Replacement leather for Jetta Wagon

Has anyone found a source for replacement leather seat covers? Not slip-on covers, but real leather like they sell for domestics at places such as seatshop.com. Thx

Good question...it would be an option to recover the cloth seats as well...

Any upholstery shop could redo them. Don't expect it to be cheap, though.

We had the shop we send our interior work to refresh a 2002 Jetta wagon's leather. It had some sun fading at the tops, the door panels were all loose, and the driver seat surfaces were worn, as well as a little on the passenger seat. Car had over 350k miles on it, so it had obviously seen some use.

$3200 later the interior of that car was like new (this included a new headliner, and a carpet shampooing and a couple minor trim pieces replaced). I think the leather they used was a little softer than the original, but they matched the color spot on.

Katzkin is the place to go for that, IMHO.

You will NOT like the price.

I personally do not see the attraction to leather. They are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, creak and squeak when cold, and turn to wrinkly scrotum skin after a few years.

I'd take a good, thick, durable canvas/tweed like cloth any day. It wears better, won't burn your butt cheeks in the summer after the car sits in the sun, yet won't cause your testes to jump up next to your kidneys when you sit down on them after sitting overnight in the cold, and makes the entire interior of the car so much quieter.

I have various cars with all of the above type seat coverings, so I have a reasonably good way to compare.

Some of the really fancy high end cars use better leather that is softer and more supple and probably holds up a little better. But a ~$25k Jetta or Passat is not going to have the same seat surfaces as a $100k S-class.

In the VAG world, of recent vintage, the best seat surfaces they had were oddly enough in the cheapest cars. The cloth/burlap coverings in my stripper 2005 gas Beetle were by far the best, and they still looked and felt like new when I sold the car last year. Even the cloth seats in my 430k+ mile 1991 Jetta look better than the leather seats in my 2004 Passat.

I need to get the stock black cloth covering for the driver's side. It has a small rip in it.

rrgrassi said:

I need to get the stock black cloth covering for the driver's side. It has a small rip in it.

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At 360k or more pull one out of a low mileage gasser at the junkyard. If you can't match exact color just swap all the seats. Who cares if there light grey, dark grey or black. Your butt will thank you for the fresher foam.

Sound great to me!!

rrgrassi said:

I need to get the stock black cloth covering for the driver's side. It has a small rip in it.

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FYI - the front seat bottom cushions are not R/L, the foam and covers can be used on either side. It's much easier to find a barely used passenger bottom cushion & cover.

Ah, very good, like my old W123 MB!

oilhammer said:

I'd take a good, thick, durable canvas/tweed like cloth any day. It wears better, won't burn your butt cheeks in the summer...

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I've looked long and hard for that red/grey striped cloth VW's supplier used on the 1985 GTI seat I have as an office chair. Never have found a replacement.

Best material I ever had on VW seats was the '80 Scirocco S seats my mom restitched in black Sunbrella. You won't find this material used commercially for automotive seat covers, but it was basically what Oilhammer describes above.

As for the original question: the leather covers for the rear seats for my Corrado have been replaced with covers from BestLeatherkits.com. Some day, I'll get around to doing the fronts with the kit. Taking VW seats apart is an adventure. I've done Mk1, Corrado, and MkIV seats now, as well as disassembling a set of Passat fronts to acquire the lumbar mechanisms to add to my MkIV fronts.

I have to agree with oilhammer on all pionts. My one reason for liking leather is being able to clean better. Having dog hair with fabric -the seats will never be the same. And I have 4 kids under age 7. I changed my mind to like leather a little more after the Honda mini van which those are almost impossible to find without leather. I will just have to put up with my rinkeled private parts a little longer.

I am curious on the recovering as I had a seat airbag go off on the pass seat.

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Thanks for the replies. I tried looking online at places like seatshop, katzkin, etc but cannot find anything for the Jetta wagon. I found some decent looking seats at Auto salvage yards about 200 mi away (I'm in South Mississippi) but they are all sedans. I was wondering if the 60/40 rear of sedan would work in a wagon. By the pics, it seems to be the key lock for the fold down is the only difference. I had a DampRid bag that was hanging in the back leak on to the leather and it shriveled it up until it was brittle and cracked. I had ordered some nice inexpensive leather from seatshop for my f150 and they fit great and were fairly easy to replace. They seem to specialize in common domestic models, though.

MrRoy said:

Thanks for the replies. I tried looking online at places like seatshop, katzkin, etc but cannot find anything for the Jetta wagon. I found some decent looking seats at Auto salvage yards about 200 mi away (I'm in South Mississippi) but they are all sedans. I was wondering if the 60/40 rear of sedan would work in a wagon. By the pics, it seems to be the key lock for the fold down is the only difference. I had a DampRid bag that was hanging in the back leak on to the leather and it shriveled it up until it was brittle and cracked. I had ordered some nice inexpensive leather from seatshop for my f150 and they fit great and were fairly easy to replace. They seem to specialize in common domestic models, though.

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I've got a set of seats from a Jetta sedan in my blue Golf and I haven't run into any issues.