Leather Seat Skin Replacement

The company is interior-innovations.com and the leather seat covers are $500 plus options...I ordered a set with black leather outside and black suede centers and red stitching for $635 shipped
 
Wow very interested in this if they have a color close to the stock Ivory.
 
They were great to deal with and said the quality on the leather and suede is great...will post pics and my impressions of the quality when I get the seat covers in
 
I'm installing my Ivory seat covers from Leatherseats.com tomorrow. I will try to post pics of the job. Ivory seats will be more expensive because the matching vinyl is no longer available. So the entire seat will be leather. Since this is my dream car, I spent the extra $$ and choose the Ecstasy Off-White #212. It is the closest to the Ivory, though just slightly lighter than the original, and the leather quality is much better than the original. Tim Broberg at leatherseats.com was great to work with. Since I'll have the seats out, I'm going to deep clean the carpet and install new OEM Ivory floormats. I also have clear mats to protect the oem mats that are cut to fit the NSX from Clearmats Automotive, Since I have the original Ivory trunk mat, I also ordered a clearmat to protect it. I think Leatherseats.com prices are comparable to Interior-innovations.com but the quality of the leather and warranty may be the difference. Also Leatherseats.com had free shipping. I guess I'll find out how easy this project is tomorrow.
 
I ended up ordering from interior-innovations earlier this week.

Black/black/black with perforated inserts came out to $665 shipped to Canada.
Since this thread is lacking a lot of information, I'll post a bunch of pics and a comparison to the OEM leather on the seats currently (once I get them out of the car).
 
I ended up ordering from interior-innovations earlier this week.

Black/black/black with perforated inserts came out to $665 shipped to Canada.
Since this thread is lacking a lot of information, I'll post a bunch of pics and a comparison to the OEM leather on the seats currently (once I get them out of the car).

Hey any updates on this? What were your impression on how the installation when, how do they look, fit and finish, and quality of the leather etc?
 
Here are the pics from the leatherseats.com kit that a friend and I installed. The leather is as soft as a well broken in baseball glove and smells like a new one. I would suggest that two people do this install as it takes more than one set of hands to stretch the leather to clip it. The install was really not that bad. But expect your hands to be sore for a few days afterward from stretching and working the leather in place and various cuts you will receive from the seat buckets and hog rings. The website was very helpful with videos, written instructions and a list of tools you will need that are specific to the NSX. After 22 yrs my car smells and looks new again. Since this is my dream car and I don't anticipate ever selling it, I'm happy that I paid the extra bucks for a much higher grade leather. And I found out that the new leather matches the old leather almost perfectly.

USAFguy22: I think this kit would be worth looking into since you also have Ivory. Sorry the camera makes the interior look whiter than it really is but it is ivory.


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On the side note - I would not order these with suede insert in the middle section of the seat. Reason: hard to slide $ss in and out as suede has more grip than regular leather. Just my .2 cents.
 
So, I got the covers today - black/black with perforated leather inserts came to $665 shipped to Canada, and shipped from Nafees Enterprise in London, England.

The leather smells like new shoes, and it's about as thick as a quarter from the edges that I can see.
I won't be able to install them for a bit of time, as I've just got lasik and need to rest my eyes.
The covers didn't come with any tools, rings, or hardware, so I'll have to buy all that first.


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OK, so it's 1:30 am and I just finished the first seat. This definitely takes 1 day per seat the first time around.

This kit is really impressive. I paid $665 with perforated inserts shipped to Toronto. It is genuine leather that is ~2x as thick as the stock covers. The backing is that rough leather/semi suede, wheras the backing on the stock covers is a white canvas.

To start off, I used 2 pliers and heavy tin snips to cut all of the old hog rings. I searched around for a week to try and find hog rings/pliers around Toronto but didnt have any luck.
So I bought some thin 40lb high quality zip ties and used them instead. I cant imagine how much harder it would have been to maneuver the hog rings/pliers to reattach the covers.


So, what I started out with:
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Not bad, but it's pretty stiff/dry and worn.
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Comparing the leather texture on the stock vs interior innovations. Also thickness and leather quality.
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The backing isn't that white canvas material. It feels much higher quality.
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This is the cover installed on the bottom section. With zip ties, you can push the zip tie between the threads on the plastic rails that the hog rings should attach to. This way you don't break the stitching and you don't have to poke any extra holes with a punch. I figured this out after using a leather punch for ~1/2 the holes.
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SO, one of the shortcomings of this kit is the headrest. The leatherseats headrest is supposedly so tight that you need to vac bag the foam. This one was very easy to get on... So much so that there are a few light wrinkles on the sides, pictured here. I'm not sure if I would prefer the ease of installation that this offers, vs the tightness that the leatherseats supposedly offers.
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When recovering the headrest, make sure you clip the 2 channels as they were, stock. You don't just put the plastic strip in the plastic channel, you have to fold the strip over the leather like a hook, then push that into the channel. This picture is what it looks like when you don't do it correctly....
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Another odd thing, is that this channel clip didn't really pull the leather any tighter. After putting the clip in the channel, there's still a lot of slack above it in the leather. Not sure if the leatherseats kit is like this as well, but it might have something to do with the reclining function of the seat...
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Here's the back/headrest in place, with the side bolsters roughed out.
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Mission accomplished:
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When I took my stock leather off, these three clips were broken and the cover was just hanging free. On this kit, the 3 clips arn't cut out of the plastic channel. If you want to use them, you have to cut them yourself.
Instead, I cut 6 holes and ran zip ties through. If the ties break, I can just re-zip them instead of dealing with a broken plastic clip... also it made tensioning it easier.
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DONE! (with the passenger side)
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The only downsides I noticed:
The headrest could be considered a little loose.
1 or 2 plastic channels were too wide, and had to be cut down. Also, 2 of the cloth sleeves that hold the metal rods into the cushion crevices were too long, and had to be trimmed.
The 2 areas on the front of the lower bolster that are screwed down don't have any plastic backing to support the leather after it's screwed.

But yeah... OVERALL I would recommend this kit. After an entire day of working with the tight leather cover, my hands are numb and a little cut up. Getting the plastic channels all seated down is the most time consuming part.
For $665 it looks amazing.
 
OK, just finished the drivers side. My complaints about the lower hinges of the seat being loose were because I didn't flip the leather/plastic channel in on itself before stretching it down and clipping it in, like on the stock seats. In the picture, its clearly on the wrong way. Now the sides/lower bolsters are much tighter and there are almost no wrinkles save for the slightly loose headrest.

If you're planning on doing this, GET SOME HELP WITH THE PLASTIC CLIPS. It's super hard to flip them under the leather and clip them correctly without someone else compressing the foam on the bolsters.
 
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Just tackled this on the passenger seat last night. I went with the interior innovations set as well. All black everything. I finally had a free evening all to myself so I decided to take this project on. Def. a 2 person job IMO. I also copied and did what neonshaun did with the zip ties instead of the rings.

This took me about 3.5 hours for the passenger seat (never having done anything like this before) I had my brother help me stripping down the original seats, he also helped me stretch some of the parts and holding it down to press in some of the clips and tension some of the zip ties to my liking.

Overall I'm very happy so far with this purchase. I have never seen the leatherseats kit in person so I couldn't compare. I would definitely buy from this company again if I ever needed too. I will be tackling the Driver side either this evening or tomorrow morning. Will try to remember to come post pics when all finished.
 
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