Katzkin/Roadwire Leather Seat Covers

I am about to pull the trigger on some leather seats. Katzkin recommends their light grey for my 2017 TRD OR seat color equivalent. Does anybody have these color seats or the Roadwire equivalent? They look awfully light compared to my own and I rather go darker than lighter (ie black if necessary). Would appreciate any help in this and any advice in deciding between the two brands. Thank you!

 

I have Katzkin in Black. I wouldn’t think light gray would look good in an off road. They must be mistaken, Light gray for the SR5 probably.

Anyway I like the quality. Install is not too bad, better in the Taco than it was in my 4Runner.

I don’t know anything about the Roadwire brand.

I watched eBay for a while and got lucky, I was the only bid on a brand new set (a year ago) so I got them for the starting bid of $399.

 

I'm getting my katzkins installed later this month. Red contrast stitching.

 

Any tips for the installation? I am wanting to do this as well but I’m worried about installing them

 

I'm an accountant with no experience in auto upholstery lol. Just need to set a side a whole weekend. YouTube some installvideos and pay very close attention to how the original covers come off and the new covers apply pretty much the same. If you have a buddy that's a mechanic that can help even better.

First id get a few quotes from shops around town incase you get in over your head lol. But otherwise I'd start with the rear single seat just so you get the hang of how it goes and if you get in over your head you're not too screwed.

Rear seat bottoms you need to sort of wrap around and snap the cover onto the seat frame lips. I had to have a friend help when doing the rear seat bottoms. He had to stand on the seat to get enough compression to get the cover to snap.

Head rest you just have to press down and slide over...I wasted a ton of time trying to vacuum the head rest like some videos showed.

Cutting the head rest holes was scary but just have a bunch of new blades so it cuts clean. Cut small holes and pull them around the tabs that the head rest slide into.

Took me a long time to figure out how the whole wrap around the air bag area worked so pay close attention when you remove the OEM covers when you get to that part.

The front seats took the longest time. So start with the passenger side seat so if you need to go somewhere your not stranded lol. By the time you figure out that side the driver side will be a breeze.

I have heated seats and the pad for the heated seats was secured by some plastic tabs. I cut them and just super glued them on similar to where they were tied on with the plastic tabs. Seemed to work just fine.

Also made sure all your cables are routed before you start snapping the bottom pieces onto the seat frame.

That's all I can think of atm. It Just takes time and it's fun if you enjoy weekend projects

 

Awesome! Thank you for the information!

 

Loudog pretty much has it covered. I did it in the same order as him.
One thing I’ll add is don’t over tighten the new hog rings, you pretty much want them just closed all the way to where they won’t open, but loose enough not to cause wrinkles where they are pulling the leather into the foam. You can also shift the leather a bit if needed to remove wrinkles if the hog rings aren’t too tight.

If you do it this time of year you will have some wrinkles until summer when you can park in the sun and let the heat remove the wrinkles.

 

The black always looks good imo. I don't think you can go wrong with it.

Just a litte pricing info from my research at the time...to have a shop do it i was getting quoted $500-650 to just install and $1300-1500 for the covers and to install. Got my katzkin on eBay for $557 and some hog ring pliers off Amazon. So about $570 and a weekend of my time was well worth that DIY savings.

Install took me about 12 hours over a Saturday night and Sunday morning but I had no idea what was doing so YMMV.

 

You need to talk to @jhuey8947 he is the man with all the answers. Also, he has awesome prices. The place that installed mine made comments on several occasions about how nice the kit was.

 

I went with black with blue stitching to match my truck.

 

That looks awesome

 

Looks great. I never got mine to look at crisp. Did you steam it or something?

 

I had mine professionally installed... I figure buy once cry once :<)

 

Dark graphite matched my interior perfectly.

 

I've had Katzkin my 2016 for about 2 years now, they are still looking new and feel and smell great. Love them!