I'm so sorry to hear that man. Dumb people at dealerships make those of us who actually try to do a good job look bad.

There's no reason why a new piece would not line up unless he didn't use all of the white plastic clips that hold the tabs in the dash. I very highly doubt you would need a new dash unless the car was in an accident or fire that caused massive warpage.

 

Yeah, to me it's not that major.... I can get by, the bumps are very minor for now and only at the top. The rest of the face plate fits just fine. I believe he used all the right clips, I watched him (but didn't have a previous reference to go by). I'm sure down the road, I'll have them try to fix it again.

I'm more concerned about getting my back lighting (as in... radio / ac / sst toggle) working again...

 

Yea, those bumps are right at the clip location. If you have somebody who hasn't done a lot or doesn't really care, it's easy to end up like that. It's possible that could happen when removing the piece too, but highly unlikely, especially since you say it's a new piece they've installed.

The trick is when you have everything out, put the white clips over all of the tabs on the back of the faceplate and lean it into position, top first. Once it's lined up, then press the top two clips in first then work your way down the edges of the face until you get to the area near the hazard switch and you should be good.

 

Update:

Kinda slow to update this.... a few months ago, I went to the dealer again. Same problems, nothing was lining up and the bumps on top were still there. Basically, they ordered another face plate and tried to fit that in. They got it to fit the best they could but there were still the same problems. Duh.
Went home, took the faceplate off and took the radio out of the bracket. Realized that a long time ago when I first brought it in, they put the radio back in, but on the upper bracket holes. This made the radio too high, so the cd player wouldn't line up and it would push up on the dash. I installed the radio in the correct holes in the bracket and everything fits flush and works fine.
What a pain in the a$$ this was!

 

wow. Simply wow. Trained technicans. [shakes head ruefully]