We have a great story for y’all! We were recently yelled at by an angry customer who was extremely disappointed with the craftsmanship of the seat cover that he received. So, he mailed his seat cover to us for a refund and we immediately realized this was not our product. We got in touch with him to clarify and discuss the issues on what he received. So, we decided to take the opportunity to make a video and highlight some of the most important issues you might have when purchasing a cheap replacement cover. In this video, we are going to be highlighting color, grain, a problematic seam, loose break, and mismatched stitching.
COLOR
The most apparent complaint was the color match. A lot of companies will use a generic tan, grey, or black color that will hopefully be close to your original color. This seems like a great idea until the customer realizes their new seat cover sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of their original interior. Brian compares the color match on a seat shop cover, a cheap seat cover, and compares both to an original OEM seat cover.
GRAIN
Another one of the more noticeable mistakes is the wrong grain used in this seat cover. Using a generic grain is a great method (like the color example above) to produce a cheap seat cover since you can get the same generic grained material in bulk. In this case, the grain used on this seat cover belongs to a different GM vehicle which years ranged from 2007-2014. The seat cover shown in this video belongs to a 2000-2002 GM vehicle. If they do not care to pay attention to the most obvious matching qualities like grain and color imagine what other key details, they might be missing!?
SEAM
As much as we want to make installing a new seat cover an easy process of everyone, pre-cutting the power control sections has been a problem when mass producing a product. The main reason is that the replacement seat covers that are made work for both manual and electric seat options which require different cut-outs. This causes a problem when receiving your new product becomes a factor, since not everyone will want to wait 2-3 extra weeks to receive the same product only waiting on the cutout. What we cover in this video is a specific seam we eliminated on our cover. The cheap cover was made with a problematic seam where a cut-out is needed and for the un-experienced, this has a high probability of permanently damaging your new cover. Once damaged your replacement cover will unravel and will not be useable and you will most likely be stuck with it since they might not take it back. Going through this same experience here at The Seat Shop we noticed this problematic seam and the trouble it could cause and chose to eliminate it since its only function is for aesthetics only.
LOOSE BREAK
Just by looking at the competitor's cover and comparing it to a factory and our Seat Shop cover, you can tell that the material used to make this product is of poor quality. This is due to them using the weakest and cheapest parts of the hide which is easily distinguished by moving it back and forth and revealing the weakness of the leather formally known as “loose break”. Having a loose break in our leather is a no-no here at The Seat Shop since these weak leather pieces are usually recycled for other purposes, and never used for durable leather seat covers that will last for a very long time.
MISMATCHED STITCHING
Stitching problems might not be immediately noticed but once you do you will not be able to unsee them! Having to mass manufacture leather seat covers for over a decade now we tend to notice errors a little faster. In this case, we noticed that the French-seam going down the middle of the seat cover was stitched in an uneven manner. We get you sometimes must work with what you got, and, in this case, we know a single needle machine was used to make this cover. There is nothing wrong with using a single need machine, but if you are going to use one then you will need to pay careful attention to make sure your stitching matches throughout. Manufacturing in mass in a timely manner we will not have the luxury of making these mistakes, so we invest in the right machinery to ensure we can produce your new covers the best way we can as fast as we can.
We wish we could help everyone with their seats but know there are other outlets available. Hopefully, this video shows you some of the key areas our competition tends to cut corners on and reveals why their products are priced cheap and reflected on the product itself. Having our install videos that take time to produce, easily shared by our competition and make it seem like their own, is not always great... But hopefully, even that should show you the dedication they put into you as a customer. If you would like to see if we can manufacture the right products for your vehicle, feel free to give us a call at 214-710-2565 or if you would prefer emailing us you can contact us at sales@theseatshop.com