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For our 20th Wedding Anniversary, I got my wife leather seat covers, which she's wanted for a while. I found black Katzkin covers on eBay for $500. Decided to put some seat heaters in while I had the covers off.
The old cloth covers.
New leather installed.
(Oh...and a stealth gloat in the background. I picked up a Hitachi 4 1/2" 18v angle grinder on close-out at lowes for 50% off today, $44)
Honestly wasn't too bad of a job, only two trips to the blue borg for bits and a socket. Other than those two tools, just needed a small pry tool and hog ring pliers/hog rings. I probably spent more time fidgeting with the seat heaters on each front seat than the time that it took to get the old cover off and new ones on. About 5 hours on covers total. Here I cut out some of the felt to allow the center velcro strip to grab the new seat covers tuck as I had to relocate the passenger's airbag enable/disable switch.. Same for the second pic, just trimmed a little on the ends with that piece.
I also installed a rear seat recliner kit while I had the back seat disassembled. Essentially they are just some aluminum blocks that raise the front of the seat up, angling them about 2" back, made a noticeable difference sitting back there.
I still need to run the wiring for the seat heaters before I can put the front seats back in. Oh, and cleanup what appears to be a small chocolate shake spilled under the driver's seat.
The old cloth covers.
New leather installed.
(Oh...and a stealth gloat in the background. I picked up a Hitachi 4 1/2" 18v angle grinder on close-out at lowes for 50% off today, $44)
Honestly wasn't too bad of a job, only two trips to the blue borg for bits and a socket. Other than those two tools, just needed a small pry tool and hog ring pliers/hog rings. I probably spent more time fidgeting with the seat heaters on each front seat than the time that it took to get the old cover off and new ones on. About 5 hours on covers total. Here I cut out some of the felt to allow the center velcro strip to grab the new seat covers tuck as I had to relocate the passenger's airbag enable/disable switch.. Same for the second pic, just trimmed a little on the ends with that piece.
I also installed a rear seat recliner kit while I had the back seat disassembled. Essentially they are just some aluminum blocks that raise the front of the seat up, angling them about 2" back, made a noticeable difference sitting back there.
I still need to run the wiring for the seat heaters before I can put the front seats back in. Oh, and cleanup what appears to be a small chocolate shake spilled under the driver's seat.
I didn't know aftermarket seat heaters were available. I'm got them in my new used 4Runner, and even though I've only needed to use them a couple of times since I got the truck, I can already tell I'm going to use them a lot this winter.