So I contacted a company called Fibrenew about my interior. I send along pictures of my seats dash etc. which have gotten crappy over the last 5 years of outside GA living (no garage)

There is a fist size hole in the drivers seat bolster. The foam in the seat itself is collapsing, it dirty and my seats are leather, not mbtex so replacing them is big money. other than the hole and the worn, dirty leather, its actually in really decent same, no other tears etc.

The dash cracked up pretty good.

He is telling me 125 per seat. 200 for the drivers with the bolster replaced in new leather. Back seat count as 2 seats of corse and 125 for the jumper seat. 200-250 for the dash if I take it out for him. (some cracks are up against windshield so you can't really do it in car.)

So, 325 from seats 300 back and 125 jumper= 750 plus another 250 dash . a 1000 bucks to have a nice looking interior. this is a bucket load cheaper than any other option I've heard of. If I jump, I'm share the before and after of course.


I had found a company that sells reconditioned dashes for 800 shipped. but thats lot more than 250 of course.

What model is this for? We have custom seat covers available through Coverking. Check out the link below and let us know if you have any questions.

Coverking Seat Covers - Pelican Parts


-Dmitry

There's a big difference between tossing seat covers on over damaged seats and having those seats professionally reupholstered. Big difference.

Also, a cursory glance shows that the seat covers you list only seem to be available for SL models (1980s), S-class models (1990s), and various models from the 2000s on.

Keep us posted. I'd drive down with all seats out of 2 cars at that price. Ask what material he's going to use, whether he will match current color, match pleats and refurbish the broken springs and replace foam - in short have the seat back to comfortable and looking good. I saw some helper springs that fit the corners on this site for not much ~ $10 each x2/seat.

I've had a shop install just a couple of panels when all needed to be replaced. The same person wove foam in between the broken springs when he should have repaired them with clips.

445-3 Spring Clip Pliers

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Hey man if you need I have a seat bottom from a 95 124 chassis. I bought two but I caninalized one for my seats. All springs on it are good. In in Alpharetta

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1985 Mercedes 300D turbo, w123, 722.3, 315K miles
1987 Mazda B2200, Dana 44, 283 v8, th350, np203

If you have broken springs, and good fix it to cut about an inch or so if the hard injector line (if you have an extra laying around and widen the holes a little. I then shoe the two end from the break in and use JB weld to keep it together. works like new.

He's using leather, since I have leather. I'm getting my 87 ready to drive again during the time the wagon is down. Going to do a bunch of repairs to it I have been putting off, and may take it down to get repainted at same time. Figured I might as well strip it down myself since I've done it quite a few times and just take a rolling body to them. Tempted to just go ahead and pull the engine and trans out, so they can paint engine bay too. I need to address the rear main seal anyways.

Let me know how the painting goes. My friend that did body work hurt his back and sold his tools. So far, I haven't found who I trust to do body work. Most just want to spread plastic and throw a covering on.

One guy was supposed to paint my truck but didn't even want to pull the tail lights which are easily removed. Some of his work looks good, others went out with very obvious flaws.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

I don't really know where to go either. I talked to the local Macco and took them the car. They said 1200 to do the job. The place I was going has gone way down hill and did a crappy job on my 87. The local Macco has good reviews and a warranty so who knows. I figured I
ll go ahead and prep the car. take off everything etc. pain, but I've done it a couple times now. My luggage rails have surface rust on them... so I need to get a new set or do what was done on the black 82 wagon I had and delete them. I dread dealing with the headliner as there is nobody around here that can redo it.

Sounds like a good price for recovering seats in leather w/ labor. In comparison, I can buy new foam and vinyl covers for my 65 Dodge Dart from Legendary and others, but ~$700 for just the front seats and that is just parts. Other classic cars are similar, w/ maybe Camaro's and Mustang's slightly less. When I lived in SoCal, I heard stories of people driving over the border to Tijuana and getting their car re-upholstered cheap and well in a day, but never tried.

