Car enthusiasts often decorate their cars not only on the outside, but also on the inside. Not all cars, even expensive ones, have a comfortable and beautiful interior. Besides, it is impossible to please everyone. That is why people often resort to interior upholstery services or do it themselves. Regardless of who does the work, re-decoration has one significant advantage: you can choose a material and color scheme that are ideal for a person’s character and meet all their needs. For high-quality work, it is recommended to carefully select fabrics and seek help from specialists in the field.
Selection of finishes: types
When choosing a trim, you should rely not only on your preferences and compatibility with the color of the car, but also on the budget allocated for this. The most suitable fabric for interior decoration is suede. This is a fairly expensive material that not everyone can afford. That is why you should also pay attention to other types of upholstery: velveteen, genuine leather and its substitutes, velor.
It is advisable to choose natural materials of good quality, as the durability of the upholstery and its appearance will depend on this. Of course, natural fabrics are always more expensive than synthetic ones, but they last a long time with proper maintenance. Below we will consider the most popular types of materials used for finishing the car interior. Among them:
- leather. The material has significantly more advantages than disadvantages. Leather interiors last a long time, look presentable and, most importantly, are completely natural;
- leather substitute. A budget option that, if you choose the right color scheme, looks no worse than real leather. Its special feature is that you can combine many different colors when creating the interior of the salon;
- Alcantara or artificial suede. Another material that is quite popular among motorists. It has good elasticity and wear resistance, which allows it to please the eye of the driver and his passengers for many years.
Alcantara interior upholstery
Not only manufacturers of business class cars try to do everything to create an expensive and high-quality interior. Ordinary car enthusiasts are also often eager to cover the unremarkable interior of the car with attractive and wear-resistant materials.
Artificial suede (Alcantara) is often chosen for re-upholstery. This material is highly reliable and safe for small children. In addition, it does not require special attention. As for the appearance of this synthetic fabric, Alcantara is aesthetically pleasing and is practically no different from real suede.
This fabric can be used to decorate any interior elements: ceiling, seats, doors, sun visors and even the steering wheel with the dashboard. All thanks to its wear resistance and unpretentiousness to conditions.
There are many reasons why motorists prefer Alcantara. The most significant of them are:
- even with long-term use, the color pigment of this fabric does not tend to fade or peel;
- thanks to the thin non-woven fibers, the fabric is lightweight and allows the interior elements to “breathe”;
- due to the high density, a soundproofing layer is created, thanks to which the music in the cabin sounds better, and street sounds are almost inaudible;
- soft and homogeneous material does not promote liquid absorption, and is not subject to shrinkage or stretching. This property is especially useful when sewing car seats;
Picture 8 Fabric that does not absorb water
- Alcantara is easy to maintain. The material can be cleaned with a regular dish sponge or a special cloth. There is no need to use strong cleaning agents.
Cost of re-upholstering individual interior elements
When re-upholstering a car interior, you can use not only a comprehensive service for a complete redesign, but also order the upholstery of individual elements. The latter option allows you to significantly save your budget and replace only those materials that require repair the most due to premature wear. These include: steering wheel, seats, door inserts.
The following elements of the vehicle interior are updated separately:
- steering wheel;
- racks;
- torpedoes;
- plastic parts of the car interior;
- canopies;
- upper part of the cabin;
- seats (front and rear);
- gearbox
Important! The cost of the interior upholstery service is often individual. It may depend on the make and cost of the car. Therefore, the more expensive and larger the car, the higher the price for upholstery. The complexity of the work also affects the cost. Specialists will be able to name the full amount only after they have fully inspected the car, its individual elements, and prepared an estimate.
The approximate price of a comprehensive replacement of a sedan's upholstery is about 35-40 thousand rubles. At this cost, inexpensive and not the highest quality materials with average wear resistance and reliability are most often used in the work. Among them are vinyl or leather substitute. In the case of using genuine leather, the cost of the service can reach 70-110 thousand rubles.
Important! The final cost of services depends not only on the selected material, but also on the brand of the car, its dimensions and the complexity of the work. A small expensive car can sometimes require a larger amount than a budget SUV.
If the budget is limited, as already written above, you can use a service that allows you to sew only some details for the interior using inexpensive materials such as vinyl or leatherette.
The approximate price for re-upholstering large interior parts will be from 15,000 to 17,000 rubles, re-upholstering the steering wheel will cost around 4,000–5,000 rubles, and the sun visors will cost 1,000–2,000 rubles, but all this is individual and is calculated based on the material and complexity of the work.
What you need to start a business
Experts in the field claim that among all the services for tuning and decorating cars, interior upholstery is the most popular. This is due to the fact that a person sees the car from the inside much more often.
When opening your own upholstery and interior design business, you must adhere to certain rules:
- Before you start opening a business, you should prepare a business plan that includes a clear sequence of actions and investment amounts;
- choose a suitable and empty space with a minimum area of about thirty-five square meters. It is advisable to enter into an agreement with a security company to ensure safety;
- purchase all the necessary sewing equipment. Its quality will directly affect the appearance of the trim parts, and the available functionality will expand the range of services provided;
- establish supplies of materials with factories and plants that will provide high-quality canvases in the required quantity at wholesale prices;
- create a convenient and colorful catalog that will describe the list of services provided, prices and examples of work;
- hire professional employees who love their work and can do it well.
A lot depends on the professionalism of the employees. Inexperienced specialists, for example, can sew airbags directly into the material, which is unsafe for the driver. This is especially true for leather, which has a very strong structure and does not allow the airbag to shoot out in an accident.
Thus, tailoring the car interior allows not only to update its appearance, but also to change its geometry. This is achieved with the help of various inserts made of wood, plastic or metal. If desired, the driver can ask to install an additional instrument panel and sensors, if this is within the competence of the workers. In order for the interior to last as long as possible and not deteriorate with minor damage, it is necessary to contact only the studio, where experienced specialists work, who have proven their title with many years of practical examples.
