Carpet poll - spring is here! Time for a new project

[donbryce]

I'm itching to get at my 560SL and replace the carpet. I found the following suppliers on EBay, and was wondering if there were any owners on the forum that had purchased from any of them and could help me with recommendations/stay-clears/comments:

Tops online - CA - $329.00
Quality tops and interiors - CA - $339.00
Tops and seats - CA - $329.00
Diamondmall - CA - $339.00

Is there another supplier that you'd recommend, and howcum all of these sellers are in CA? Is that the only U.S. state that sells MB carpet kits?

[Graham]

I would strongly advise to stay away from Quailtytopsand interiors. I bought mr carpets from them and they were very poorly made. I had to do a lot of hacking and they were very unhelpful when I brought the problems to their attention. The guy that sells them comes under several names. Read through this link - it shows some of the problems:

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r-c107-sl-slc-class/1382031-installing-carpets.html#post2926646

I bought my top from Diamond Mall - it worked out fine, but I have no experience with their carpets .

Generally World Upholstery is a safe bet, although they are slightly more expensive.

If I was doing carpets again, I think I would buy the carpet and make them myself. Just a few parts need edging and there are probably people locally who can do that.

[donbryce]

I'm surprised no one else has chimed in by now. Surely others have bought kits and installed them? As an aside, the OEM floor mats appear to be getting harder to get, maybe no stock left at Mercedes. I'm in the process of placing an order now with a dealer in GA, so heads-up for anyone putting off this item.
I'm thinking of waiting until the mats get here and checking local availability of matching carpet by the yard. After all, the missus has a leather sewing machine and we have done some binding on a car project before. On the other hand, prices in Canada can be outrageous, so I'm still looking at a kit for around $380.00 shipped.

[dadette123]

GAHH is one of the best but most priciest out there. A complete carpet set is somewhere around $700. Remember, as is often the case, you get what you pay for.

As Graham mentioned, cutting the carpet yourself is not beyond consideration...

[Bryan Harter]

I have noted that World and GAHH have bulk carpet (60" inch wide if I recall)
How much carpet is needed for a 107.

I have a 1980 with BLUE-GRAY carpet and leather....going to darken it up
a bit...Car has Anthracite Grey exterior....a nice dark grey or two-tone
combination might be cool.

Got some samples from World, black, dark grey, medium gray. Like all of them

If an interior carpet kit is $339 from Diamond Mall and $700 from GAHH,
I wonder what the trade off is to doing it yourself.

I believe bulk velour was about $90 / yard, so 3 yards is the break even point
for DIY...not counting the time to sew/bind the edges.

I also need to do the truck, expect I will have to buy foam and some masonite or board of some kind.

This is probably a whole new thread, MBTex vs Leather, gonna do seats, doors and trim....
Thanks for any advice.

[donbryce]

Originally Posted by Bryan Harter

...How much carpet is needed for a 107....
If an interior carpet kit is $339 from Diamond Mall and $700 from GAHH,
I wonder what the trade off is to doing it yourself....
I believe bulk velour was about $90 / yard, so 3 yards is the break even point
for DIY...not counting the time to sew/bind the edges..

I ordered the kit from Topsonline, off EBay, this AM. I had been emailing back and forth with another supplier, but at the end, he wouldn't send a sample to Canada, and wanted me to tell him what the leather color was so he could pick the carpet color! Vic at Vic's Auto (Topsonline) was very courteous, answered all my questions, and even offered to include binding gratis with the order. First-class IMO.

After lots of time spent trying to source a decent local purchase, I had settled on Dorset El Dorado grey (medium opal #8019), priced at $39.90/yd off 40" wide roll, or $65.90 off 80" wide roll (CDN prices).

I did a very quick estimate of the yardage required for the '86 560SL, by tape measure (eg., front left and right, about 3' X 2' each), then drew out each rectangular piece from which the actual piece would be cut. Usually for a job like this, I'd then draw each rectangle to scale, then cut the pieces out of paper and see how to best fit them onto a roll of the stock, also to scale. Being a bit lazy, this time I just drew each piece onto the L X W of an 80" wide roll. I estimated I'd need about 3 (running) yards from the 80" wide roll, which would be about $200.00.

I then got into the binding part of the job. No one in town had any grey binding that would do, nor was there any thin enough vinyl available to cut strips, meaning I'd have to wait until someone ordered in a roll ($60.00) of binding the right colour grey so I could buy what I needed, or order a yard of roll stock.

To make a long story short, after closer examination of the bound pieces in the car, and the colour I wanted (see the Gahh website) this was the deal breaker for me. My wife and I did the mats in my streetrod, as she can use her HD leather sewing machine for binding, but I remember that it wasn't easy to get the corners just right. Plus, the carpet I mentioned above was nice, but what it would look like after I got it may not be the same as I'd hoped, trying to judge from a 1 1/2" square sample.

So, I figured it was worth the extra $180.00 for a kit. I still have to cut my own piece for the back of the fold-down jumpseat from the parcel shelf piece in the kit, and we'll need to do our own binding of this 1 piece (or hire it out), but that's it, everything else should be the same job, home-cut or kit....and no pestering her to bind the other pieces.

As far as suppliers of the kits, I'm pretty sure they all use the same roll stock within a given price range. The higher priced sets may use better quality carpet, or superior workmanship, but my SL isn't in the concours category anyway, so I can't see overspending on any one component.

[Peter Guenther]

GAHH is a little more $ they fully stand behind their products, and are a perfect match to origional. My local MB dealer suggested them. As to leather and MB tex, I had tex in my "kinder seat" could not tell the difference.

[thorsen]

The title of this thread caught my eye and I thought I would chime in. I just finished restoring a 1980 280SE and went the "do-it-yourself" carpet route.

I bought the carpet from http://www.automotiveinteriors.com/carpet/ydg/material_without_carpet.htm
I bought 3.5 yards (remember the W116 is much larger than a W107) and that was plenty to do everything in the car. I sewed vinyl edging using a normal sewing machine where the original carpet had it.

Before and after pictures are here:
http://www.pokrefke.net/280SE/BeforeAfter.htm

I was quite pleased with my work and will be doing the carpet myself on future restoration projects.

[dugald]

Good looking resto, and not just the carpet!

[Graham]

Originally Posted by thorsen

The title of this thread caught my eye and I thought I would chime in. I just finished restoring a 1980 280SE and went the "do-it-yourself" carpet route.

I bought the carpet from http://www.automotiveinteriors.com/carpet/ydg/material_without_carpet.htm
I bought 3.5 yards (remember the W116 is much larger than a W107) and that was plenty to do everything in the car. I sewed vinyl edging using a normal sewing machine where the original carpet had it.

Before and after pictures are here:
http://www.pokrefke.net/280SE/BeforeAfter.htm

I was quite pleased with my work and will be doing the carpet myself on future restoration projects.

Nice Job! I wish I had taken before and after pictures on my SL. But, I didn't set out to "restore" - Just maintenance and one thing leads to another!