I'm new at this... I have a black interior and want the center of my seats to be red like the Z06. Do I have to buy a whole new seat cover or can I just buy the red center section. Also, how dificult is it to change these things? Can you do it yourself?

 

a good upholstry shop should be able to do it for you. I know of some folks who shared seats and did this. One guy has black and the other has Light Oak. They just swapped inserts.


Now stand by for someone to tell you that you need to spend $6000.00 on a new Ken King interior. There should be someone along shortly.

 

ttt

 

I think you should just scrap the plan for a "colored insert" and get yourself a Ken King interior.

 

It depends on what parts you are planning on swapping.

Vette Essentials (run by Ken and Sandy King) has been an extremely well-reputed vendor on this forum, and I'm not sure why jedi felt compelled to take a grossly exaggerated shot at them. Perhaps it's because Ken and Sandy stay up to crazy hours doing free work on peoples' cars or maybe it's the ton of stuff they give away every Christmastime, or the awesome quality of their product, or the leather that competes with the top-of-the-line European cars and is a dead match in color with the C5 interior. I could go on. And yes, am I defending them, you bet I am, as they have earned it by being top-notch people, a top-notch business, and top-notch friends.

This said, and typical with Vette Essentials' attitude, their web site has detailed instructions on how the seats can be disassembled and re-assembled: full seat instructions. They could have chosen to try to keep this information private, or just handed off product and left it to the owners to figure it out, or at least attempted to stifle competition by not making this so freely available on the web. But, they did not. Just another part of the volumes of reasons I believe they richly deserve the kudos they receive here on a regular basis.

So, you can use VE's free instructions, and if all you want to do is change the middle cushion color on the back of the seat, then that is not too hard to do if you can find someone who will swap you with theirs.

If you, or anyone else reading this, desired to have VE give you new leather, the price depends on how much a change you make to your existing leather, or whether you replace it in its entirety. In any case, it won't cost $6k, as stated.

 

I am curious too. Waa looking at the neoprene with red insert. looks a bit cheapo though. Just want the black/ red combo but dont want to mail order junk.

 

Great response by SteveL2. I agree completely that Ken and Sandy have gone way above what would normally be done to help fellow Vette owners. I happen to have many of their products on my car and I have no where near $6000 invested. Seat covers are shown on their web site and the price is $2000 for a custom made package which includes all panels. You will end up with awesome leather and seats that are personalized to your taste. My seats are in the mod red theme and I love them.

Even if you don't want to buy complete covers, you can take the seat covers off yourself (if you are handy with upholstery work) or have it done at a shop. The shop should be able to take out your seating surfaces and install a red piece of leather to give you the look you want.

 

My leather was worn on the driver's seat, so I took both seats to an upholstery shop (I was concerned that if I only re-leathered the drivers seat that it would not match the color and texture of the existing passenger seat), they re-leathered everything EXCEPT the inserts (mine are perforated sport seats). They did a great job and charged $400.00. They even gave the the left over hide an I installed it on the center console lid. Blended in great.

 

UTHockey17.....

Don't know why the $6k comment was necessary or where the number came from.
My experience with Ken and Sandy was outstanding and their work is a great value!

There are less expensive options as others have mentioned. Keep watching the C5 Parts section, you may find some good deals on seat covers or new skins there.

Hope you find something you like at a price you think is worth it!

Don

 

If you have the sport seats the center pillow cover is simple to replace.The only problem is that the pillow insert zippers to the seat back cover and GM has changed the zipper design.This means that newer pillow inserts are not compatible with older seat back covers

 

I also have a black interior and I think it is possible to just get the inserts replaced..I will check into it further soon because I am going to do it on my '04 sport seats

 

"but dont want to mail order junk"

Not trying to FLAME a vendor but are the mail order covers really junk? Anyone got experience with the other brands?

 

$6000.00!!!! Wow you could buy 2 interiors for that price.

Thanks all for the kind coments. :o


UTHockey17: We can replace the inserts like the seats you see below. The cost is $700.00 for the pair. Here's what you get. This is an example you can have them built any way you would like.

First off you can choose any C5 interior or exterior color you want.
We are licensed by GM and one of the very few that can legally put Corvette logo's in your seats.
In the pleated area we give you real pleats. Your seats just have lines sewn on top of a flat piece of leather. We use twice as much leather because of this.
Our leather is made for us and no other company in Italy by one of the Best automotive tannery's in the world. We control the construction, grain, color and even smell. Because of this our colors match perfectly with the factory colors.

Hope this helps

Ken
Sandy

www.VetteEssentials.com