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1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

I guess I look at things differently. If I'm going to go the time and trouble of restoring a Mercedes Benz, I'm going all out. The following company was recommended by a local upholstery shop.

https://www.gahh.com/interiors/seats

One other thought; it normally takes either schooling, training and experience specializing in automotive interior work to turnout a GREAT job. There are some trade schools around the country that offer programs in automotive interior restoration. I've noticed the really great work is performed by shops that do ONLY interiors and sometimes convertible tops. It's kinda like a heart surgeon, when you need heart surgery, you don't talk to an orthopedic surgeon, you want the real deal.

I was looking at some leather covers from lseats.com today. Saw some actual pics of them on a BMW E34 and they looked decent. https://www.lseat.com/products/1976-1986-mercedes-e-class-custom-real-leather-seat-covers-front.html

I attempted to reupholster my own rear seat. I had no previous upholstery experience and only used the sewing machine one time before this.



I was planning on doing the fronts too now that I have a little experience but I want leather and a couple hides are going to be as much as the covers from the lseat place.

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Old Blue - 83 240D 6 speed manual trans, OM648
Green Machine - 2001 Europa G500
87 300SDL Bought on Peachparts. Low-ish miles..?

Family Truckster - 2012 VW Touareg TDI

Patchouli Wagon - 2004 E500 - SOLD
333k mile 97 BMW 750il V12. - SOLD
The Californian - 85 300TD - SOLD
Daily Super Sedan - 03 Audi S8 -SOLD

I wish this was an option. Just the materials for the front seats from GADD is $1287. Figure that's about the same for the back seats and another 6-800 for the jumper... so looking at 3K+ just to get the stuff to do the job... Plus whatever it takes to get it done. Local upholstery shop wanted 5K (not including dash) so 1000 bucks versus 8000 bucks plus dash redo for a daily driver with 500,000K that will never be a show car is not a hard choice.

I'm cheap but like good value which frequently conflicts with cheap. One shop charged $100 to install 1 panel in the Dodge seat. The sad part is I'd have had the whole bottom done had I realized how worn the rest of it is. The material is NLA but I found a good back seat to use for the cloth.

I've noticed that few repair people point out what "could" be done. I was trying to fix a tear. The guy bid on and did that repair. A little more effort even at a higher charge would have resulted in a much nicer product. He would have made more money and I would have liked the outcome better. I don't think cutting and sewing 3 more small panels required for a Dodge Ram bucket seat takes long. My ex-wife could have knocked that out (too bad she's not around). Had he made the repair and not charged, I would be telling everyone how good a job he does.

Birthday, that back looks good. Now if only people wanted to pay for it.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Second that; it seems to be how most shops operate nowadays. Unless you specifically tell them to fix or repair a certain issue, they won't lift a finger. You better know your car inside and out because they won't call any other problems out to you.

Transmission problem? Exhaust pipe rusted about to fall out of the car? You better know about BOTH problems because if you take it in and tell them to fix the tranny, that is ALL THEY WILL DO. You will NEVER know about the rusted exhaust pipe until you are 800 miles from home and the da** thing falls out of your car! (ask me how I know!!!)

I ran across cars in the eastern Canada area occasionally with pristine interiors and low overall milage but rusted out.


Actually the son in law purchased the last one I saw. A late 126 body that all the interior looked as new. So much rust in important suspension areas we basically sent it all to the junkyard. It was a gas car.


I thought at the time someone further south could use that interior but would have objected to the shipping cost from here.


Basically I never realized how expensive interior work was. Perhaps I should have tried to just sell the original skins and any structural seat parts wanted by someone. Even giving them away would have been better than their fate.


You also can only keep so much stuff around. We just do not have the major deterioration a really hot sun causes alone in this area. Even most dashboards up here are not cracked.


As for those cracked dashboards. I never really had a look but constructing a fairly low temperature oven and vacuum forming a new vinyl material right over the original might work. Some I saw in the south where in a contest with the grand canyon.