Applicable to: '90 - '97
moss motors factory style leather seat covers with perforated headrests.
very good product overall. very nice black. use tye wraps and patience. after taking out the seats and seeing the job at hand you will want to give up and take it to apolsterer. just take your time and you can do it in a few hours while watching tv in living room..do one seat at a time so you can look at otherin case you forget where something goes.
this is the top of the line seat cover from moss. they only come in black at this time. i had the factory tan leather covers and was a bit worried that the black would change the interior especially as i was thinking of also getting the black carpet from moss. i opted to clean the tan carpet with the seats out instead of replacing it.. these black covers really make the interior look outstanding. but i think removing the seats is easy part. installing covers is hard. not really hard but tedious. time consuming but once you do one seat the other is easy. key is to use tie wraps instead of hog pins. so buy a lot of tye wraps and i mean a lot. that was my mistake with the first seat cover. i left out some of the tye wraps and actually went back and re-did the seat after seeing my mistake when doing second seat.
Not an installed item
Moss Motors factory style black leather upholstery with perforated headrests, leather seatbelt stalk covers, gearshift and handbrake boots.
I installed everything myself in a weekend-long project that included replacing the carpet and floormats, also from Moss Motors. I've submitted a separate review about the carpeting and floormats.
I am very pleased with the outcome of this project. All of the leather looks great and the smell, as you might expect, is intoxicating. My wife will not let me drive the car at all, and I'm stuck with her new Maxima. Bummer!
This was my first-ever attempt at reupholstering seating in a car. The upholstery is delivered without any instructions...which I took as a dare. It took me about 5 hours per seat to remove the old upholstery and install the new. I am writing step-by-step instructions for publication on Miata.net, but I would advise others to think this over carefully before deciding to attempt this.
My fussy way of preparing for and executing automotive projects has allowed me to achieve a 100% success rate for everything I have ever done. If you're not fussy and thorough you might not get as good a result as I did. And for an upgrade project like this (assuming you had cloth seats),you want the result to look good! Not to mention that the seat upholstery ain't cheap.
Others have complained about the thin leather used to make the seatbelt stalk covers and boots for the handbrake and shifter. Yes...it is thin and is probably overpriced, but It sure looks good.I ordered the loose fitting handbrake cover, and I'm glad I did. It goes well with the shift boot, which is inherently loose. And, the seatbelt stalk covers do a great job of dressing up those ugly K-mart quality plastic OEM covers. Buy 'em and enjoy 'em. Great stocking stuffers this time of year.
A few notes for those of you who are going to charge ahead: Buy some hog ring pliers and stainless steel hog rings. I think both seats use something like 144 rings total, so buy 200, they're cheap. Once you've stripped your old upholstery off, you'll find that the seat cushions rest in a stamped steel pan. Mine were rusted somewhat, and I took the time to have mine bead-blasted to remove the rust. I then painted them with a good clearcoat spray, and let them dry thoroughly.
I also installed wires for the headrest speakers. You'll know where these go, once you've gotten the old upholstery removed.
I ordered the factory-style seat upholstery because I wanted the finished result to look as close to original as possible. There have been several good reviews about the CRI seats, and others which are tailored for a softer look, as opposed to the very hard-looking and hard to distinguish from vinyl factory leather on pre-'99 Miatas.
The Moss factory style upholstery is somewhere between "real" factory seats and the plusher versions. Both the side bolsters and the inserts on the cushion and backrest are a little more ....wrinkled and softer than OEM...but not sloppy by any means. The upholstery includes new padding, so the seats felt nice and firm. My Miata's a '90 with 145K on the odometer, but the original padding did not feel flabbed out, and the new padding's just a little bit firmer. Yes, the leather is slightly stiffer when it's cold, and doesn't grip your backside as firmly as the cloth did.
But that goes away when things warm up. And while that's going on, you're too busy sniffing that luxurious smell. I can't wait 'til Spring comes, so I can put the top down and show off these seats. And, by the way, my seats look as good as or better than the leather-clad seats in my wife's Maxima, which is saying something because the Maxima is a damn nice automobile.
Difficult to remove without leaving damage
Went to pick up my leather seats today :))))
Ever since I got Lrr I wanted to ad leather seats, but the price of 1000 USD+ over here always cooled me down a bit. Importing them from the US was cheaper, but with the added shipping cost and 28% duty the prices were still very high.
I was very lucky to meet Bob Saville on this list, he was coming to Belgium and asked if I needed anything. He has the kind of face that inspires trust in people, so he NEVER gets checked at points of entry...I seem to be pulled out of line-ups all the time ;) Anyway I ordered the Moss premium leather seats which they shipped free of charge to Bob. Bob imported them to Belgium (duty free hooray !!!) and I had a little M embroided just between the perforations for the speakers on each seat. I chose silverwire (closest to the chrome look that I could get). They just look great, black,thick 'cushy-creamy' leather with the M's really fits in nicely with all the wood/chrome in the cockpit.
I then looked for a place to do the upholstery, as I didn't think I was going to be able to pull it off myself....My future mother in law (the kind of woman who 'frightens' people in to doing stuff) knew an upholsterer would do it as a favour to her for a 'reasonable price'....
I left the seats with the guy before I left for Malta and picked them up today. He did a GREAT job, everything looks good, feels right...He even inserted extra foam in certain places to 'shape' the seats to my body. Being quite tall I needed some extra lumbar support.It took us 2 hours to get the feeling of the seat just right (I just had the driver's seat custom made), removing padding here, adding some there...The seat now fits me like a glove, just hope that I don't put on any extra weight in the next 10 years :-).
I actually was a bit embarrassed when he only wanted 50 dollars for all the work he did....seems my mother in law really did a number on him.
the seats were : 525 USD from Moss
the embroiding was 30 USD
upholstery and fitting 50 USD
Total cost 605 USD
| Back to Product Reviews | 22 January, 2003 |