mr2 seats reupholster or not?

[jasenklems]

you can try your local interior shop and ask them or you could try and ask a toyota dealer.

[james_98188]

About fabric seat upholstery; I once spotted a MkII in a Home Depot parking lot with gorgeous fabric covered seats, and waited for him to come out so I could ask him where he got them. He just looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language, then I realized that he wasn't a gearhead and the seats were in that condition when he bought the car.

It turns out that if you want to reupholster the factory seats in fabric, you'd have to have an upholstery shop do it from scratch and it won't be cheap.

After visiting two Katskin installers and a custom upholstery shop, I ended up going with Leatherseats.com, and will then have the upholstery shop do the actual installation as some seat pad rebuilding will likely have to be done. I've seen some installations people have done at home and, while they didn't look bad, the upholstery didn't seem to lay quite right on the seats.

I wanted my seats to resemble the factory tan as much as possible, but also wanted the seat center section to be in suede (which is always really a synthetic suede, as there's no such thing as automotive grade real suede) to keep them from being too "slippery." Both Katskin and Leatherseats.com had "Bisque" leather, which I thought was the best match of the factory tan, but Leatherseats.com was the only one who had a suede that came close to matching. It's a custom order suede called "Latte." I'll be getting the door panel inserts done in "Latte" suede too, and will get both the seat inserts and the door panel inserts perforated to duplicate the factory look.

I just placed my order, and will be getting it in about four weeks.

For what it's worth, one of the two Katskin installers I visited (Classic Soft Trim) seemed to really know their business and had more color choices than the other one, but didn't have what I was looking for. The other installer didn't impress me at all. I even found a Katzkin supplier who'd just provide me with the upholstery, but they still didn't have the suede color I was looking for. I thought the guy at Leatherseats.com was very professional and helpful in finding something that'd work for me.

James

[zoomlfe]

I got my driver's seat reupholstered and added extra foam to it. It's much more comfortable now. The fitment is fantastic and it looks and feels like a brand new seat. It matches the old passenger seat with no problem. But if you look real carefully, you'll notice that the new seat is plumper with the extra foam. I'm satisfied with the results even though it cost a little more than throwing on a seat cover. But retaining the OEM look while making the seat more comfortable worked out for me.

[midngn]

Has anyone tried to use the leather seat covers on ebay that cost about $3-$400 a set? Easy to install? Do they last? etc.

[onebadmr]

alot of the guys on mr2oc Have had great success with Leatherseats.com but I just had my Factory 91s completely redone.

[james_98188]

Originally Posted by midngn

Has anyone tried to use the leather seat covers on ebay that cost about $3-$400 a set? Easy to install? Do they last? etc.

Well, here's the deal; if the eBay seller has sold a lot of 'em with mostly positive feedback, they're probably okay if you're not looking for anything special. Easy to install? No. Do they last? Probably.

While some seem to have had good results installing these kits themselves, I'd really recommend finding a local upholsterer and having them doing it for you. It'd probably cost you about an extra $500 or so, but here's my reasoning:

1) We're talking about seats that are pushing 20 years old here. There will likely be a need for some rebuilding of the padding, etc, and a professional upholsterer will have more experience doing that kind of work - and hence produce better results.

2) These kits often don't follow the factory pattern exactly, and can require some additional work (stitching, etc) to get them installed properly. If you take on that responsibility and screw it up, I'd guess the kit supplier wouldn't be likely to take it back. I'd rather have the upholsterer assume that responsibility.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

[Archidamus-R]

Yeah. I guess the question is, then, where's the line between some decent aftermarket seats and redoing the originals? Or even getting low-mileage OEM seats from another car? The 2's seats are nice, but I don't care enough about factory originality to spend that much extra on the stock seats . . .

[james_98188]

Originally Posted by Archidamus-R

Yeah. I guess the question is, then, where's the line between some decent aftermarket seats and redoing the originals? Or even getting low-mileage OEM seats from another car? The 2's seats are nice, but I don't care enough about factory originality to spend that much extra on the stock seats . . .

Here's what my seats used to look like:

Before1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

And here's what they look like now:

After1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I wanted to retain the factory look, and think the leatherseats.com "bisque" leather outers match it pretty well, and the custom order "latte" suede centers match pretty well too. The suede reflects the light a little funny; they look a lot better in person then in the picture. I wanted the suede centers to make the seats a little less "slippery" in the corners.

