Last night I checked out my friend's dash on his '01 Ram.  His has
developed a couple cracks up near the center towards the windshield.
His dash is a tan color.  He looked at the dealer and I recall him
sayin over 300 bucks.  He's gonna check a boneyard now.  My '01 is a
darker color gray...and I haven't had any problems.  I use Son of a Gun
on it once a month.  My cousin in Arizona knows guys that go through
dashes being cracked all the time with heat.  Hope some of this helps...

    My '01 has about 70K miles, always parked outside, never use a sun shade.  No
cracks.  Every once in a while I'll use whatever vinyl treatment I have lying around.

My 99 just started cracking, both fascia and dash. Has 65k miles.

I've been eyeing up this one from Geno's Garage for my '99 Ram. It doesn't
look too hard to install.
http://tinyurl.com/9l2w2