Summary:
I finally, after 4 months, have completed my interior. I had it custom done in black with perforated centers and silver piping where they meet, and in the door panels, and added Carbotex seat heaters. Long story short, the guy who did it was an old retired guy who took his jolly time doing it and then did it crappy, then I had another shop redo the door panels and the head rests and then I finished the door panels myself.



More pics here

Long Story:
I find this guy out in west bumble**** who seems to do a nice job with custom interiors (actually recommmended by a friend). He's an old retired guy, and usually works on classic show cars, so he is used to taking his time. I drive out there (almost 45 minute ride) a few times to discuss it with him and pay him a deposit for the materials, etc. etc. 3 weeks later, back in July, he gets the materials and I give him my back seat to start with, he doesn't want to tie up my car for too long (appreciated). He has the back seat for over a week, and he suddenly has to leave town for a family emergency (ok, sorry about the loss). He gives me the seat back, not quite but mostly finished.

Ok. Two weeks pass, he never calls. I call him. He's been back for over a week, was waiting for me to call. Grrr. Ok, fine, let's get this done with. I bring in the car to drop it off for him to finish. Remember, almost 45 minute ride. I get there, he says he's gotta order more leather, he doesn't have enough, keep the car while we wait. I'm getting frustrated. More leather comes 7 business days later. Bring in the car, drop it off on a Tuesday, he says it'll be done Friday. Great!

No call on Friday. I call him late afternoon. Not done yet, call back Monday. Monday: not done, call me tomorrow. Tuesday: not done, call me tomorrow. Wednesday: come get it tomorrow. Thursday: I drive down to get it, there's a problem. The door panels are one whole piece of fiberglass, as every Maxima owner knows. He didn't know what to do about it so he tried several different things, one on each door, all four of them look like absolute ****. One of them is smothered in clear silicone calk. Another looks like he tried to stitch it to the fiberglass. Others are a spray silicone mess. On top of that, the head rests look like a five year-old stitched it! He says he has other customers to take care of, he'll call me another time when he can spend more time on it. What?!?! I'm supposed to drive around with these horrid door panels! I'm a little upset.

At this point, I was so sick of dealing with this old man that I took it to another place in town and asked them to redo the head rests and the door panels. Ok, no problem, they order material to match and we're good to go. They told me no guarantees that the vinyl on the door panels won't peel in the winter as it contracts; ok fine I'll risk it. They have it for a day and a half and I get it back. Head rests look good, except they added the silver piping without asking (the original poorly stitched ones didn't have it)! And the door panels, though they looked better than before, still looked like a five year old did it! The vinyl was cut all rough around the edge and was stuffed into the crack. Oh man am I mad now. We have it out for a bit but unfortunately the boss isn't there that day. I told them to give me some silver piping and I'll take care of it myself; my idea being to cover the edge with the piping.

Ok, later that week I find time to work on the door panels, use some trusty super glue gel (gel so it doesn't run) and glue it right into the lip. Wow, looks great! I'm psyched now, looks like my interior soap opera is almost over. Well, next day, there's super glue stains all over the door panels! Turns out that super glue fumes are heavier than air, and it stained the vinyl. It never ends. Well, luckily I found some super glue remover, and luckily it worked on the stains from the fumes. Finally, it's done.

I don't expect anyone to really read that.

 

well, it looks good now.

how did you wire the heater switches? it looks like you have em in the oem positions, did you have the stock heaters and replace em?

 

Wow, looks great! Minus the old man's fees, how much did the shop charge for everything?

I've been wanting to get a custom leather interior, but a few days ago I got into my car when it was cold, and I was very happy not to have leather. Most summer days make me happy with cloth too.

 

I didn't have the stock heaters. I bought the OEM switches ($35 each) and wired them to the Carbotex heaters. The OEM has 2 12 volt wire outputs; 1 for high, 1 for low. Unfortunatly the Carbotex heaters are carbon fiber, so there is no "low" or "high," just "on" or "off." So I used a couple diodes to wire it so that "low" means just the butt pad is on, and "high" means both the butt and the back are on.

I don't know about the OEM Nissan heaters, but these Carbotex ones heat up a little slower than Acura OEM heaters (my friend has a TL, so that's all I can compare to). But once heated, they are nice and toasty.

I really don't recommend using the Carbotex heaters, because of the layout of the pad and the '02-'03 seats. The Carbotex pad is a solid peice of carbon fiber, which normally you just cut holes in it for the hog rings in the seat cover. However, the Max's seat covers go into the crease of the seat pad all the way across (using velcro). This caused some problems, and it had to be rigged. Point is, if you want to add seat heaters, try another brand, the Carbotex are not a "plug and play" application for the Maxima. I recommend trying to find OEM heaters in a junkyard.

 

It cost way too much. Given the option, I wouldn't do it again. I would just go with the leather kits from leatherseats.com and try and find some Nissan OEM seat heaters in a junkyard.

The reason I went to the old man was cuz he had a good price. But his customer service was crappy. The shop I went to charged $48/hour. If I had them do the whole thing, it would have been like 3 times what the old man charged me.

As far as it being cold, you can see the snow in my windows in the pics! The seat heaters are a must for leather seats in any cold area. They make up for the first few minutes when the leather is cold!