One thing I don't care for much - but I imagine I'll get over in time - is the gap between the seat bottom and back. that was because of the leatherseats.com pattern being a little different than the factory pattern. They ended up having to stitch on some additional fabric where it wouldn't show to make it hold together properly.

Now, about recovering vs. replacing. If you could find a nice pair of used MR2 seats in the right color for a good price, sure, go for it. I was able to buy some nearly new tan factory carpeting that'd been sitting in someone's garage for ten years - but remember, these cars are approaching 20 years old, so what'd be the odds?

As the car will be used primarily for street use, with only some occasional track time, I didn't want full racing seats. But head clearance in my T-Topped car, especially while wearing a helmet is marginal, and I really don't want to lose even a fraction of an inch. Unless any new sound ideas come up, about the only aftermarket seats I'd consider would be the Recaro SRDs that had some original MR2 applications. They're really rare now and used set in good condition would cost you between about $900 and $1,200 depending on condition, and may still require recovering and/or MR2 mounting brackets if they weren't part of the deal.

[onebadmr]

Exactly! lol^^^ and by the way Ur seats are SHARP I wist I would have done a dark tan inside But I'm more then satisfied with my 2s seats. New foam made these seats completely different.

[james_98188]

Originally Posted by onebadmr

Exactly! lol^^^ and by the way Ur seats are SHARP I wist I would have done a dark tan inside But I'm more then satisfied with my 2s seats. New foam made these seats completely different.

Hey, thanks for that! You wouldn't believe (or maybe you would!) how many shops and fabric samples I visited before finally finding something I liked. Kudos to leatherseats.com, and specifically Bill C. at leatherseats.com, who had a technician scrounge up a scrap from the trash bin of the custom order latte "suede" material and send it to me as a sample to help me decide. Nobody else had anything close, or offered that degree of customer service.

They made me up matching suede door panel inserts too, but I ended up not using them. They'd have to be glued onto the door panels and I couldn't see messing up perfectly good panels. I'd like darker tan too, but then I'd have the mismatched carpets and door panels. When these seats wear out or get stained or something, maybe that's when I'll look into SRDs.

[onebadmr]

Originally Posted by james_98188

Hey, thanks for that! You wouldn't believe (or maybe you would!) how many shops and fabric samples I visited before finally finding something I liked. Kudos to leatherseats.com, and specifically Bill C. at leatherseats.com, who had a technician scrounge up a scrap from the trash bin of the custom order latte "suede" material and send it to me as a sample to help me decide. Nobody else had anything close, or offered that degree of customer service.

They made me up matching suede door panel inserts too, but I ended up not using them. They'd have to be glued onto the door panels and I couldn't see messing up perfectly good panels. I'd like darker tan too, but then I'd have the mismatched carpets and door panels. When these seats wear out or get stained or something, maybe that's when I'll look into SRDs.

Yeah I know what U mean.I almost did suede inserts on my seats. I had some ppl out of state(WV) do my Whole interior. Ttop headliner and ttop shades,all the carpet,and the door inserts. so im happy:P. beats my original stuff.

[Jon91Turbo]

Originally Posted by midngn

Has anyone tried to use the leather seat covers on ebay that cost about $3-$400 a set? Easy to install? Do they last? etc.

If they are from user leather-seats Do NOT buy them!! I got a set a couple of years ago and it was terrible. The horizontal stitching on the backrest was crooked and the cover for the button cushion did not even fit. It was made several inches too short. I then contacted some of the people who left feedback for them and they all had similar experiences.

[james_98188]

Originally Posted by Jon91Turbo

If they are from user leather-seats Do NOT buy them!! I got a set a couple of years ago and it was terrible. The horizontal stitching on the backrest was crooked and the cover for the button cushion did not even fit. It was made several inches too short. I then contacted some of the people who left feedback for them and they all had similar experiences.

Note my February 6th post. While I do recommend that they be professionally installed to address any differences from the factory pattern, I maintain that they were the best choice for what I wanted.

If you want to retain a factory-like look, utilize suede inserts, and don't want to lose headroom, the options are extremely limited - and I think leatherseats.com was the best choice.

Unless you can find some really nice used seats with very little wear - possible, I suppose, but not very likely with a seventeen year old car - with new factory seat upholstery no longer available, the only other approach I can see is to pay some upholsterer a LOT of money to rebuild and recover the seats from scratch.