Newbie - Interior Questions

[Denver89E30]

Hey everyone...first post. My new father-in-law has been a BMW certified mechanic for the last 30 years at a local dealer so I decided to purchase and restore my favorite ride...E30 convertible. I contribute a lot to my other car forums so I'm looking forward to R3V.

I searched for most of this stuff without luck.

So here are my questions:

1. What's the best way to change the color of the interior panels? Leather Dye? Vinyl and plastic paint? I don't have the funds to have an upholster do it.

2. Are all the interior pieces (center console, top head liner, rear panels) leather or vinyl? Upon inspecting them it could go either way.

3. Where's the best place to find seat covers?

Thanks in advance for all your help. I plan on putting up pictures soon of the progress on the restoration.

[Staszek]

So here are my questions:

1. What's the best way to change the color of the interior panels? Leather Dye? Vinyl and plastic paint? I don't have the funds to have an upholster do it.
I have had success with vinyl dye when I two toned an interior on an E46. It game out really good and held up well for 5 years until I sold the car, it may be still good I dont know. Here are some pics.

2. Are all the interior pieces (center console, top head liner, rear panels) leather or vinyl? Upon inspecting them it could go either way.
Most are vinyl, although I am sure there were some models and years that had leather, but you will need a better E30 expert then me to tell you that.

3. Where's the best place to find seat covers?
Depends, do you want to just put a cover over the existing seats or do you want to remove the existing leather/vinyl and put new material on?

[rcsoundn1]

^^^That came out better than I would have ever expected!

[Staszek]

^^^That came out better than I would have ever expected!

Haha me too. If it got messed up it was going to be my excuse to buy the leather ones, but they came out really well. I wish I would have taken really close up pics but everyone thought it was oem. I will say the E46 has a different material then the E30 its softer so it may take the dye stick better.

[Das Delfin]

Bavauto has some seat covers for a (relatively) decent price. You can also pick up some sheepskin seat covers, which vary in price depending on quality, but the expensive ones are about as much as the bavauto covers. Several people make reupholstery kits which you install yourself, but you want to shop around for best quality vs price. Then there's the local reupholstery shop which can easily run 1500 using cheap materials. There's just no easy (cheap) way to do seats

[TrentW]

Best seat cover option is a kit made by John at ninestitch. Great quality and affordable.

http://www.ninestitch.com/

His work can be seen in this forum.