Tuesday, January 31, 2006

American Stitches Steering Wheel

After a very disappointing experience with AGLA leather, I am going to go with http://american-stitches.com/
Very professional on the phone w/ immediate followup. I am hoping this is a good experience.

Many people use wheelskins.com and I think they are a great quality with the advantage of DIY within an hour or so. I just dont like the fact the spokes are not covered. If that's not a big deal, it might be a good solution that doesn't take as much time and costs much less.

American Stitches is sending me a spare steering wheel for $100 (fully refunded w/ return). This requires you to remove your steering wheel and send it to them, thus the need for a core swap. They were adamant about using OEM steering wheels. The risk of sub-standard quality on aftermarket wheel cores meant they only deal with the OEM stuff.
Be wary of cheap aftermarket steering wheels that pass for OEM, they may use a sub standard core.

They will tear down my steering wheel to the core and totally rebuild it, padding and all w/ vat dyed leather of "better than oem" quality. They use Katzkin leather and do not use spray-on dyes.
They also have a 1 yr warranty on materials & work. If you damage it yourself (scratch,rip,stain) they charge a small fee to repair it. I think they said $80 or something.

Full leather is $279
Wood & Leather is $451
shift knob is $79
wood/leather shift knob is $100

I would like the shift knob but they dont have a core replacement at the moment. The company said the problem is Land Cruisers dont die and most are still on the road!
I like leather but my g/f likes the wood/leather so bling it is.

Here are some sample photos they sent me of their work. You can see more on their website as well. I'll update as I go along.


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