unisuede steering wheel mod
 

I decided I wanted to recover my steering wheel in suede or alcantara after watching a lot of nascar and F1 racing.

But, the autoexe buckskin and the Redline Goods products seemed to be too expensive. Wheelskins are much less expensive, but I don't like how they don't fit around the spokes and ends up looking goofy.

I asked around a few auto upholstery shops and got the same answer: they don't do steering wheels since it takes up too much time and it's too expensive.

I decided to buy the material and DIY.

alcantara was too expensive so I got Unisuede from world upholstery & trim worlduph.com

it's the only place i found where you can get 1 yard and have it perforated. Other places had a 3yrd mininum

1 yard is plenty ($45 shipped), enough to to 4-5 steering wheels.

it was a major hassle to fit and finding out how much this stuff stretches (which it needs to do to fit right). Plus, the only stitching experience I had was trying to sew cub scout badges when I was kid (my mom would always finish them for me)

great project if you have a lot of time. This was more like a learning experience for me as you can see the hack job on the stitching and the missing parts over the spokes. However, I know how to do this now. the blue line is painters tape until i find a better solution.

feels really good on the hands. I did my shift knob too

couple pics and will get better ones for the DIY section
http://s11.postimage.org/iqhy1sq0z/007.jpg
http://s13.postimage.org/hz9dhibwn/004.jpg
http://s21.postimage.org/a23w4glhz/006.jpg
http://s23.postimage.org/h9zwj0ycr/003.jpg

Really doesn't look terrible considering your inexperience. You'll probably do a much better job next time around. I think their perforating job leave a little to be desired though lol

yea, looks bad up close since its stretched out that much.

i thought perforations would help with the stitching, being able to pass the thread through the holes when they lined up

Don't know if this thread will help you at all, but I remembered seeing it a few weeks ago and thought it might help someone reading this thread.:)

Nice! I was literally thinking about how to do this earlier today (I'm working on recovering the whole console in leather, will post pics when finished) any advice on for a wanna be copy-cat?

here is my AutoExe wrap as a reference.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...04413892_n.jpg

Heres my autoexe replacement steering wheel... No wrapping required :).

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._2012684_n.jpg