Applicable to: '90 - '97 1.6 liter
Duetto Standard quality leather seat covers with perforated head rests. Black.
I was very enthusiastic about upgrading the car to leather interior. I had seen some professional installations on friends' cars and was impressed. The prices they paid in Canada for an installation was outrageous, so I imported the seat covers at the lowest price I could find - Duetto. I actually used to work in a factory that produced seats for Suzuki and GM. I was lead hand in the Suzuki car line and did plenty of fussy prototype work - (eg the difficult Suzuki GT seats of the early 90s). Because I had been bred to expect perfection, I was very dissapointed in the cut and fit of these Duetto covers. They were loose. VERY LOOSE. The first attempt on one seat ended up looking like a wrinkly apple-head doll. Argh, plush but not very sporty.
The easiest way is to get a cheap bed pillow filled with polyester wadding. Install the covers only at the in-foam wires. Then, stuff plenty of wadding in the shoulder and neck of the backs and along the rear and rear-sides of the cushions. Keep test-stretching the covers over the wadding until it gets acceptable. Once it starts to look too pillowy, you can stop. Some wrinkle with just not dissappear due to poor trim sewing. After about 10 hours of fussing and completely redoing the passenger seat, I am more than happy with the results. Smells like a new car again, too Keep in mind that some other types of more expensive covers also seem to come in a very loose cut. I have been told by other Miata.netters that the Moss covers, however, are indeed nice and tight. http://miata.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=220628
Over 30 minutes to remove completely
Applicable to: '90 - '97 '99 + 1.6 liter 1.8 liter
This is a set of Leather seats that can be had in numberous colors or a combination of colors(i went with Black with smoke grey inserts). Received via UPS. Be careful, as seats are just in the box, so dont use a razor blade to cut open the box!!!
Once i finally got the driver's seat out(had a stripped bolt head...and of course it would have to be the one in the back next to the transmission tunnel...go figure!) actual disassembly of the seat is fairly simple. After getting the seats apart I removed the hog rings with a conventional set of pliers(be careful, they can be dangerous). I followed the suggestion of using automotive zip ties instead of hog rings. I'm a "do-it-yourself" kind of guy & I would have to say that this made the seat kit installation fool proof. What I found easiest was to get all the zip ties looped through the metal rods that attach the seat kit to the seat first, then loop the ties into the seat retaining strips & zip the ties so that they just catch the first few grooves. I worked on one area at a time...getting all the ties connected, THEN i would grab my trusty pliers and tighten down the material to the seat completely. The whole process was fairly simple and came ! out looking like a million bucks.
Aside from having the trouble removing the stripped bolt, the ACTUAL process of removing the old material and installing the new seat kits took a total of 4hours to do both seats. I am very happy with this product and the service i received from Gerry at Duetto. I'll be a customer for life! I will also say an excellent investment for under $500 & your car will take on a whole new persona! Thanx Guyz! jase
Over 30 minutes to remove completely
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