A brief digression on upholstery

Upholstery does not sound sexy. But anyone who has ever had to deal with mouse pee soaked into seat cushions discovers quickly that while it is not sexy, an upholsterer grasps geometries in ways that is beyond the ken of mere mortals.

Good quality is tough to come by. In the VW community, that is doubly true at any price. Sewfine of Denver, Colorado (previously of Amarillo, Texas) is considered to be the best mail-order upholsterer in the VW business, and their products are highly reputed. For discussion sake, I decided to price out the cost of replacing all of my seating upholstery (which is beyond salvation from the mouse pee) with product from Sewfine and a few other vendors.

My needs are pretty straightforward: I only need the seat bottom upholstery and a new set of covers, but my wife has insisted that we have fabric for the seats and vinyl for the trim; she's tired of scalding the skin off the back of her legs on a hot day.

Sewfine offered me many tiers, but also offer a range that includes the least expensive options I could do by direct order. I do nothing but strip the old material off, wash down the frames and put the new material on. No cutting, no measuring and no thinking involved. This is to do two front buckets, the 3/4 middle bench and the full rear bench, plus four headrests.

Sewfine (excluding tax and shipping)

Color	Buckets	Middle Bench	Rear Bench	Headrest x4	Bottom Pads	Cost
2	$300	$130	$130	$160	$172	$892

At this point my jaw is flopping around on the floor. Especially the price for two bucket seats!

I have used TMI before to restore my Beetle, so I thought to compare there.
 TMI (excluding tax and shipping) Note: Padding is only sold as a complete set.

Color	Buckets	Middle Bench	Rear Bench	Headrest x4	Bottom Pads	Cost
2	$326	$342	$369	$236	$521	$1794

Apparently TMI prices have gone UP a bit. Like, 12x in the last decade. I paid $350 in 1999 to do the whole car, pads and covers. And what's with $521 for FOAM?!?

I decided to make a last gasp effort at West Coast Metric who used to carry their own brand. Apparently, they still do, but only in vinyl, but I threw this one in for comparison.
 WCM (excluding tax and shipping)

Color	Buckets	Middle Bench	Rear Bench	Headrest x4	Bottom Pads	Cost
1 Vinyl	$158	$202	$165	$184	$235	$944

So it seems that I've been out of touch with the upholstery gig in VW circles for too long. (Or I've just never done a bus, which is true.) So how does custom built two tone fabric and vinyl from Sewfine come in UNDER the price of mass production stock vinyl from TMI or WCM? There may be a 'third way' however.

I met Jason of Vinyl Creations at the Maple Grove, PA show last June. He was out there hawking his skills as an upholsterer, and I grabbed one of his flyers. Turned out he and I shared a mutual acquaintance, and I decided to stash his flyer for when I was ready to do the seats. Circumstances conspired against me. I lost the darned flyer. That is, I did until just this week. My wife was disposing of a bunch of paper that had come out of the back of one of our cars and she knows to bring anything automotive related to my attention. I seized on that flyer and phone number of paper like a presidential pardon. Yes, Jason was still in the business. Yes he's available to do the seats. We swatted it back and forth over email, and he brought up the subject I didn't want to think about: what condition are the springs in? There can't be any rust. Rust? Springs? I hadn't even thought to go there. I'm trying to get gas tank, engine, and trans back in....seat springs? So now I'm off to strip the seats and see what the condition is. This means that I can't drive the vehicle without completing this stage as well.

Who knew a simple set of seats could be so complicated?