Katzkin leather is awesome!

smoknfastlegend · 08-23-08, 07:20

At the end of June I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to have my interior changed out. My leather was showing its age (14 years) by cracking, threads falling apart, hardness and shrivelling in places. The only real pics i have are of the seats when we got the car nearly 2 years ago:

Not too too bad, but not perfect.

I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to get done. Played with it in photoshop and considered this:

Not too bad, gives it a differnt look. Well when it came down to getting it done, things changed just a little (a little more dark pieces were added.) After getting a quote from a fairly local shop that has a good rep (and did some business with the audio shop I worked with) I was dumbfounded at the price they wanted ($2500 for everything to be done with me removing everything and bringing it to him.) He wanted to charge me $725 for the basic Katzkin kit (more vinyl in the kit) then an extra $90 for two tone! The shop then wanted to charge me $600 to install the leather. Luckily another forum I visit had a group buy going, I got the better leather kit for 675 shipped to my door with exactly what I wanted. Anywho, I ended up spending $1700 or so to get what I wanted done. My after pics arent great, but then again i still need to get a color matched shifter and ebrake.

I was afraid i wouldnt be happy with the texture on the katzkin (so used to smooth leather from factory), but boy was i wrong. The Katzkin leather is so nice and comfy

And my car finally smells new again.

todd@bsaw · 08-23-08, 07:50

Looks excellent, thanks for the info!
I've been considering getting a Katskin two-tone for my Jetta as well. I guess I have some money to start saving up.

smoknfastlegend · 08-23-08, 08:10

I forgot to mention, i had other things done besides just the seats (i had the dash dyed, the bottom parts of the dash dyed, the tops of my doors recovered, the bottms of my doors recovered, center console redone. What i learned is that if you get the kit yourself, install at a shop should be like $300 or so, more then that the shops are being greedy (unless they have to remove the seats and everything themselves.)