long story short, Inhave to replace the door panels on my 2000, which were upgraded to leather. I know Vette Essentials offers the panels and you can customize. I see Dennis also offers them. Anyone have experience with either Vette Essentials OR DoubleD SPECIFIC to their leather door panels?

Thanks

 

I would be careful with doubleD right now. Go to the vendor feedback and take a look

 

I do not have the leather door panels from Vette Essentials, but I have a lot of other stuff from them and the quality is top notch. I can’t imagine the door panels being anything less.

 

I didn't know that Vetteessentials does doorpanels. But Redlinegoods.com offers kits to door panels yourself. I've had a few of their items which turned out real well. Infinite customizing possibilities. They made me a custom armrest with special embroidering I supplied.

 

yeah i have to do mine to but i want to bose grilles gone the damn things are like a cheese grater on my knee . And i want that reflector out to 30.00 for that everytime it breaks forget it .

 

I purchased the Redlinegoods.com ones. Haven't got around to installing them yet but the quality is excellent on the ones I received.

 

Me neither?

 

Thanks all for the feedback and suggestions!

 

I have experience with both of them - and my experience was very good indeed. Sandy at Vette Essentials built and sold me custom leather seat covers (she let me choose my desired color and texture from among 4,000 options).

A the same time as I selected the seat cover leather, Sandy ordered additional leather for the console, door panels, center stack, kick panels and glove box - the leather for these interior parts is about one-half the thickness of the seat cover leather. Sandy sent that leather directly to Dennis at Double D, who installed that leather for me, including a double DIN opening for a Navigation head unit (Dennis sold me the head unit and a bunch of other stereo stuff at this same time). Dennis let me do a core exchange deal with Double D to minimize the amount of time my car was out of service.

So over a weekend I did all of the install myself - seat covers, interior panels, stereo stuff, etc. The coordinated delivery by Sandy and Dennis allowed my install process to be very efficient time-wise.

Dennis and Sandy subsequently told me that Vette Essentials and Double D frequently collaborate on such things.

Leather quality was great, seat covers were well-made, and Dennis' leather wrap work was of highest quality.

Hope this feedback helps.

The Lizzard

 

My leather door panels, I purchased from another forum member years ago were originally made by Caravaggio, and I have to say the quality of the leather and the construction of it is top-notch.

Double D mods did the rest of my interior a couple years ago, and I am still happy with how it looks. Dennis really did a great job. No complaints.

Caravaggio uses smooth leather and the price reflects it. Dennis uses a grain leather, and although it's still a quality look you can see why the grain leather is more affordable. My reasoning for not opting for grain on the door panels is because it doesn't see the direct sunlight as much as the dash and other components. Up close you can the difference of the leather but, because it's black, it hides that pretty well.
I saw leather door panels that Dennis had made when I was in Wisconsin at his home, and nothing at the time would detour me from not considering to buy it if I was in the market for it. They were all well done.

Just my .02

Here's my 2000 interior from 2 years ago.

 

That's one nice interior!

 

[QUOTE=C5R USA;1595746521]My leather door panels, I purchased from another forum member years ago were originally made by Caravaggio, and I have to say the quality of the leather and the construction of it is top-notch.

Double D mods did the rest of my interior a couple years ago, and I am still happy with how it looks. Dennis really did a great job. No complaints.

Caravaggio uses smooth leather and the price reflects it. Dennis uses a grain leather, and although it's still a quality look you can see why the grain leather is more affordable. My reasoning for not opting for grain on the door panels is because it doesn't see the direct sunlight as much as the dash and other components. Up close you can the difference of the leather but, because it's black, it hides that pretty well.
I saw leather door panels that Dennis had made when I was in Wisconsin at his home, and nothing at the time would detour me from not considering to buy it if I was in the market for it. They were all well done.

QUOTE]

As noted in my post above, Vette Essentials will sell any color and any texture of leather a customer wants, and vary that for each interior piece the customer wants to be wrapped. That Double D's chosen texture didn't match the texture selected by Caravaggio is something that a customer can control. I preferred the textured leather on the doors because I suspected it would be less likely to show the consequences of bumps, bruises and similar accidental abuse.

The Lizzard

 

There are different grades of roughness. I don't know much about leather. I got few samples from my seller and ended going with the middle grade.

 

Great looking interior! That really dresses it up....

 

There's also a vendor on Ebay that sells the leather pieces.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RED-STITCHIN...item51c6148eb6


I bought the door and trim pieces for my C6. They were nice quality and easy to work with. I did the install myself.

 

I've seen the ebay skins too. what is the install process to do it yourself?

 

Not sure the specific process for the C5 but probably similar to a C6. I just pulled my door panels off. Broke them down (top and bottom portions of the door separate). Once all the door pieces were apart, I started gluing then trimming the leather.

Once all the leather was glued in place, I put the door panels back together.

Here's a pic of the top portion of the door panel before gluing the leather



The passenger side door handle leather wrapped




And the top portion completed




Drivers side completed and back on the car



I never did this type of work before but decided to give it a try. You would just need to find a "how to" on taking the door panels apart or if you were not up to attempting, you could always take the panels to an upholstery shop to do the work.

 

^thank you!

special leather glue I assume?

I may just try to undertake this mod based on your info!

 

There are a lot of glues you can choose from. I used Dapp and brushed it on vs. spraying. I did a lot of research before starting the project and this is what most of the upholstery guys seemed to be using.




Wear a good mask and do the work where there is a lot of ventilation. Keep the top on the glue as often as possible. It's powerful stuff.

There are several videos on youtube that demonstrate how to install/glue leather in car interiors and a thread on C6 gen from several members that did some pieces.

When I was looking for all the leather for my interior project, I noticed jf customs had a ton of leather pieces for the C5 and even had a pattern for the dash (which they don't for the C6).


BTW some very beautiful C5 interiors pics in this thread.

 

I had a real problem with JF customs passenger door leather. They were making it an exact mirror of the driver door which doesn't work on a C5. I am not sure if they resolved the issue. It is cost prohibitive to have to send the leather back to England for return.

The rest of the leather I got from them was good. Just not the doors.

After months of trying to resolve the issue with JF I gave up and bought redlinegoods leather which was recomended to me by above member Choreo. Glad I did.