Dani

Hi all,

I am going to order leather seats from Katzkin or Classis and trying to find info how to remove factory cloth and install the leather. Katzkin support told me that they are direct replacement and it should be easy to do it. They will include also leather pieces for door panels.

Did anyone try to do it or knows how to do it? I would appreciate any help.

Front seats have zippers at the back and it looks easy to do it. I am not sure about:

1 How to remove side air bag plastic cover, mine won’t easily pop out, how to pull straight or to the side? Looks scary to pull hard around air bags, can I disable them pulling the fuse or something?

2. How to remove front seats bottom cushion or just a cloth?

3 How to unlatch front seats back cloth from the bottom?

4. How to remove center piece of door panels to replace cloth, both front and rear doors? Do I need to remove the whole door panel or just a center piece somehow?

I tried to find a thread with this info but no luck. I would appreciate if someone could post some pictures.

Thanks in advance

Tamas

iTrader: (1)

You don't have to take off that cover I think since the leather will have holes and you have to fit that under the edge of the cover. I might be wrong about this though, I'd have to pull my factory cloth seat covers from the attic to verify.

The cloth is held on with "hog rings", so you should be able to unhook those and pull the cover off.

See above.

You will have to remove the entire door panel to do this. If I remember correctly, the center part can be detached from behind, but it was a while ago when I took my door panels off. I'll do that in the next week or so for something I need to take care of, so then I'll know it for sure.

Nubo

I suspect that getting the old stuff off isn't nearly the task that getting a really good-looking install of the leather would be. I know they provide the proper tools (hog-ring pliers, etc), pieces and instructions, but it just seemed like one of those things where I would probably be able to do a top-notch job, the THIRD time I tried, if you know what I mean. I didn't want to botch it and end up paying just as much as the installed option because I had to order extra pieces, etc. Or end up with wrinkles or bad fitment. I opted for them to install.

If you've got a lot more time than money, good with your hands, some experience working with fabric, and a LOT of patience, it might make sense.

iirc, the seats are removed from the vehicle for the process. Pretty sure the side panels just pop out.

cllawson

i have the black/red seats in my 2004 RX-8 but i don't like how the seat back panels are a big piece of plastic on the leather seats. i like the way the cloth seats look. i want to know if i just take off the seat backs and put new leather on from Katzkin will i run into any complications.
do i have to have the cloth seats for this