Recovering vinyl sport seats

[cagedbunny]

So, my driver's side tan vinyl sport seat is getting fairly haggard (318is.) I'd like to recover it, but keep the factory pattern. A simple alternative would be to find a good condition passenger seat, and recover the driver's with the vinyl. Unforunately, I doubt it will be easy to find 1 tan vinyl sport seat.

So my question; Has anyone successfully recovered a sport seat, using the fabric from a non-sport seat? I have access to a few perfect tan vinyl non-sport seats locally.. I'm thinking there may be enough material there to recover my driver's seat, and make it look appropriate with the correct stitching. I think I'd have to use the upper bolster of the non-sport to cover the larger, lower bolsters on the sports. Center fabric should fit without too much hassle..


Here's an old pic of the interior looking...well.. nasty.

[gearheadE30]

There is significantly more fabric surface area on sport seats due to the bolsters and segmented design. You'd be better off finding an upholstery shop to do it or a used seat in better condition.

[John in VA]

I'm in the same boat (with same perlbeige vinyl), but just the left/outer thigh bolster vinyl of my driver's seat needs replacing. The rest of my interior looks great.
It would be ideal to find this material from an unmolested passenger's seat to swap over!

[sennasixty8]

try disassembling a junkyard sport seat, take the back off it,and go for it. It'll give you an idea of what's involved with swapping "segments" from one to another... its doable!

[550]

I have seats like that from a VW (the VW recaros...) Granted not exactly the same, I was quoted $475 per seat to have them recovered with a suede inset and cloth bolsters.

I kindly said... I'll buy new :-)