Has anyone here ever swapped out the entire interior of their ride ie; to make a colour change? I'd like to change the interior from Monata blue to something as close to white as possible. I guess the closest with the '97 would be the "neutral" or "shale" shade, no? so that's the front seats, rear seats, dashpad, door panels, other plastic trim, carpet, headliner - anyone ever done this and what was the cost, please?
Need Cost Est. for Interior of '97 SDV
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Ouch...
Even if you could get everything from a salvage yard (with a good guys discount for buying the entire interior, assuming you could find a salvage yard car with a complete usable interior) I'd guess you'd be looking at least $2000 to do this - I spent $200 alone on a set of front seats in good condition (not as new) and another $350 to get all the REAL wood trim for my card (to swap out the plastic junk).
Consider also that you will have to replace the A/B/C pilllar trim [upholstered to match], the door weather strips [the inner portion is "flocked" to color match the interior] the steering column and wheel, the entire dash board, the seatbelts, the carpet edge to rocker trim at all four doors, and the carpet in addition to all the other stuff you already mentioned. Plus probably a few dozen other little plastic parts that will pop up when you start tearing into the car.
I would guess you'd be better off to try and find a car with a trashed powertrain or minor rear end damagee (no air bag deployment) but a clean interior and buy it complete. Then you can take the stuff off the parts car at your leisure and leave everything else inside where it will be safe until you need it. Otherwise, you'll have stuff strewn everywhere - the amount of space needed to store all this out of the car would be substantial and if kept in a garage or a basement it's more likely to get messed up before you get it all installed.
And don't even consider going to a dealer to get any of this, you'll choke when you see the price of just one interior door panel - about $1000.00 and that isn't even complete. The window control switch panel (and switches) and some other small stuff are sold as seperate items. I'd bet much of this is not even avalible now, as a 1997 is right at the cutoff where many interior parts start to become unavailable due to dwindling supply from GM.
Overall, your best bet to do this is to find a complete donor car that you can buy for $2500-3500 if it's even worth that much to you to make the swap. Then when you're done with it you could ebay off anything else (lamp housings, door shells, quarter panels, hood, trunk, wheels, etc.) and maybe get back a good chunk of your investment. Plus you could sell off your blue interior in pieces and likely get the rest back.
The downside? It is an awful lot of work and time to sell off that much stuff piecemeal (you'll be boxing and shipping stuff for months) and it will get tedious.
Oh and one more thing, Don't do a partial swap and have the remaining blue parts "re-dyed", this will look okay for about a month and then the blue will start showing through where the new finish gets scratched/chipped/worn, and it'll look like hell.
Good luck,
KDirk
Even if you could get everything from a salvage yard (with a good guys discount for buying the entire interior, assuming you could find a salvage yard car with a complete usable interior) I'd guess you'd be looking at least $2000 to do this - I spent $200 alone on a set of front seats in good condition (not as new) and another $350 to get all the REAL wood trim for my card (to swap out the plastic junk).
Consider also that you will have to replace the A/B/C pilllar trim [upholstered to match], the door weather strips [the inner portion is "flocked" to color match the interior] the steering column and wheel, the entire dash board, the seatbelts, the carpet edge to rocker trim at all four doors, and the carpet in addition to all the other stuff you already mentioned. Plus probably a few dozen other little plastic parts that will pop up when you start tearing into the car.
I would guess you'd be better off to try and find a car with a trashed powertrain or minor rear end damagee (no air bag deployment) but a clean interior and buy it complete. Then you can take the stuff off the parts car at your leisure and leave everything else inside where it will be safe until you need it. Otherwise, you'll have stuff strewn everywhere - the amount of space needed to store all this out of the car would be substantial and if kept in a garage or a basement it's more likely to get messed up before you get it all installed.
And don't even consider going to a dealer to get any of this, you'll choke when you see the price of just one interior door panel - about $1000.00 and that isn't even complete. The window control switch panel (and switches) and some other small stuff are sold as seperate items. I'd bet much of this is not even avalible now, as a 1997 is right at the cutoff where many interior parts start to become unavailable due to dwindling supply from GM.
Overall, your best bet to do this is to find a complete donor car that you can buy for $2500-3500 if it's even worth that much to you to make the swap. Then when you're done with it you could ebay off anything else (lamp housings, door shells, quarter panels, hood, trunk, wheels, etc.) and maybe get back a good chunk of your investment. Plus you could sell off your blue interior in pieces and likely get the rest back.
The downside? It is an awful lot of work and time to sell off that much stuff piecemeal (you'll be boxing and shipping stuff for months) and it will get tedious.
Oh and one more thing, Don't do a partial swap and have the remaining blue parts "re-dyed", this will look okay for about a month and then the blue will start showing through where the new finish gets scratched/chipped/worn, and it'll look like hell.
Good luck,
KDirk
Joined
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2,753 Posts
Can't you just take it ot an upholsterer and ask em for a quote?
I'm sure its very depenedent on the materials you choose and areas you want done......some shops do some quality stuff.
My coworker recently had his seats re-cushioned.....it was too stiff for him (05 mazda 6)....he just took it to a reputable interior guy
btw there's someone on here who did his whole interior redone in gator or snake or something.....do a search using the forum search button there for aligator interior or something. Its one of the most viewed i believe (here it is http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21228 )
I'm sure its very depenedent on the materials you choose and areas you want done......some shops do some quality stuff.
My coworker recently had his seats re-cushioned.....it was too stiff for him (05 mazda 6)....he just took it to a reputable interior guy
btw there's someone on here who did his whole interior redone in gator or snake or something.....do a search using the forum search button there for aligator interior or something. Its one of the most viewed i believe (here it is http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21228 )
thanks for the link, Powerglide. Hell Allmighty, that croc stuff is expensive, but it should last a few lifetimes, as far as wear and tear is concerned. I'll take your advice and hit up a coupla of upholstery shops, although most of the ones around here are so bush-league, I wouldn't trust them to do my car.
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