seat covers vs upholstery kits

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btoran
Posts: 630
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:26 am
Your car is a: 1975 Fiat 124 Sport Spider
Location: Northport, NY

seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by btoran »

IAP sells both. what's the difference between the two (especially in terms of installation)?
1975 Fiat 124 Spider
narfire
Posts: 3959
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2008 2:14 am
Your car is a: 1980 124 spider
Location: Naramata B.C.

Re: seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by narfire »

Personally I would go for the upholstery kit. I never worked on seats before and wanted to change the covers from a clapped out tan to black so I went at it myself. Not difficult really and gave me a chance to clean up the pans and swap out some tired foam. The most difficult part of the evolution was actually removing the rear allen bolts from the seat track.
I think they look better than the seat covers on a parts car I have.
Chris
80 FI spider
72 work in progress
2017 Golf R ( APR Stg. 1)
2018 F350 crew long box
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81SPIDERMATT
Posts: 1239
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:10 pm
Your car is a: 1981 spider 2000
Location: FORT COLLINS, CO

Re: seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by 81SPIDERMATT »

upholstery kit will be the more labor intensive of the 2 .... but well worth the effort
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spidernut
Posts: 1906
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:20 am
Your car is a: 1979 Fiat Spider Automatic
Location: Lincoln, CA

Re: seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by spidernut »

The IAP seat covers look O.K. when installed. They add a bit of padding to the seat, so my wife found them more comfortable than without the seat covers. A friend has them installed on his car. He said installation was really, really simple.

Upholstery kits are a different story altogether. I've installed the ones from World Upholstery but not IAP. It took me about 2-3 hours to remove the old seat upholstery and install the new upholstery. The seat bottoms were extremely easy to install. The seat backs were much more difficult, but still not that bad. The headrests were a royal pain in the butt.

The end result looks like this:

Image
John G.
1979 Spider (Owned since 2000)
1971 124 Sport Spider (Owned since 2017)
1977 Spider (Sold 2017)
1979 Spider (Disposed of in 2017)
1979 Spider (Sold 2015)
1980 Spider (Sold in 2013)
1981 Spider (Sold in 1985)
2017 Spider (Owned since 2019)
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btoran
Posts: 630
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:26 am
Your car is a: 1975 Fiat 124 Sport Spider
Location: Northport, NY

Re: seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by btoran »

john - nice results! so the covers simply slip over the existing seats (which already have their own upholstery), while the upholstery sets are designed to be put over the raw foam (ie you must remove the existing upholstery first)?
1975 Fiat 124 Spider
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81SPIDERMATT
Posts: 1239
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:10 pm
Your car is a: 1981 spider 2000
Location: FORT COLLINS, CO

Re: seat covers vs upholstery kits

Post by 81SPIDERMATT »

btoran wrote:john - nice results! so the covers simply slip over the existing seats (which already have their own upholstery), while the upholstery sets are designed to be put over the raw foam (ie you must remove the existing upholstery first)?
YES
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