 

Nice Install. I'm thinking of leather also and wanted the 'panels' all covered in perforated leather as you've done.

Interesting about the seat heaters as I was planning on Carbotex also. What did you do just 'stuff' the seat heater into the crease when necessary ?

What brand leather ?


Thanks.

 

Not sure what brand leather was used. The guy who did it has a couple regular suppliers, but only one of them did perforated, so I didn't have much choice.

I talked to the guy at leatherseats.com too, and I was told they could do the perf if I got the premium kit; reason being that the back seat is normally done in vinyl, but you can't perf vinyl cuz it's too weak. With the premium kit, they use leather for most of the back too, and therfore could perf it. That's what they told me anyways. Maybe you could ask them about the premium kit. I recommend going with leatherseats.com because it's a really good price and tons of people on the org have had good experiences with them. Much cheaper than a custom job.

The Carbotex seat heaters I got were from http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/afcarseathea.html but they ended up really coming from Katzkin. They have "high/low" but they really just mean "both pads/just bottom pad." That's because it's CF, either on or off, no in between. I've seen others that aren't CF, but not sure what brand they were. Like I said, I'd try to get the OEM ones from a junkyard for the easiest fit and best operation. Don't try ordering the parts from Nissan, will cost you like $700. The Carbotex were $150 each, so I can't imagine their competitors can be much more.

Most of the wiring is already there. When you take apart the center console, you will see two plastic harnesses there; a white and a blue one. They are color coded to go with the switches. Plug 'em in and switch 'em on and you'll see the orange LED go on in the switch. They are powered and fused from the factory. I couldn't find the other end that would normally plug into the seat heater itself, so I ended up cutting the wires coming out of the switches. The colors for a 2002 are:
Left Low: Grey/Red
Left High: Grey
Right Low: Grey/Black
Right High: Grey/Blue
If you don't have a 2002, you will want to check a service manual to make sure the colors are right. Each wire supplies 12V when the switch is in the appropriate position, so just feed off of that, no need to use a relay to switch the power.

If you get the OEM heaters, then you might wanna hunt around for the stock wires more, just for a cleaner install. I didn't have any luck finding them though.

What color scheme are you thinking of doing, and what color is the interior now? Just curious. Seems like not many people on the org (or anywhere for that matter) care much about the interior, other than keeping it clean.

Sorry I responded so late, haven't had time for the org lately. If you have any more questions, just ask. Good luck with the interior, and post some pics when it's done!

 

I am also curious how much is was. Pm me if you don't wish to tell in the forums. i have had 100's asking how much mine was so its no biggie to me. Matt

 

Okay,
$300 - Seat Heaters (2)
$70 - OEM Switches
$930 - Old Man (most of the interior)
$300 - Shop (head rests and door panels)
$3 - Super Glue remover
----------------------------------------
$1,603 - Total

If the shop did the whole thing, it would have been like $2000 or more just for the seats. The old man was a great deal, considering it was like $600 just for materials! Like I said, given the option to do it again, I would have gone with LeatherSeats.com. But, I don't completely regret it because now I have a truly unique custom interior. Who else has piping around the inserts? I've never seen it anywhere but on the the bolsters. And not too many people have perf, though I see more and more cars are coming with it, like Acura Type-S's.

 

Ouch, that's a lot, especially considering the wait. At least it looks good .

Did you check with www.classicsofttrim.com to see if they have a shop in your area? I've heard they charge about $1000. That's about the same as the leatherseats.com leather plus install charges. There's a debate about which company has better quality leather.

 

thats what I have dealer cost $899 installed

 

Here is what I've found from my leather/seat heater research.

3 locations in my area offer leather installs. Either ClassicSoftTrim or Katzkin ($1000 or $1100). Both sites have never seen perforation done on any sections other than the 'inserts', but tell me they can order what I want. The new M45 has the seat bottom 'panels' all perf'd and the bottom two seat back panels perf'd. The top seat back panel has the embroidery - this is what I want. leathersets.com told me they do not perf vinyl (i.e door panels)- Classic and Katzkin do, and didn't tnink perforating all the seat bottom panels was a good idea (M45, G35, new Z do this) - I guess for wear. From what I understand the door panels shouldn't be leather because of shrinkage.

As far as seat heaters are concerned both sites (and leatherseats.com I think) offer Carbotex seat heaters - $150 or $175 per seat. I've seen web sites that show the round switch and the rectangular switch (that would fit factory Max switch location). Both installation sites only offer the round switch and aren't very interested in trying to obtain the model with the rectangular switch - which is what I want. I think leatherseats.com has the rectangular switch. I'm not sure if the Nissan switch would work correctly (lo/hi, etc) with the Carbotex heater or not.

So unfortunately I can't quite get exactly what I want for now.

 

My seats were done by classic soft trim and are perferated all the way up the seat back and all the way to the front and rolled under. There perferations seem to be less noticable than these seats but I like the look and also like having something different from everyone else just like his seats shown. I have a couple pics on my homepage the light grey is peferated part. Matt

 

Did you check out www.atd1.com they carry leather by CST and Katzkin. They do custom interiors or factory match. Prices and and service are awesome...check'em out.


www.atd1.com