Tools needed
Screw Drivers
Ratchet and sockets
(FOR CUSTOM INSTALL)
Grinder with metal cutting blade
Drill and metal drill bids
Overall Procedure:
- Get an idea of what style of seats you are looking for.
When buying new aftermarket seats consider all your options, pricing, looks, purpose, etc. Also decide on the installation procedure you want to follow, if you need brackets or sliders it would be the best to buy it all at the same time.
Personally I chose to go with the NETAMI Carbon Look, it’s a solid black with some carbon texture to it so they do look a bit different than regular leather, this was a great match for my interior. The seats I choose are not full bucket seats they do have reclining and sliding capabilities.
When you first buy the seats they usually ship out disassembled, the assembly is a fairly straight forward. It only requires you to attach a couple of screws and with instructions it’s really easy.
- Removing old seats and adapting brackets.
As part of my installation I decided I did not want to buy new brackets for my seat and instead I would customize the existing brackets from the original seats. This task would require to take out the old brackets and customizing them in any way or form to make them fit the new set up.
First step was to take out the old seats and evaluate the “game plan” for the new installation. In my car the seats and brackets came out by just unbolting 4 different bolts on the ends of the brackets.
After the seats were out, I had to take apart the bracket from the seat. The brackets were connected with 3 bolts per side. During this procedure I ran into a rusted bolt and it was a pain to take it out, finally with some heat from a torch I was able to melt the rust and just unscrew it.
- Installing Brackets in new seats
Being this was going to be a custom install for the brackets, I had to plan out how to custom adapt them into the seats. After fitting them and deciding how to mount them with some measurements and drilling the brackets went right on into the new seats. The passenger side bracket did require some cutting of extra metal and also decided to leave the normal seat belt latch so that they could be use as normal. Since it was a custom installation it does take a bit more time than just using aftermarket brackets and sliders but it would depend on you what path you decided to go with. I personally wanted to keep the same height, sliding option and seat belt latch. So a custom fit was the best, if I would have gone the other way I would have to use seat harnesses because my seat belt latch on my car was part of the old seats so by taking those out I would have taken out the latch of the seat belt and I would have to been using seat harnesses. Also the height would have changed a bit usually aftermarket seats raise the seat about 1” more than the regular brackets in some cases. After the cutting and grinding finally the brackets got installed and this allowed for the seats to finally go in the car.
- Installing new seats in car.
With the seats placed in the car, being the fact that they are wider than the stock seats. Two new holes were required so that they could be bolted to the ground. The new holes were made using a metal drill bid and the seats were secured using bolts. After the seats were bolted down the two previous opening were filled with some clear silicon and of course the carpet covered them. With the seats in place it’s a good idea to just test them out see if they are sliding freely and also add some lube to the sliders. In my installation they felt perfect and secure.
- Cleaning and enjoying.
The seats got a bit dusty and dirty from all the moving around, after putting them on I just gave the interior of the car a minor detailing and the looks of it were great. The new seats overall made the car look newer and definitely sportier.
