Seams ripped in seat

[luvtheBU]

My rear seats seams ripped, I thought I read somewhere not to tape them but I don't want to get the cushions underneath wet. Can seams be fixed or does the whole seat have to be reuphostured? I need the rear seat for passengers and was just wondering if there is some special tape I can use till I get it to the uphoulstery shop.

[WakingMeHappy]

I would not try tape because as soon as gets wet it's going to start coming off. If you leave it on too long youll get the tape reisdue all over the seat. Unless you do upholstery work you'll need to take it to a shop for repair. Only they can say if it can e fixed or replaced. To use it till you can get it repaired maybe you could wrap the seat in a towel or sheet.

[meb885]

the seat cushion of the observers seat (covers the cooler) on my echelon got about a 4 inch rip in it along a seam. i took it to a local canvas and upholstery shop....1 day and 60 bucks later it looks like brand new. they just resew it but Malibu (even back then) uses very tough and thick vinyl so it's hard to sew. not to mention it has to be completely removed from the seat structure (a lot of staples....which if your lucky are stainless steel. mine were rusting and snapped every time they tried to pull one out.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Macutak]

That is good to know that they can be easily fixed. My rear seat over the tranny is ripped on a seam too. I think it is when people stand on them and do strenuous stuff to the tower, tying ropes or just being stupid. Keep people in their seats or on the floor.

[luvtheBU]

Thanks for the input, I'm going to have to take it in, that seat gets absolutely soaked between the kids and the dog, I don't want to ruin the cushions.

[Lieutenant Dan]

My seats are all ripping at the "bead". Is that where yours were ripping?

Anyone else have luck in getting the vinyl resewn / repaired for rips at the bead?

[Slurpee]

My seats are all ripping at the "bead". Is that where yours were ripping?

Anyone else have luck in getting the vinyl resewn / repaired for rips at the bead?

Yup, just had it done. One shop said they'd just pull it a bit tighter to get to clear vinyl and sew it again..... uhm, no.

The second shop said they had a steam machine that was very gentle on vinyl and it would let them stretch it a bit so that it looked factory new when they sewed it up again. Looks good to me. Feels good to. All for $25.

What I found neat was that the bead is an illusion. Nothing is sewn to it exactly. It's there to hide the crease of both panels stitching together at a divider in the cushions. I had the shop shave half the back cushion in the seat in half and glue a heavier density cushion in it's place to keep the vinyl from deflecting as much when people step on it as well. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't. I thought it was worth a try.

[Lieutenant Dan]

My seats are all ripping at the "bead". Is that where yours were ripping?

Anyone else have luck in getting the vinyl resewn / repaired for rips at the bead?

Yup, just had it done. One shop said they'd just pull it a bit tighter to get to clear vinyl and sew it again..... uhm, no.

The second shop said they had a steam machine that was very gentle on vinyl and it would let them stretch it a bit so that it looked factory new when they sewed it up again. Looks good to me. Feels good to. All for $25.

What I found neat was that the bead is an illusion. Nothing is sewn to it exactly. It's there to hide the crease of both panels stitching together at a divider in the cushions. I had the shop shave half the back cushion in the seat in half and glue a heavier density cushion in it's place to keep the vinyl from deflecting as much when people step on it as well. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't. I thought it was worth a try.

Slurpee,

Thanks for the quick response and excellent info! Did they remove the seat covers and re-install them plus the repairs? All for $25?

I'm not sure I'm catching the "shave half the back cushion in the seat in half..." bit. Are you saying that you had them take half of the thickness out then re-add to the original thickness with the denser foam on top? If so, why not just use denser foam for total thickness? If not, please explain.

Either way, please keep us informed as to how it holds up.

[Slurpee]

My seats are all ripping at the "bead". Is that where yours were ripping?

Anyone else have luck in getting the vinyl resewn / repaired for rips at the bead?

Yup, just had it done. One shop said they'd just pull it a bit tighter to get to clear vinyl and sew it again..... uhm, no.

The second shop said they had a steam machine that was very gentle on vinyl and it would let them stretch it a bit so that it looked factory new when they sewed it up again. Looks good to me. Feels good to. All for $25.

What I found neat was that the bead is an illusion. Nothing is sewn to it exactly. It's there to hide the crease of both panels stitching together at a divider in the cushions. I had the shop shave half the back cushion in the seat in half and glue a heavier density cushion in it's place to keep the vinyl from deflecting as much when people step on it as well. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't. I thought it was worth a try.

Slurpee,

Thanks for the quick response and excellent info! Did they remove the seat covers and re-install them plus the repairs? All for $25?

I'm not sure I'm catching the "shave half the back cushion in the seat in half..." bit. Are you saying that you had them take half of the thickness out then re-add to the original thickness with the denser foam on top? If so, why not just use denser foam for total thickness? If not, please explain.

Either way, please keep us informed as to how it holds up.

Yes, Yes, and Yes. Because I did want a bit of a soft seat cushion still, but with some density on the bottom half to catch any heavy weight that compresses the top half and mitigate stretching vinyl against the seam. A lot of our seat cushions are built this way if you ever have occasion to watch them being built. Like I said, it's an experiment. Stiffening up the foam through the whole thing would have been more extreme, and probably a bit more effective on preventing seam ripping. My '01 has had some quality issues though so I didn't think it'd be likely to happen again with a good vinyl repair. So I walked a middle path.

$25 was a good deal yeah, but it was a simple square seat cushion. They charged 3x as much to just put a new skin on the rear wrap around seat back. I had already removed the old one. It took them very little time to pop out the staples, seams, and steam it. A little patient sewing, then bam-bam-bam stapled back together. All in all about 30 minutes.