Advice on what to do with front seats?

[The München Monster]

So i have two boring standard cloth seats, with tears in the bottom. Ive been quoted $700 to fix the tears, and of course, my fabric is discontinued so it would be mismatching (As its already faded anyways).

So then i thought, howabout some racing seats? I can get some for under that price. It will bother me that it doesnt match the back, but oh well. But will they recline forward as i have a 2door?

Anyways, its my dream to have leather seats. Guy who quoted me $700 said that, to make my seats leather, it would cost me....wait for it... $5000. On a $1600 E30. So i thought i might try to find some leather seats for an E30, but seeing as i live on an island with 4 million people, its very limited. Saw some black leather seats out of a south african sedan but as its 4door the front seats wont recline to let passengers in the back.

Im going crazy trying to figure out what to do, as the "Leather look" seat covers i have now are such a burden. I just want it fixed. Any ideas?

[Cletonius]

Holy hell dude that's ridiculous! For $5k you'd better be getting the meat with the leather. Is there another shop you can try? $5k is a full interior with carpet, headliner, matts, etc...

I realize shipping to NZ is going to be a killer, can you see about getting seat skins? Like have someone strip the leather from a set of sport seats and send it to you for you to install? It's pretty easy.

[The München Monster]

I dont have sport seats though, but i could see. I'd still have to have them install it. No other stores seem to want to contact me back -_-

BMW cloth is like $170 a metre too, as opposed to normal cloths that are $50. Because its made of wool. I dont want to buy over priced, mis matching, ugly fabric to fix the front seats... idk. Surely i can buy leather and have someone stitch it in

[The München Monster]

http://www.fabricsupplies.com.au/?page=170 Look at that, Australian leather $70 a metre. close too. Im going to see what they say if i order some of this, how much they REALLY want to do my seats up in it.

[Cletonius]

http://www.fabricsupplies.com.au/?page=170 Look at that, Australian leather $70 a metre. close too. Im going to see what they say if i order some of this, how much they REALLY want to do my seats up in it.

Before you buy leather, ask about it being rated for automotive upholstery. There are many different grades of leather hides; not all will tolerate UV.

If you're not set on leather, you may want to consider vinyl. There are many vinyls out there that look/feel identical to leather and cost a fraction of the price. Wholesale on vinyl is much less than $70/m for even the most expensive stuff.


Edit: normal automotive upholstery cloth is much less than $50/m. It sounds to me like this shop is taking you for a ride.

As someone who is learning the trade, most shops will not use customer supplied materials unless they are super rare or unable to be sourced by the shop. Materials markup is part of how they make their money too. Wholesale discount is typically around 10-20% here in the states.

[Sehnsucht]

So i have two boring standard cloth seats, with tears in the bottom. Ive been quoted $700 to fix the tears, and of course, my fabric is discontinued so it would be mismatching (As its already faded anyways).

So then i thought, howabout some racing seats? I can get some for under that price. It will bother me that it doesnt match the back, but oh well. But will they recline forward as i have a 2door?

Anyways, its my dream to have leather seats. Guy who quoted me $700 said that, to make my seats leather, it would cost me....wait for it... $5000. On a $1600 E30. So i thought i might try to find some leather seats for an E30, but seeing as i live on an island with 4 million people, its very limited. Saw some black leather seats out of a south african sedan but as its 4door the front seats wont recline to let passengers in the back.

Im going crazy trying to figure out what to do, as the "Leather look" seat covers i have now are such a burden. I just want it fixed. Any ideas?

The cheapest and most original option is to wait for a pair of used seats to pop up and swap them. I had ripped leather seats and I bought a spare set that had rips in different spots. Take em apart, switch around the upholstery, replace all the blown adjustment struts, and give it a good lube for the hell of it. Whole thing took me ~15-20 hours to disassemble, part, treat/restore and reassemble a set of 4 seats and a lot of that time was spent figuring out how to take apart the first seat... After you learn all the little tricks it's a joke. Total cost should be like... 200-300 dollars depending on how much you spend on your seats and if you choose to restore the leather or not (I would at least condition it)
If you don't want to do that I'd just throw in some racing buckets to your preference.
IMO sport seats are the way to go if you're a small dude, sparcos or something if you're bigger.. leather e30 sport seats are comfy as hell and are super adjustable..
Those price quotes are insane. If you can find a cheaper place vinyl reupholstery is an option but imo it never comes out as good as finding a set of unripped/cracked leather and doing a little conditioning and redying... If you go this route please do yourself a favor and check/replace all the blown adjustment struts and tighten everything up, no need to be rocking wobbly seats...

[Gregs///M]

I suggest looking at any local wreckage yards or salvage yards. Keep in mine any E30 sport model (is,es) is equipped with sport seats. With some minor modification or if your handle with metal working, you can easily build seat adapter brackets to fit any E36 seats into your car. Measure the width and you can fit almost any seat in your car.

If you can source a good pair of leather "small" front seats, someone can fabricate steal adapters out of steel. It will work for much less than covering those boring standard seats.

[The München Monster]

UPDATE

Got my cloth seats reupholstered in leather for $2000. /thread

[elbrack]

$2000?! That makes me want to faint.

[Cletonius]

Seats look great! That's a good price for the work. Did they do the front headrests also? Or are you going to leave them off?

[Cletonius]

$2000?! That makes me want to faint.

That's a really good price. Quality upholstery work is expensive, at least $50/hr plus materials. The guy I'm learning from charges $110/hr for his work, but he's been doing it for 40+ years.

[The München Monster]

Yep headrests are getting custom stitched with bmw logo. So that takes a bit longer. $1.2 grand JUST for 2 hides of italian leather. So yeah. They did an amazing job, and as i requested it.

[Cletonius]

Wow, that's really reasonable on labor. Usually the materials cost is less than the labor. $1200 is a good price for 2 full cowhides. Awesome interior man, it looks really classy.

Are you going to get the scraps just in case patching is required in the future?

[EthirtyIS]

That's a hell of a deal, And those comforts actually look comfortable. I would say enjoy em, but I know you will..

[The München Monster]

Thanks guys. Yeah hopefully i get the half-hide thats left. i still owe the guy $270 and he still has my headrests so haha hopefully i hear from him... Yeah its quite nice. Smells great. And its a relatively unique color for leather seats for an e30