Hey everyone I might be picking up an 02/03 maxima in a couple of days & it has regular fabric material & i want to swap it out for leather interior, anyone ever tried doing this? I'd really appreciate the help, thanks in advance

 

Its been done. You change the seats and the door panels. If you stick with parts from a 02/03 its just sweat labor.

 

Another option is find a good interior shop in your area, and have new leather skins installed on the seats. This way, they will be new and fresh, and not old, worn, dried out and cracked used ones. Finding used leather seats with our aging cars would be a challenge to find. I'm not sure what the cost would be, but it wouldn't hurt to do some homework and get a ballpark estimate.

 

thanks i wish there was a write up on this

 

true that makes sense, i wanted to do it by myself because i want it to be my project, maybe they would just sell me the parts

 

this is very easy to do trust me. if i remember its 4 bolts holding down the driver chair and same for the passenger side. look at the bottom sides of the chair and youll see what im talking about. you might have to remove the covers hiding the bolts. as for the doors simple also. try youtube i think their a video on their that will help you.

 

I hope its as easy as it sounds...thanks a lot

 

All seats should be able to install in like an hour! I did it in a parking lot in ct haha.

 

If you're going with a 02/03 it'll be a direct swap.

I'd recommend though, if you're able and willing, upgrading to the Infiniti seats. They're the same bolt pattern IIRC you'd just have to wire them in.

They're a much higher quality seat, the Maxima seats inthe 5th gen are garbage compared to them. Or even compared to the older 4th gen seats.

 

as long as you get direct replacement parts, its really easy, search here and on youtube if youre not sure, but it really easy easy...
GL

 

I don't know if it would be direct plug in since the leather seats have seat warmers and the cloth ones do not.

 

I think that's separate wiring, everything else should pretty much be the same...I think...

 

lol ill try the walmart in maplewood nj

 

ill check them out, are they heated? & if they are do i have to install the button & change the whole heat/cold unit?

 

thanks a lot

 

what about the infinite seats?

 

My i35 seats bolted up just fine as well as wiring.
You should probably get evo seats though based on your username

 

Yeah but I'm pretty sure all the leather seats in the Maxi or Infiniti are heated. Don't quote me on that. Really, its just your choice if you want to retrofit them in. any 2 way switch would work unless you want a HIGH/LOW setting and OEM look.

No, the HVAC system has nothing to do with your seats

 

I got i35 and my seats are not heated. You can find heated seats and install switch (of course it would be complicated job, but you could find wiring in service manual). If you want to just change out the material on the seats, it will be pain in the a^^. You will have to take a seat apart to remove each material. I took my bottom part of seat out to get it fixed and it did take some time. By the way, I was told at upholstery that my leather is going bad (2002 i35), so they will put new leather on my bottom part of seat.

So I wouldn't recommend you looking for a leather seats from 2002 car. Its been 10 years and I doubt you'll find good quality seats.

 

Thanks..i have a church brother who does upholstery, he recently made my grandfather's chair leather & it was fabric before & he did a dmn good job, maybe i'll see how much he could do my seats for

 

LOL i was waiting for someone to say that! But i want the maxima too be as luxury as possible...even though i'll be doing a lot of engine mods

 

I'll check that out than, thanks to you & everyone!

 

I've actually got a full leather interior from a 5.5 gen sitting in storage that was going to get rid of sometime in the Spring. It's frost (grey) and heated. It even has the console with the heated switches. Everything but the dash and carpet. I'll have to remember to post that in the classifieds soon.

The interiors should be directly replaceable. From the factory they should have the mounting hole for the seats, etc. The wiring for other accessories not found in a cloth car, i.e. heated or powered seats would be your only issue.

 

There was a guy in Ottawa, Canada with a full 5.5 black set too but shipping would be dumb unless you know a trucker that will grab it for you.

 

or you can get crazy like i did and custom fit 6th gen leather in your car.....only a few people have done it...its worth it the seats are way more comfy then 5th/5.5 gen seats... plus the back seats have separate head rests that you can raise and lower.... and the leather is perforated!! it took me a total of 8 hours for the swap! but i when i look at it, its clear why it was worth the time and effort

 

^dedication...my 00 has an 03 full interior swap. I did it with an org member and it wasnt hard at all. The wiring was another story but then again I'm not exactly intelligent in the automobile field. Goodluck!

 

yeah i'll be going with this, just gotta find the interior that will match my soon t o come max

 

I have a 02 SE with all cloth inside. Found a 02 SE in the junk yard with leather so I grabbed all of it. The passanger side seat plugged and play. However the wring harness from the car doesn't match up to the seat. How can I fix this?

 

Daniel - Stop bumping seriously old threads. Post in the I Am New Here But Have A Question thread...that's what it is there for.

 

Well......at least he's using the search function.

Daniel, you were close but didn't search enough. And you should probably go back and get the harness that runs from seat to center console and if they have memory get the door panels too.

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...ap-heated.html

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...xima-help.html

I did the exact same thing a few years ago so feel free to PM me if you have questions.