[s-cars] seat covers, UrS6..

[Tom Green]

I have not seen any seatcovers suitable for the UrS cars Recaro seats  
other than the flat sheepskins that are really just pads for the  
center of the seat.  IMO the only suitable solution is to find used  
seats for replacements or to recover.  Where the bolsters have the  
leather ripped, there are still replacement foam bolsters in the  
system.  This is the only way to repair the bolsters once they have  
been exposed and start to crumble and break off.  It would take a  
really good shop to cut new bolsters and I would want to watch.  They  
can not repair them with a little patching.

Finding replacements is by far the cheapest route.  There are 3 or 4  
sets out there for sale now.  The most commonly voiced problem with  
this is the distance and cost to ship.  This can be overcome a lot  
cheaper than recovering your seats.  Other problems are not being able  
to see and feel the seats to judge condition before purchase or seats  
are the wrong color.  I have been stung by Shokan on promises of  
condition.  Even high resolution photos don't necessarily show leather  
condition and may not even be close to what they look like in your  
car.  IMO this is the only way you are going to get seat heaters for  
your car if yours don't work.  The pads are essentially separate parts  
for each of the sections in the center seating area connected by  
series wiring.  You might easily eliminate the seat bottom or back if  
one of those is the only bad part and have heat for the remaining  
part.  The heaters almost always fail at the wiring connecting each of  
the small pads at the outside edge of that center section, so those  
wires can be repaired with some high quality butt connectors.   
Soldering would be a pro job since the wires are steel.  This repair  
entails learning how to R/R the seat, open up the seat, remove wiring  
pins from plastic connectors (and put them back in the correct place),  
remove staples and hog rings to remove leather from the foam padding,  
test wiring continuity and repair , and put it all back together.  If  
you are doing this, you might as well buy some leather and have an  
upholstery shop make some new covers.  You will need to do all this  
work yourself since you will never find a shop that will do it and  
then put it back together looking the way you want it.  Carl Hatcher  
(Carl's Foreign Cars in Seattle)  has done some leather swapping from  
salvage seats.  Swapping the seat center section from a good passenger  
seat might get you heaters with a minimum of effort.

The reupholstery route entails all that and more.  No repair is going  
to turn out right unless you are involved in all phases of the job,  
from initial materials selection to final install.  And, it will be  
expensive as well as take a lot of your time.  This is a very complex  
seat that requires a lot of tedious work to take it apart in a  
condition to put it back together the same way.  I do not believe you  
can find a shop that will not just cut the wires instead of keeping  
them original and do everything else "the way we always do it" unless  
you perform all that yourself.  Meaning you will have to put it back  
together.  Otherwise, if you only do the drivers seat it won't match  
the passengers seat anymore, or the back seat if you do both fronts.

But if you don't do one of these fixes, you are never going to be  
pleased with your car and always having to explain why you drive an  
old beater.  So, fix it; That's the only choice.

Tom '95 S6
          '95.5 S6 avant
Knoxville, TN

On Thursday  Mar 20, 2014, at 3:23 PM, Walter Moore  
<moorewr at gmail.com>wrote:

> If you are using seat covers on your front seats and think they're a  
> good
> fit I'd like your recommendation. My driver's seat is worn and the
> thigh-bolster is torn at the front..
>
> Thanks,
> Walter
>
>
> -- 
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> Walter R. Moore --  moorewr at gmail.com