Date:         Fri, 14 Jun 1996 03:01:51 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         BusBoys@aol.com
Subject:      Re: upholstery question

Sean writes:
>Problem:  all the stores only carry the upholstery as
>a set, for both front seats, costing around $100.  Well, dammit, I don't
want
>the whole freakin' set, I just want one damn driver's side seat cover.  Why
>must
>they sell it as a whole set?????

There are a couple of reasons for this - 1)Economics - To manufacture, stock
and sell front seat cover inventories in just single seats is cost
PROHIBITIVE - the price for them would be about 35% higher than buying them
in sets (or pairs) - 2) All seat covers come in all kinds of colors, but
let's just say ya want brown (and hope the brown you get is REAL close to the
one in the passenger seat and that the pattern is close enough too).  Vinyl,
Velour (and Carpet for that matter,) have color names but in each production
run of a color name, the color dye is NOT exactly the same as the previous
run.  It will be close, but NOT exact.  Most people want their seats to
match, so this is why seat cover manufacturers (such as TMI, Sewfine, etc.,)
do all of their production runs from a single supply of material from a
certain dye lot, making sure that the covers, carpets, etc., all match as
close as possible.  When that dye lot is exhausted, they schedule another
production run.  Again it relates to economics (see #1 above) and pleasing
the majority of customers who do not want mis-matched seats, floor mats and
carpets.  I've learned from experience from ordering complete seat cover sets
(front/middle/rear) to indicate that I want them from the same color dye lot
to prevent slight color mis-matching.  How would you like to buy a set of
front seat covers and the driver's and passenger's color was just slightly
off?  I'd bet ya be venting about that too, right?

But I do wish you good luck in finding someone who just may have a "broken"
set of hog-ring seat covers, but it may be slim at best.  BTW, the covers are
the same 77-79.

Jim / BusBoys@aol.com