[s-cars] seat covers, UrS6..

[Tom Green]

I got that idea from your email.  The workmanship in the stitching and  
fit look really good.  It certainly is a dramatic improvement from the  
before photo.  LOL.   Most listers would be pleased to have that kind  
of fix for a daily driver.  Too bad you're in bum f--k nowhere so the  
place isn't convenient to anyone else.

I expect that if the seat is compared to a pristine, almost untouched  
passenger seat, the difference in color, leather texture, and taut fit  
of the leather on the chiseled contour of the Recaro bolsters  would  
be very noticeable.  It appears some padding was replaced or added in  
the seating area also.  Still, that is a very nice job.

I had one done that would pass that scrutiny, but it was a shop that  
did complete interiors for show cars and only worked in the seat after  
a 4 month wait with the seat sitting in the shop in case something  
stopped work on a high dollar job.  Others (I had a total of 4  
recovered) were done elsewhere and were excellent jobs, just not what  
the shop promised they would do.  Not many like the first shop would  
have such great examples of their work still in the shop and few had  
many recent photos.  All said that the seat construction was too  
complex and took too much time to put it all together, and really did  
not want to do any more.  That leaves me do most of the disassembly  
and fitting and just have someone copy the leather covering.  I don't  
plan to do any more anyway.

Tom

On Mar 21, 2014, at 9:51 PM, Mike Miller wrote:

> I'm pretty happy with the shop did when they recovered my seats.
>
> --mike
> On 3/21/2014 2:28 PM, Tom Green wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
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>
>


Knoxville, TN