turn out to matter, though. The clear piece popped out its mount with minimal finger force, and better yet, it was a very simple shape.

"Let's just make a new little piece of plastic," I told Bramble the dog, who was supervising my work as usual.

It's possible that you could find some clear acrylic, plastic, or plexiglass at a hardware or craft store. Cutting those could be done at home too, with the right tools and a steady hand. But I found a fabrication solution I like much better: the online custom laser-cutting outfit SendCutSend.