GoMiata Katzkin Leather Replacement Seats Review - Mazda Miata Restoration Project

Our Mazda Miata restoration project continues. One of the items that needed repair in our Miata was the seats. Being a 1991 the seats were starting to show some wear and tear. The leather on our original seats was starting to crack and wear through. The driver side seat was especially showing its use. The side next to the door was getting worn from the driver getting in and out of the bucket seat. We again talked to Kevin McGowen at GoMiata.com. We selected the Katzkin Leather seat replacement covers. Now these are not your good old fashion cheesy seat covers these are true replacements of the skin that cover the upholstery seat foam.

Now this is a tedious replacement. But if the DIYer takes his/hers time you can replace these your self. The results are stunning. There are some needed tools. The first thing you have to do is remove your seat from the Miata. Remember to use a good six point socket for this so you do not damage the bolts. These bolts are tight and have locktite on them to prevent them from coming loose due to the vibrations. Once the seats are removed you are ready to start.

We did ours inside on a table. This allow us to work at a reasonable height. No separate the back from the front of the seat. The seat is constructed with a pin in one side and the spring loaded connectoe on the door side. This allows you to recline the seat if needed. The separation is done by first removing the small screws that secured the pin to the bracket on the inside of the seat. I took out the remaining small screws that hold the plastic trim pieces to the spring assembly. I then removed the plastic pieces from the control spring assembly. Once this is done you must remove the screw doling the reclining assembly to the back and bottom portion of the seat. There are 4 12 MM bolts securing the assembly to the seat. Now the plastic trim around the spring does not come off of the spring assembly but you do not need to remove it anyway. The plastic pieces will simply rotates out of the way for access to the bolts. Once these bolts are removed the back and bottom come apart.

We also purchased the Katzkin installation kit. This kit comes with some tools, hog ring tool, hog rings, adhesive, instruction video. We watched the video. Now the video is not for the Miata itself but is a general video on how to apply seat cover, recovering the different headrests, door panel, etc. This is a good video and instructs you on the removal of the old covers.

We started with the seat bottoms. Turn the seat so the bottom is facing up. Then remove the seat rails from the bottom of the seat. There are 4 10 MM bolts, 2 in each rail. These bolts are tight because locktite was used to prevent these bolts from coming loose. Make sure you use locktite when you put them back together! Once these rails are remove you will see all of the hog rings around the bottom holding the seat cover to the seat foam. This are removed by using a pair of wire cutter (dykes) using a twisting motion or simply cutting them in half. Make sure you remove all the pieces of the hog rings if you cut them. You do not want to have an old sharp ring poking a hole in your new cover. There are a set of the hog rings in the crevice of the seat down the middle. These are removed the same way. Now these hog rings bind the seat cover to a piece of wire in the seat foam. Be careful not to be to rough and that you do not pull the wire out of the foam. You will need to re-attach the new cover to these wires.

Now once these hog rings are all removed you can peel the old cover off the seat. Now you can repeat the procedure on the seat back. Pay close attention to the removal the inside of the seat comes apart. And there are hog rings attaching the cover just below the headrest. I unzipped the top of my old cover and peeled back the cover and removed those hog rings from the top and once remove continued to peel the old cover off from the bottom up. Now you can install the new covers to the seat top and bottom. The Katzkin covers were very nice. The quality of these covers is surprising. They leather is thick in fact the new covers seems thicker and more supple that the original ones. The construction and sewing on the cover were excellent. The cover fit tight, in fact my fingers were sore when I got done. We used the hog ring install on our seats. However, if you search through the Miata user community forums you will see that many replace the hog rings with zip ties. They state that this dramatically reduces the time to install the new covers. We tried this and indeed using the zip ties makes the install easier and faster. If you make a mistake you can simply cut the tie and try again. You choose how you want to install these. To hog ring or not to hog ring that is the question.

GoMiata.com has very nice way to order your new replacement covers. We changed the look on our seats. We had a double color added to our seats. Check out the photos in the image gallery and see the remarkable difference. We choose the gathered look and LOVE these seats and our seats have the speaker in the headrests so the leather here was perforated to allow the sound to pass through the cover.


Below are our seats, Left is the new seat and the right is the old. What a change and we really like the gathered look. With new black carpeting and the 1991 camel colored accents this will add a new look to our project car. Give Kevin at GoMiata.com a call if you have questions or check out their website at Gomiata.com.

GoMiata Katzkin Replacement Seat Covers